Complexity of a game increases complexity of all elements, engine development, testing, asset creation, narrative design.

It takes roughly 1,000 people 7+ years to make a "new IP" game, or the same number of people 3-5 years for a decent sequel.

Check the number of people credited in a game from 20 years ago and compare it to the latest AAA's, it's an order of magnitude or two different.

GTA1 took 50 people to make[0]

The Division took 1,083 to make[1]

Yet the price of games has not increased in real terms in that time. (although, yes, the sales have increased, but not enough)

[0]: https://www.giantbomb.com/grand-theft-auto/3030-13567/credit...

[1]: https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/tom-clancys-the-divis...

I'm not taking on faith that that games have to be more complex today than they ever were.

Yet the price of games has not increased in real terms in that time.

The "price" of a game isn't a good measurement, as people are paying on top of that via microtransactions.

It's an arms race situation; games, or at least AAA games, have to be more complex because they have to be more complex or they won't sell like the previous complex game. I think you're picking up on the circularity there, which I fully agree with, but it doesn't stop it from existing. (Technically back in the past there is a recursion base case for all this, somewhere around when the hobbyiest-level game scene, where 1 person could create a professional-quality game, and where professional-quality games took a staff to exist at all. This would be in the late 8-bit era; by the 16-bit era, a professional game took a staff.)

I'm not sure I can Google this up, but I remember when the PS4 era was just starting up, Shamus Young (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/ ) hypothesized that the gaming industry was going to have an even harder time justifying the expense of a "true" PS4 game because of the yet-again increased expense of the asset pipeline. Assets are technically getting cheaper to generate over time, but they're not getting cheaper faster than they're getting more expensive. The PS5 may yet make this worse again, and the continuous PC market is definitely getting crazy to build for the top end. Eventually, even microtransactions aren't going to be able to cover this, and the only games that can be made are going to be so "safe" that nobody at all will like them. This is a sort of bubble that is going to burst at some point. It's arguable that it's already starting to burst; it seems like we're seeing a slowly increasing number of very high-profile, very expensive failures, and that can't continue forever. Keep an eye on Nintendo's strategy (if they continue making boatloads of money with their Switch on the complexity foothills while the rest of market is climbing so high up the complexity mountain that they are gasping for breath, eventually people with lots of initials in their titles in other companies are going to start asking why they can't do what Nintendo is doing), and the indie market.

I do sometimes wonder if movies will see this as well. Right now, most movies that cost significant fractions of a billion dollars will make it back, but as that number goes up, it takes proportionally less and less to screw up things really quickly, even if you're profitable most of the time. Star Wars, for instance, is quite unexpectedly in a dangerous spot right now, profit-wise. If for instance the Marvel movies had the same problems, we could see a sea change in movie finances in a few years. But it doesn't seem to be happening yet.