Comment by wavemode

> Ultimately, I don't know who or what is the culprit of all this. The market demands cheap software. Games used to cost up to $120 in the 90s, which is $250 today. A common price point for good quality games was $80, which is $170 today. But the gamers absolutely decry any game price increases beyond $60. So the industry has no option but to look at every cost saving, including passing the cost onto the buyer through hardware upgrades.

Producing games doesn't cost anything on a per-unit basis. That's not at all the reason for low quality.

Games could cost $1000 per copy and big game studios (who have investors to worry about) would still release buggy slow games, because they are still going to be under pressure to get the game done by Christmas.