Video Game Prices Are STILL Stupid

15 July 2026

I'm sitting here in one of the worst heat waves I've been a part of, my lungs filled with smoke from wildfires, and I have been trying to finish this silly blog post for the internet. You would think I would have more important things to worry about, and I do, but there is something about my favorite thing in the world getting so fucked over that angers me beyond most things right now.

Just want to start off by giving Rockstar a nice and hefty golf clap! You guys sure showed me! I didn't think any company would have the balls to be the first to do it after Nintendo and Mario Kart World, but you are so brave, so beautiful, for making your next game GTA6 what I feared would happen. 80 whole dollars to start with, but if you want everything included in the base game, 100 dollars! Oh but don't fret, you don't even get a fucking copy of the game! Just a code in a box! Which is just a license that you can take away from the purchaser whenever you see fit. Bravo! Encore!

Part of me also wants to sit here and blame gamers. I don't know what is with us as a whole, but people will bend over fucking backwards to justify buying games at these stupid high prices. Just look at how well Mario Kart World sold and tell me we didn't bring this on ourselves. I swear, I'm alone in this fight against what is happening to this industry.

What I fear is going to happen next is people will still figure out a way to say "Well GTA6 looks so pretty, it has to be worth that much money, and I want to support devs!" and then it sells gangbusters and the whole industry follows right after them. You will have two games sold at these outrageous prices that did fairly well, might as well make Plants Vs Zombies The Reboot The Remaster 80 bucks too.

Also, to the people who are out there saying things like "video games used to cost that much to buy!", hi, I see you. Yes, video games used to cost that much. But you know what we did? We figured out that certain media types were cheaper to produce, held more storage, and video games went way down in price. Then after a few years, oops games are 50 smackers now, ohohoho, guess what, 60 cold ones please. Oh, how about 70? Think we could get away with 70? All the while during that they found ways to strip games of thier parts and sell them back to you as DLC when the games launched. Do you remember online passes? You either bought a game new or had to pay a 10 dollar fee to play online. Oh not to mention monthly subs for online services to even play your games online! Thanks for that one Microsoft!

It was years and years of slowly adding more fees, more ways to chop games up to make you pay more, more ways of taking features away to get you to pay a sub to get them back. But now all of a sudden after everything they shoved down our throats to make the most money they could from all of us, it's still not good enough. They need more money. I don't know about you, but I'm not an infinite money machine. And they know that.

Companies like Rockstar see me as someone who they can afford to lose. See if they raise prices, only the richer people will buy the games eventually, and that can sustain them. They want, for some stupid fucking reason, video games to become a top end premium product. Companies used to sell consoles at a loss so that way they could get in more homes and make that money back on software sales. Not anymore! Don't have a job that pays you a wage that you can afford groceries and some cool video games? Die!

The fault in that logic however is this: how many people in this current world do you think can fit that criteria. It's a small percentage. We are all hurting in so many different ways financially right now. Not to mention, prices for everything needed for basic living going up and not stopping. This is going to hurt them eventually. They will not be making record profits. And they will come crawling back to us going "uwu sowwy pwease buy a Playstation 5 for more money than when it came out pweeease."

And don't think I forgot about you, Mr. Sony, recently announcing you are ceasing all physical media and making ownership of the games you overpaid for harder. Fuck you. So you mean to tell me that in 2028 when you go all digital, the games will be cheaper then right? Cause you don't have to spend about 3 bucks to make a disc anymore. So all your video games will be under 60 dollars again right? No?? Curious how that works. Going all digital only benefits you with making more money. You control the storefront, you control what cut of the money you get, but I bet you anything you won't lower a goddamn price. Probably raise the prices again right? Yeah probably.

Sure, PC is an all digital thing anymore. But at least I can transfer my games with somewhat ease between pcs. My old games from years and years ago can still work, sure you gotta play around with things a bit, but hey I have that option. Can't do that on consoles easily. Can't pop in my PS1 disc on my PS4 and get it to work, even when you have an emulator that can run it on the console. Steam also lets me get refunds really damn easy when a game doesn't work right. Consoles? Aha returns? I remember one time I returned a WWE game digitally on PS3, cause it kept crashing, and Sony told me it was a one time good faith thing cause I was such a good little boy customer and bought so much from them. Years later, I was having another issue with a game, no refund, it's against policy to offer me one. Best they could do was give me a 5 dollar gift card. Gee so nice of them.

To end this rant on my cool blog, thanks for reading by the way, is when do you think it's going to just all come crumbling down and not in a good way. If things crash and burn because nobody can afford to buy a video game, companies are going to die. We are already seeing mass layoffs at least once a month. Studios are being closed. All for the sake of keeping the profits up. This is not sustainable. Everything right now in video games is on some sort of life support, and it's only a matter of time until the worst happens. I don't want that to happen. I want a healthy industry. But it seems like the biggest companies in charge don't.

I only see prices getting worse. I see them trying to push $100 base game prices in a couple years. I can only see the worst ideas coming from the big companies. And they will sit there and think people will still buy up the slop because well, right now, they do. All I can hope for is people stop getting tricked into buying the slop.

This has been the Angry Video Game Mike. I remember it so you don't have to cowabunga shit or something.