I firmly believe that if games were say $80 (just an arbitrary price), developers would take more risks and express themselves more freely. Ultimately leading to better games. The medium would greatly improve, potentially passing PS2 / SNES levels and entering a new golden age. There would be less of a financial threat as less units would need to be sold for a game to be a success. A lot of issues that plague modern games such as day one dlc, microtransactions, multi year season passes, base game lacking content, and lack of originality stem from games being more expensive to create than ever before. Unlike previous generations there hasn't been a price increase to absorb those costs. NES / SNES / N64 games were priced based on availability, import costs, and manufacturing costs, PSX games started off at $30 and went to $40 with some going as high as $50, PS2 gen games were officially $50, 360 gen games got a $10 bump + online passes + DLC. As a result, the f2p / p2w multiplayer model was born alongside everything listed above. Relatively speaking, video games are cheap compared to audio books and movies. Blu-ray movies are $35-$40 new and audio books vary depending on length, but fantasy novels can be over $100. Not to mention, the cost of going to the movies has gone up with the times. I think it's time for games to do the same.