There is also another thing I wrote about recently.
You buy AAA game for $50, but to play it with decent performance you have to buy new hardware for $500 or even more. Chips are dirt cheap for the manufacturer, for the fab there is no difference, what model of chip to produce if the size of crystal is the same. Just a question of what mask they will use - current one or few years old one. So, most part of this $500 profit goes to marketing. And games are part of it and I think game makers get much more from hardware manufacturers than from game sales. And I could perfectly imagine the situation, where games are completely free, since they paid by hardware manufacturer.
Also, take in account that large game makers at least have a tons of tax extempts and all that big business help from government who need people be always busy with something senseless and have no time or interest for real life, including politics.
So, game makers have at least two significant sources of money, and end user sales is just some additional, but in no way critical profit.
There is also another thing I wrote about recently.
You buy AAA game for $50, but to play it with decent performance you have to buy new hardware for $500 or even more. Chips are dirt cheap for the manufacturer, for the fab there is no difference, what model of chip to produce if the size of crystal is the same. Just a question of what mask they will use - current one or few years old one. So, most part of this $500 profit goes to marketing. And games are part of it and I think game makers get much more from hardware manufacturers than from game sales. And I could perfectly imagine the situation, where games are completely free, since they paid by hardware manufacturer.
Also, take in account that large game makers at least have a tons of tax extempts and all that big business help from government who need people be always busy with something senseless and have no time or interest for real life, including politics.
So, game makers have at least two significant sources of money, and end user sales is just some additional, but in no way critical profit.