@Vidmastereon @Kyonko802 that's kind of the point, games are relatively cheap now because they cost less than they did back then despite taking way more money and time to make. The problem is with the perceived quality of the game. Paying big money for a game in the 80s and 90s felt like a better deal than it feels like it is now, and that's precisely why indie games with high replayability and low cost are so popular. Not to mention that with a AAA game you'll have shit like MTX and bugs and performance issues that could be solved just by removing DRM, whereas on the other hand you have indie games that either come out and are awesome, full fledged games, or they are constantly being worked on with new content added all the time to really stretch that dollar amount you paid for it (which is also why free games are super popular and end up making a lot of money, because if you buy a few things in the game it's a pretty damn low price relative to a shitty $70 game).

You also had the ability to rent games back then which is how a lot of people experienced them. It doesn't exactly exist today but the spirit does live on through something like Game Pass. You unfortunately can't get every single game that way but there is still a good amount there and $10/month is honestly a pretty good deal when you consider a game rental for a week would have been I think like $7 or so back then, iirc.