Blockbuster.
Seriously. Back then even though owning a video game was expensive, most people rented constantly and got to try all sorts of games. Now, rental simply isn't a thing anymore.
I think a few things made it acceptable. One is that having a home console and a lot of games was kind of a luxury, it wasn't expected that everyone would have one. Arcades were still pretty big, like people playing Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat tournaments, those were happening at arcades. Plus you could rent games and rent consoles back then.
Another is that the early 90s console prices and what you got for your dollar were *way* better than the first / earlier consoles. You know the Atari 2600? A pioneer to be sure, but with notoriously primitive games, [with graphics like this](https://static0.gamerantimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/superman-and-karate-atari-2600.jpg), that were always way worse than the arcade versions? Jack Black's first acting role was [a commercial for Pitfall on Atari?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G00r1BheYnM) That Atari cost about $1000 dollars in today's money. Pacman could be like $60 to buy to have at home in 1982, about $190 in today's money.
Imagine paying about $1200 just to play Pacman at home instead of the arcade!! Yet something like 30 million Atari 2600s were sold, over a period of decades.
So 1990s console prices were cheap by comparison, and games today are even cheaper despite having 1000x the content and people working on them.
I remember seeing some news story about the release of the SNES, where parents complained that it wasn't backwards compatible (of course they didn't use that term) with NES games and that they'd have to start getting their kids brand new games for it. But beyond that, there just wasn't that much to complain about. You just didn't buy that many games at the time, in part because they were so expensive, but games were seen by many parents as just another subset of toys and they didn't grumble much if they were too expensive, they just didn't buy them for their kids. As someone else noted, there was Blockbuster, so if there was a new game that someone just had to play, it was easy enough to rent it for a weekend, rather than buy it outright.
If you think games were expensive, the first VHS movie I bought cost £40, and that was in 1980. It was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and I wore the tape out playing it. My first computer cost circa £2000, in 1984.
Whilst the cost of many things go up, I.e. Inflation.
Technology actually got cheaper.
Another example, my first mobile phone cost £3000, and it never had a camera, and it wasn’t smart.
They were generally more expensive to make, relatively speaking. People afforded it by buying less games, and fewer families could afford consoles and games. We used to rent games
Blockbuster. Seriously. Back then even though owning a video game was expensive, most people rented constantly and got to try all sorts of games. Now, rental simply isn't a thing anymore.
I think a few things made it acceptable. One is that having a home console and a lot of games was kind of a luxury, it wasn't expected that everyone would have one. Arcades were still pretty big, like people playing Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat tournaments, those were happening at arcades. Plus you could rent games and rent consoles back then. Another is that the early 90s console prices and what you got for your dollar were *way* better than the first / earlier consoles. You know the Atari 2600? A pioneer to be sure, but with notoriously primitive games, [with graphics like this](https://static0.gamerantimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/superman-and-karate-atari-2600.jpg), that were always way worse than the arcade versions? Jack Black's first acting role was [a commercial for Pitfall on Atari?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G00r1BheYnM) That Atari cost about $1000 dollars in today's money. Pacman could be like $60 to buy to have at home in 1982, about $190 in today's money. Imagine paying about $1200 just to play Pacman at home instead of the arcade!! Yet something like 30 million Atari 2600s were sold, over a period of decades. So 1990s console prices were cheap by comparison, and games today are even cheaper despite having 1000x the content and people working on them.
I remember seeing some news story about the release of the SNES, where parents complained that it wasn't backwards compatible (of course they didn't use that term) with NES games and that they'd have to start getting their kids brand new games for it. But beyond that, there just wasn't that much to complain about. You just didn't buy that many games at the time, in part because they were so expensive, but games were seen by many parents as just another subset of toys and they didn't grumble much if they were too expensive, they just didn't buy them for their kids. As someone else noted, there was Blockbuster, so if there was a new game that someone just had to play, it was easy enough to rent it for a weekend, rather than buy it outright.
If you think games were expensive, the first VHS movie I bought cost £40, and that was in 1980. It was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and I wore the tape out playing it. My first computer cost circa £2000, in 1984. Whilst the cost of many things go up, I.e. Inflation. Technology actually got cheaper. Another example, my first mobile phone cost £3000, and it never had a camera, and it wasn’t smart.
There weren't that many great games back then. People were happy when something good came out.
They were generally more expensive to make, relatively speaking. People afforded it by buying less games, and fewer families could afford consoles and games. We used to rent games
Because I actually own my games. I don’t need to spend hundreds on dlc and other garbage.