And some are already experimenting with raising the base price to 70. So judging them on the merit of current practices, there is no good defense for them, other than greed and having to keep investors happy with constant growth (but these are problems with capitalism in general). Yes, development costs went up, but also companies are making way more than before and even then they went by the rule of 'less for more', where those 60 are the entry point to the whole system that allows for you to spend even more. We've also had many examples of companies releasing day one dlc's, content cut from base game.

But I'd say the main reason they kept them at 60 s long is microtransactions, even if the game itself doesnt have them, other games from the same publisher do and they keep them from raising stuff. It's always bizarre to me when people go nuts over the increase to game prices (from 50 to 60) when it's so comically clear that they're spending insanely larger amounts developing them (the teams are comically large compared to the old days) + inflation etc etc.

Diablo 2 resurrected price canada