$100 today is about $40 in 1990. In those days games were made by a handful of people or even a single individual in one of two years of development. Chris Sawyer started work on the 1994 classic Transport Tycoon in 1992 and wrote the entire codebase in x86 Assembly. The price isn’t really that crazy considering the comparatively massive undertaking that is GTA6 development.

Having said that, it’s rare nowadays for any AAA game to release anywhere near its best state, so it tends to be worth it to wait even if money isn’t the concern.

AAA games are significantly cheaper in real terms than they were in the 90s.

30 CAD in 1993 is about 58 CAD today, and those weren’t even the most expensive games in the flyer you saw then.

Especially console titles were expensive by modern standards, the main titles like Mario games retailed for something like 150 USD in 2026 dollars.

The definition of insanity: continuing to run your game company horribly and expecting different results.