Apparently there are lots of studies and calculations that indeed suggest games are overall way too cheap for the industry to be sustainable. I hear it from insiders again and again. From small indie studios to industry giants.

And many point their fingers at platforms like Steam to be the culprits. Steam in particular is pretty unpopular among developers overall. Looking at how competitive the market is and how many devs are pushed into burnouts in just a single production I tend to believe them. The current model does not seem to be sustainable for studios of any size.

That said, I think a lot of studios could try scaling down their productions too because I hear about feature creep from the same insiders just as much. They really need better planning.