What people that like to compare movies and video games are seemingly missing is that they're two different mediums. Same with CDs and music.

The average movie costs upwards of thirty-forty million to make (studio movie). This initial budget is usually recouped at the box office- DVD and post theatrical sales are usually pure profit. The studios rely on DVD and Blu-Ray sales to achieve profit.

Videogames cost an average of 4.5 million to make. This is usually recouped the first week of sales. All sales after release week tend to be pure profit.

Videogames don't have the equivalent of the box office to break even, it's purely a sales driven market. Thereby- the more a game costs to make the more it has to sell in order to not bomb.

The problem is- what about all the majority of games that cost around three or four million to make? The 60.00 price tag tends to make them exorbitant profit makers. The twenty million dollar games are in the minority (for now) but the 60.00 price tag is neccesary in order for that title to be profitable.

What hurts us as buyers of the games is that most moderately budgeted titles are not worth the 60.00 asking price. That's not to speak of the quality of the games, it's just that nagging feeling you get after finishing a game in two or three days that makes you wonder if the game was worthy of the cash you just shelled out.

The "fair" thing would be to price the games accordingly. We have "budget" games that get released cheaper than average, but "budget" tends to equal "crap" in the eyes of consumers. The thing is, the average price of games is too high. We can, as an industry, drop the asking price down to forty dollars (or even thirty) and still turn a good profit. But you- as the consumer- will still shell out 60.00 for the hot new title, so we probably won't do that. What hurts is the budget games and unknown properties that won't get purchased because the price is too high. Some are indeed very good- but the consumer is much less likely to take a chance on that mystery title while they have Final Fantasy or Halo sitting next to it.

Games could stand to be cheaper, but if you look at the big picture, games are MUCH cheaper now than they ever were. The average Atari title in 1979 was fifty dollars new. Adjusted for inflation, games today should cost around 150.00.