Quote Originally Posted by Dzian View Post
The industry as a whole is bigger than ever and spends more on games than ever before. And that looks good from a business perspective. But on a consumer level consumers are spending less because the quality of products has dropped significantly. People are maybe only buying 2 or 3 games a year where they used to buy 1 a month or something because so much of what gets released these days is mediocre junk. Even AAA titles which is why so many end up flopping and underperforming.
The problem is severe lack of utilitarianism. A entertainment product is suppose to entertain. To make the entertainment product more profitable, they cut costs by cutting down entertainment and even strip out the entertainment to monetize many of the pieces until the product is no longer entertaining for the money it cost. The result is a entertainment product that does not entertain for it's target demographic, resulting in a massive waste of resources.

Of course in our Capitalist society, the businessmen will always strive to make their business more profitable, even if defeats their own function or service to society, like an insurance company that doesn't make payouts to legitimate claims does defeating the purpose of insurance. The result is pure waste. Part of the cause is that video game companies and their budgets became too big so they needed to hire expert businessmen who unfortunately, fundamentally did not understand their own products.

This is a rare example of a business choosing not to increase profits:
"When Costco president W. Craig Jelinek once complained to Costco co-founder and former CEO Jim Sinegal that their monolithic warehouse business was losing money on their famously cheap $1.50 hot dog and soda package, Sinegal listened, nodded, and then did his best to make his take on the situation perfectly clear.

"If you raise [the price of] the effing hot dog, I will kill you," Sinegal said. "Figure it out."

Taking his words to heart, Jelinek—who became Sinegal's successor in 2012—has never raised the price on Costco's hot dog. Incredibly, it has sold for the same $1.50 since the retail club first introduced the dogs to customers in 1984. The quarter-pound, all-beef tube and 20-ounce soda combo appears to be inflation-proof and immune to the whims of food distributors. How does Costco do it?

Simple. When it comes to hot dogs, Costco doesn't price according to what the market will bear. They price according to their own cost and according to the value the hot dogs can afford them.

According to Jelinek, people would pay $1.75, and maybe more, for the deal. But is that extra 25 cents going to be more valuable than the goodwill and foot traffic generated by a combo that's stuck to its price point for nearly 35 years? Probably not. Customers coming in to shop at Costco are amused, satisfied, and fueled by the hot dog meal. If they get it just before leaving the store, they're left with a lasting impression of being treated well. That's worth more than keeping up with inflation." -
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/...a-combo-enigma

Most businessmen don't think this far ahead. In fact, how would you get promoted by suggesting you keep prices as they are and don't increase profits? Most of the time it isn't understood that quite often the drive to increase profits results in irreparable damage to the company.