Great article.
I'm actually putting off my next upgrade ,for another reason , the state of Highend Gaming.ie;the lootboxes ,in game purchase.,buyable DLC that should have been part of the game anyway.
poor single player campaigns
also I no longer participate in beta, testing of games,helping to get an unfinished product out. so I can pay for the game ,then pay for the rest of the game .as it is released.I prefer a downloadable DEMO.
Also I don't like pre orders or digital download of a game ,I prefer buying a boxed title .having disc and manual.in said box.
don't misinterpret. I currently have 2 steam account ,2 Origin account,and 2 UBI play account.all of which are quite annoying to maintain.patches etc,I also live where I get about a meg and a half down and about 300 kb up. so as an example wildlands took about 4 days to download .then 2 days for the next patch.actually to day I'm getting 3.4 mb down ,(wow) and .53 mb up.. (pffft)
Dev are saving a boatload of cash as well. no box or manual to print, no packaging ,no discs no burners required to burn discs ,less staff, no shipping to all the etailers /retailers,and the price of the games has gone up..
Been building my own rigs since my AMD K6 266/300, hardware pricing has allways been volatile.I doubt that's going to change anytime soon.big suppliers and manufactures will allways put the fix in to prop prices up. that is only to get worse.memory and video cards ,are in that exact position IMO.why flood the market.getting stuck with lots of stock when next gen is coming off the fab.from a business aspect, better to let the market starve a little.increasing Demand.increases prices. That's MY Opinion .