It's hard to believe that games cost $60 per title these days. We worry about the strain our hobby puts on our budget, and we fret about too many desirable games released too close to each other. We wish for the good old days, when gaming was a less expensive hobby and our dollar carried more weight.

Sadly, although many complain about the high price of games, the past really wasn't any better. In fact, it was worse. Gaming has never been less expensive, and 2010 is a great time to be buying games. Let's take a look at how this is the best time to be a gamer since... well, the beginning of games.

It's cheaper to be a gamer now than it has ever been

We asked Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumer's Association, for his thoughts on the subject. Before he was head of the ECA, he ran the Entertainment Merchants Association. This man knows about game pricing.

During one of our discussions on the issue of game pricing, we tracked down a press release putting the suggested retail price of both Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 at $69.99. Halpin says that the N64 launch game pricing only tells you part of the story.

"Yes, some N64 games retailed for as high as $80, but it was also the high end of a 60 to 80 dollar range," he told Ars. "Retailers had more flexibility with pricing back then—though they've consistently maintained that the Suggested Retail Price was/is just a guide. Adjusted for inflation, we're generally paying less now than we have historically. But to be fair, DLC isn't factored in." He also points out all the different ways that we can now access games: you can buy a game used, rent a game, or play certain online games for free. There are multiple ways to sell your old console games, and the competition in the market causes prices to fall quickly.

It goes back further than N64 generation, however. You can find scans of Sears catalogs that put the price of NES games around $30 to $50 each. At current prices that's $50 to $80. This was in 1990, well into the system's life.

"I think the bottom line is that it's cumulatively less expensive to be a gamer today than it's ever been," Halpin said. "And with new technologies like OnLive and Gaikai, you're going to have even more options going forward."

When you factor inflation into the prices, even if retailers had room to move from the MSRP of games, the prices were still high compared to the straight $50 to $60 price we're used to.

Development costs have gone up, but the market has also expanded

"Our industry continues to grow, and as such, so does the revenue, which increases competition in the market and generally results in bigger development budgets," Jesse Divnich, VP of Analyst Services at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, told Ars. This tends to reverse near the end of a console's lifetime, when there is enough known about the system and many assets that can be reused and costs dip somewhat. "Or in simpler terms, it takes a good three to four years before we are able to maximize efficiencies of a new hardware machine." Of course, by the time this happens it's time for a brand new machine. "The cycle continues!"

The cost of the physical media has also dropped since the days of cartridge-based systems. The price of a game used to be tied into how much memory the game required; storage was expensive. If you see old ads where one game is much more than the games around it, the reason is either because it's a big-name new release, or that it required a large amount of read-only memory to hold. "CDs and DVDs provide a much cheaper alternative than the old NES/N64 cartridges. Our industry will also strive to be the most efficient on reducing costs," Divnich explained. "Case in point would be digital games, where those physical distribution costs no longer exist."

Of course, there are other factors

Since the cost of games has remained steady, and in some ways has fallen in the past 15 years, publishers have found other ways of separating us from our cash. Collector's Editions sell for well over the $60 price of the standard game, and they help to expand the profit margin of game sales. One-time use codes may keep certain features behind a paywall if you buy the game used. And downloadable content is a standard part of many big-name releases.

Still, in very broad terms, this hobby has not gotten any more expensive. With optical media allowing for more storage at lower prices, the price of games has even fallen when you look at past generations. Factor in the ever-present inflation and the picture becomes even clearer: this is a fine time to be a gamer.