For many years now the cost of video games has been bothering me. I’ll admit. I’ve only been playing videos games since the NES days right up to the PlayStation 2, after that I pretty much switched off. So I missed about 3 generations of consoles. But during my active days you brought a game and everything was included and you simple had to play the game long enough to unlock additional content, for free! I’ve been reading and watching the disastrous launch of Gran Turismo 7 and the constant nonstop backlash it’s receiving for its micro transaction system.

At the moment I’m a solo game developer and I will likely need hire people from other areas such as art and music to help me in developing my title. I can’t hand on heart ask my potential future players to cough up £70 for the base game and then additional money for DLC, micro transactions, in app purchases or whatever you want to call it. I feel it’s plan wrong. And don’t get me started on NFTs like what Konami and others have done!

My question is this. How comes other forms of entertainment like buying the latest blockbuster movie is many times cheaper and would cost roughly the same or even more to make. How do these developers justify asking for so much money, including asking players for more money even after the game has been sold (e.g. for minor extra content like a different re-skin)?

Update
Do you think these kind of business practices could end up permanently harming the gaming industry?

Also, as I’m a sole game developer. I have to think about every single aspect of my titles development not just the coding side of things, but also the time and money from my personal savings I see myself having to pump into my project. I have come across others with the same concerns. So I thinks it’s a very valid question as people like me are not paid by the hour and we don’t have the luxury of focusing entirely on the code/tech side of game dev and so I have to worry about my future players/customers (if any) views and concerns they have due to being treated like a cash cow.