In 2018, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick earned a reported $30.8 million dollars while the company boasted of record earnings. In early 2019, it laid off more than 800 employees and stated, “While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn’t realize our full potential.” Mere days later, new job listings were posted for various studios within the company.

In that same year, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson was estimated to have earned a salary of around $35,728,764 with his company reportedly generating around $5.1 billion in net revenue. A few months into 2019, it was reported that microtransactions for FIFA 19 earned more profit than the game itself, making up roughly 28% of all profits produced by the company. Around the same time, EA laid off 350 employees with Wilson stating, “We have a vision to be the World’s Greatest Games Company. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’re not there right now.”

In 2017, a report from YouTuber SuperBunnyHop revealed how many of these triple-A developers that keep claiming video game budgets are becoming too large keep their profits in tax-free bank accounts across the ocean. This work referenced Dutch journalist named Jesse Frederick’s piece, Bermuda? Guess again. Turns out Holland is the tax haven of choice for US companies.

So tell me again why video games are now supposedly going to increase to $70 for the next console generation.

A listing for the next-gen port of NBA 2K21 was spotted earlier this morning with an MSRP of $69.99. As many are beginning to speculate, this could mean that the price of triple-A games will be increasing in the near future. The CEO’s of many triple-A companies have been complaining for years about how budgets are ballooning out of control, yet take no stock to look at the stupidly large bonuses they receive each year or the number of employees they fire once a game is completed.

Some are quick to defend the price hike, claiming that gaming is expensive and that compensating developers for their work is the right thing to do. It’s been years since the price of games was raised, so what’s the big deal? Well, $60 nowadays rarely gets you what it used to. In fact, you’re often shelling out more money for less content, then asked to spend even more on egregious DLC.

It also will do nothing to stop the spread of loot boxes and microtransactions in games, especially not with the ridiculous profits companies are earning from them. Fortnite, possibly the most popular game in existence, earned $1.8 billion in 2019 off of the back of such a scheme. In the year prior, that number was $2.4 billion. Do you think a measly $10 increase in price is going to stop publishers from shoving that crap in?

This isn’t even to talk about the rampant crunch culture that has taken hold at most companies. Instead of properly compensating developers and reinvesting money into new projects, CEO’s are doing everything in their power to continue explosive growth at any cost. If Bobby Kotick can’t increase his $8 billion net worth, was a game really worth it?

It’s aggravating to see a price increase like this at any time, but especially so during a global pandemic and recession. 2K declaring that its next-gen game needs to be $70 is the same as saying, “The hell with your suffering.” This is in the same year where the American unemployment rate hit a record high of 14.1% (or 49 million people).

Instead of increasing prices, what really needs to happen is that these giant corporations take a look at how destructive and self-obsessed they’ve become. Learn to properly budget and manage yourselves, remove all pointless microtransactions from full-priced games, and stop committing tax fraud, then we can have a chat about raising the price of games.

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