Video games are not too expensive to make

This has been known for a rather long time, greed is the main factor in a lot of cases. The games industry is now merely better reflecting how brutal other areas of business are in relation to the shameless pursuit of profit. For example, just this week in the UK the retailer Marks and Spencers had an absolutely tragic 5.3% fall in profits, meaning they'd only make £219.1 million for the year. One wonders how their shareholders could possibly feed themselves now after such a tragic fall in the amount of cash they'll pocket. The company response was to slow down expansion plans, and try to cut some current jobs. All that from a company that is MAKING MONEY.

Of course, they don't tell us where the "line" is for what constitutes as "enough" profit. (I'd suspect their isn't one!) The attitude is now; you make money and the only better thing than that, is to make more money than that going forward. A drop at any point makes you look like the village idiot. In terms of a business culture, we've made many concepts "dirty"; house prices need to keep climbing or the market is viewed as a bust, we've got to keep selling more than last year or we're viewed as a bust, the national economy has got to keep growing year on year or we're a bust, etc and so on.

The games industry is just late to the party with all of this, and now we're getting the "benefits" of that.