Part 4/8:
The Cost of Production: A Changing Landscape
An important aspect often overlooked in the pricing conversation is the changing cost of game production. In earlier decades, producing cartridges involved significant investment for custom manufacturing. The introduction of cartridges required multiple manufacturing processes and materials that were much more expensive than today’s technologies, which have streamlined production significantly. The advent of CD-ROM and later digital downloads eliminated a majority of these physical costs, allowing developers to distribute games with far less overhead.