This argument gets trotted out every time, and it's not only old, it's clearly wrong. Why is it wrong? Because AAA games are absurdly profitable, even before m

This argument gets trotted out every time, and it's not only old, it's clearly wrong. Why is it wrong? Because AAA games are absurdly profitable, even before microtransactions are brought into play. AAA publishers and studios are making billions, with a 'B', of dollars of profit. That's not the sign of a struggling market that's weighed down by inflation and rising costs of production. That's a sign of an exceptionally healthy industry. Remember, cost only sets the floor of a product's price. And with a near zero duplication cost, those up-front investments are quickly paid back with no practical upper limit to the sales potential. For example, CDPR's Cyberpunk 2077 cost around $316M (including marketing). It presold, as reported on wikipedia, 8m copies. That means they made their investment back before the game had even released, plus a minimum of $20 profit per each of those 8m pre-orders (remember, $60 is the lowest price paid in a pre-order). And every post-launch sale is pretty much pure profit, thanks to that nearly-free cost of making copies. Now then, CP2077 had issues which probably ate into the company's profits post-launch... but that initial investment, the one you've pointed out? Paid for the day the game released.