Trap of Dissociated Feedback

It is, again, not a surprise to anyone, that the economy is kinda weird now. We had Covid crisis, some other things happening, inflation has been rising across all parts of the world and worse than that - purchasing power has been dropping for quite a while now. Most developers probably know this, but still let's point this out: Games are expensive to build. Developer salaries are growing, maybe less than in other IT domains, but they are. Speaking of AAA developers, GTA 5 is estimated to have had a ~$250 million total budget (development+marketing), and it is rumored that GTA 6 is more than $2 billion. Yes, that's not the same dollars, because of the inflation, but it is still a crazy difference. Witcher 3 total budget was stated to be ~$100 million, and Witcher 4 is rumored to be at least $400 million, potentially reaching $1 billion over time, with all factors included. For indie teams, the situation is not as dramatic, but main idea is that Indie Development evolved from hobby-style to fully commercial development, which of course led to more expenses, even though there is much more variety in this group. Schedule 1 was made, presumably "without much capital investment", while Split Fiction (Once Indie) doubled its budget to $60 million compared to their previous game. MiSide assumingly had a budget below $150k, so things are different in Indie gamedev, but the point stands. Purchasing power dropping means that players are less likely to buy an expensive game, and at the same time more likely to leave a negative review on an expensive game. The problem gets worse with all "classical" AAA titles being given out at massive discounts constantly, and those games are more complete because of all fixes, long-term support and DLCs.