It’s not unfair given how game prices haven’t even attempted to increase with inflation.
I rarely pay $60 but when I do it’s for a must-have. The extra $10 won’t stop me in those cases.
Sometimes, we get idiots like this, supporting these garbage corporate practices.
Listen here buddy. Your inflation doesnt account the profit they are making from digital.
Here’s how the numbers look for a publisher at retail:
MSRP - $60
Retailer discount - $25 to $30
Physical cost of goods - $3 to $5
Cost of shipping and distribution - $1 to $2
Marketing - $3 to $5
Developer royalty (if external) - $3 to $10
When it’s all said and done, the publisher ends up with somewhere between $8 and $25 from each retail unit sold at full price.
Of course, the publisher takes all of the inventory risk. If they think they can sell 1M units of their new game to retailers, they have to spend $3M to $5M building those games and then another $1M to $2M shipping them. If the games don’t sell, they’re going to end up eating nearly all of that cost. You can imagine how quickly their profits will disappear if they overestimate sales and build too many copies. Conversely, if they build too few and retailers run out, then they’ll lose sales because buyers will often just pick up something else if the game they were looking for isn’t available.
Digital sales of a $60 title look quite different:
Digital price - $60
Digital distributor share - $18
Marketing - $3 to $5
Developer royalty (if external) - $4 to $12
This leaves the publisher with between $25 and $35, which is why digital sales are so attractive to publishers. And there’s no inventory risk. The cost of making the game available for sale is exactly zero. Note that the developer royalty will be higher because the distributor share is smaller, which leaves more for both publisher and developer.
Digital nets them more money. Since they dont have to pay for physical cost of goods and cost of shipping.