For video games it's about spending less time rendering walls that the player character will never access.
The problem here is, while you aren't wrong, is that games mostly aren't priced based on the effort/quality or even the product as a whole. The majority of major industry games will be full priced (60/70/80) no matter fucking what, from cheap anime license shit to top prized IPs and everything in between. Even the Indie market has roughly the same problem with the 10-15$ and 20-30$ price point.
This is because its the "norm" and they are simply pricing with the trend to maximize, regardless of what they put in investment or time wise nor what you can expect to get out of it. They want to get paid, sometimes deservedly so, and the product is sold to reflect that mindset first and the consumer second.
If AAA companies slashed their budgets by like 50%, they still wouldn't lower the price they are trying to sell for even if they realistically should. Instead they are caught up in a war similar to the old one where Sony saw Microsoft charged for online play and decided they could too and added a sub for no additional gain, followed by Nintendo in the next generation doing the same (albeit a lot cheaper, 20$ a year instead of like 12$ a month for the other two).
So they are all watching each other, waiting for the first guy to pull the trigger and take all the heat, then they will all try to slip in once the controversy becomes normalized. Its all about what they can get away with, the actual product and its investment is secondary to determining what they will sell for.
The problem here is, while you aren't wrong, is that games mostly aren't priced based on the effort/quality or even the product as a whole. The majority of major industry games will be full priced (60/70/80) no matter fucking what, from cheap anime license shit to top prized IPs and everything in between. Even the Indie market has roughly the same problem with the 10-15$ and 20-30$ price point.
This is because its the "norm" and they are simply pricing with the trend to maximize, regardless of what they put in investment or time wise nor what you can expect to get out of it. They want to get paid, sometimes deservedly so, and the product is sold to reflect that mindset first and the consumer second.
If AAA companies slashed their budgets by like 50%, they still wouldn't lower the price they are trying to sell for even if they realistically should. Instead they are caught up in a war similar to the old one where Sony saw Microsoft charged for online play and decided they could too and added a sub for no additional gain, followed by Nintendo in the next generation doing the same (albeit a lot cheaper, 20$ a year instead of like 12$ a month for the other two).
So they are all watching each other, waiting for the first guy to pull the trigger and take all the heat, then they will all try to slip in once the controversy becomes normalized. Its all about what they can get away with, the actual product and its investment is secondary to determining what they will sell for.