You do realize the production costs are much higher now regardless of less discs being produced, right? And it's mostly only indie games that can go completely without physical disc copies. If you look up the most expensive games ever made they're all recently produced games.
"Say you’re
a massive publisher that’s trying to compete with the
Red Dead Redemptions and
Destinys of the world. You’re making a military shooter, of course. In order to hit the graphical fidelity that your fans expect, you need a staff of at least 400, and you need to give them three years (36 months). 400 * 36 * 10,000 =
$144,000,000. And that’s before the inevitable delay, not to mention the marketing. Those CGI commercials aren’t gonna pay for themselves."
Video game publishers are notoriously secretive about the budgets behind their games, but when a number does slip out, it can be shocking. Games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, which is tough to fathom—until you do the math.
kotaku.com
GTA and CoD sell millions upon millions of copies at launch— and, in the case of GTA at least, long after that. They make that money back in a month, or two tops. The rest is gravy.
Let’s also not forget that, even with physical copies, costs have been pared back. Instruction manuals are no longer a thing, so at least the cost of printing has gone down. Publishers have also cut way back on physical/tangible extras that we saw in the past; preorders and many special editions have gone with digital/worthless goods instead of tangible items, while only the super-expensive Collector’s Editions in many cases have physical stuff (outside of steelbook cases).
Not that there isn’t a cost of doing business that must be recouped, but it’s often overlooked that there are far more potential consumers now to sell games to— which means far more revenue up front, before actions to make up potential shortfalls are needed. This is why the industry has become risk-averse; it cannot afford to take chances and weather potential flops when tens of millions have dollars are being sunk into these titles.
Microtransactions are unnecessary revenue overkill when you consider all of the avenues of potential revenue that already exist.
$60 USD per unit launches.
$80/$100 USD per unit special editions.
$150+ Collector’s Editions.
Game-extending DLC/Season Passes.
Product endorsement deals.
If your business is still losing money despite these avenues, then you’re doing it wrong. Dial back those budgets and stay within your means. You don’t have to spend $150 million per game. You choose to, and do so at the peril of fleecing and fucking with the customer base when begging for money.
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