How come a lot of new released games cost so much money? They used to be like 5 dollars a games in the early 2000s.

No. No they didn't.

I paid $40 for Diablo 2 the day it came out.

Pretty sure it was on sale but don't quote me on that.

Warcraft 3 was released 2002.

"In an industry where selling 1 million copies of a title is a rare feat, Blizzard shipped 4.5 million copies of "Warcraft III" to retailers for its launch date of July 3 each with a retail price of $59.99 or $74.99 (for the collector's edition).1"
https://money.cnn.com/2002/07/17/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm

If anything, games are cheaper than they have ever been. And more expensive to produce in most cases. Especially since even the most expensive games go on sale for 33 - 50% after a fairly short time, sometimes more. That did not happen back then.

lmao games are cheaper than ever.

Yep, funny that. People will point out the obvious to you, but you are right there are lots of examples at all levels. Used to be 4.99£ a pop, but it's gone up to £6 or £7 quid for older titles. New games are £30 upwards.
It's u fair to compare old games to their release, back then it came in an nice box, with manual and other things. Was something worth the money. We were told then that companies had to move to digital so they could keep the costs down. That never happened, prices just went up and kept going up. Nowadays everything is additional, want a soundtrack or manual even, that's extra. Many different versions, often with no upgrade path, all designed to kill the last penny out of it.
So yes, prices have definitely gone up, across the board. However things like humble and groupees can make things cheaper, and if you don't mind client/possibly drm then you can get great prices on steam.

Game prices have been always been fluctuating quite a bit, often depending on the system. Back in the 1980s, games cost anywhere from a couple of bucks to 50 or more. I still remember buying cheap collections for Amstrad CPD 464, where you could get 10 or more games on one cassette, but on the other hand, PC or Amiga games were much more costly. In the '90s, 40-50 euros a game was a pretty common thing.

These days my digital game collection is vastly larger than my physical collection ever was and I think I've only paid a full price on a handful of games. Everything else I've gotten dirt cheap from bundles and sales. I rarely spend more than 10 euros on a game as I rarely buy games directly from release. The newest game I've bought in years was Obra Dinn, which I bought in the release day. and even that was pretty cheap

We used to pay upwards of $80 to $100 for a game in those days and that is not cheap and I might add that Sir/Madam is the truth of the matter.

You also have to realize a lot of games 5 dollar games were 4kb in size, if not even less, made by teenagers or children, and generally not very good. (This was in the 70s and 80s.)

Also, where the heck were you shopping where you could buy PC games for 5 dollars in 2000? Goodwill Computerworks?

Also, games are cheaper now than they've ever been, thanks to the digital market. Sure, you can't trade it in, but you were going to get undercut anyway.

I'm not sure which games were $5 in the 2000s. I always remember new games being around 60$ or so on release.

The only place in the early 00's that I ever found games that cheap was Malaysia...and that's because they were pirated- actual factory stamped (not burnt) pirated Cd's. Mid 90's games were A$50 to A$80, by the early 00's they were $60 to $90. Even the bargain bin budget labels for 3 year old games were still $10 to $20. And there were never deep sales back in the ol' days because retailers had to buy physical stock and there's only so much you can cut.

Games are cheaper than they've ever been. A paper back novel costs $20 or more now, a magazine costs $10-$15, how much does it cost to see a movie? Games are cheap entertainment.

And don't try to pretend games had more content either. Grand Prix Legends was a $79 in late 90's and had like 6 cars and 10 circuits and was a great game. A Forza game has hundreds of cars and shitloads of circuits and I've been playing it almost every month for 2 years and cost $49. Price vs entertainment level has never been better.

A middle of the range gaming PC used to cost between $1000 to $2000, it still does...which actually means it's cheaper now when factoring inflation.

As comparison, comparing early 00's to now. Energy costs are 3 times higher, as is fuel. A meal at McDonalds cost $5 and is now $10. It cost $400 to register my car and now it's $750. Games have become cheaper in relation to cost of living and wages. But...every generation likes to think they have it harder than before. Short memories.

So OP, I think you're full of it.

The "games are more expensive to produce now" and "they cost less than ever" are, as the poet says, "bull".

Games are just as expensive as the administration board decides them to be, they don't *need* insanely high budgets to succeed, and there is proof aplenty everywhere, I don't even need to quote anything.
Also, today's standards are multiple editions, fragmented content, tons of DLCs (with some exclusive to certain platforms or stores), microtransactions and so on.
The average price is not 60$, as they keep on telling you. 60$ will get you the barebones game stripped of a good half of the content. If you want everything, you have to spend at least 100-120. Big budget games today are designed to be gutted and sold in pieces, and often gameplay is tampered with to sells micrtotransactions and extras, like the "XP boost pack" to avoid grinding in the latest Assassin's Creed.
"Microtrasnactions are a reality of modern gamin" me arse. YOU, producer, you design them to be grindy and unsatisfying to exploit people. They are not "naturally grindy" or needing extras.

So, in brief, while new games have never been as cheap as 5$ (except some small indies, maybe), their actual cost when you watch behind the smoke curatin publishers throw in your eyes is FAR higher than 10 years ago.

EDIT: Also, you must take in consideration that sales have multiplied exponentially since the 90s, so even if the game still cost 60$, it would be 60x1 million users rather than 60x100k. So publisher actually have huge revenues. Activision alone made 5 BILLION dollars on microtransactions alone. I hate how they always play the part of the poor victims while being gluttonous devourers -who, incidentally, pay their employees a pittance, don't respect laws and generally exploit everyone shamelessly.

The original street price for an Atari 2600 in 1977 was $199. Adjusted for (2016) inflation, that puts its MSRP at $790. Average Atari cartridge prices went for around $30-40 brand new, before the crash of course.

So in 1977 you could get an Atari 2600 and a couple of games for the modern price equivalent of about $850. You can go out right now and buy a PS4 and a couple of games for half that. And for $850 just think about how many PC games you could buy.

No. It's not even comparable. Modern game and hardware prices are WAY cheaper than they used to be.

Out of interest, what level did you finish the game at then, without grinding? I am playing it now and am around level 42 and there definitely is grinding. I have probably done most of the forts, only done the quest line up to nearly destroying the cult - but I still need to defeat the last two arena rounds - so that cultist won't come out until then and that's probably another 9-10 levels. Each level requires a lot of exp even with quests rewarding 10-20k each it's still around 10 or more of those.
Not saying it's a bad game, quite enjoy it (although can't beat black sail), and there is a fair bit more variety than in previous games in AC and better laid out (who can forget the poverty stricken London old town where you can't move for treasure laden chests! Syndicate), so it feels less grindy. However it is still Ubisoft and the name of their game is grind, no getting away from it (and it's always prevalent in open world games, even life, you get up to to work for 5 days out of 7 for most of your life, it's even called the daily grind).