Video games are still pretty cheap

Even at $80.

Relative to the rest of the economy, video games have been very resistant to inflation for a very long time and have been one of the few products that enjoyed significant price deflation over time. That is skidding to a stop and while there is a chance that the surge in component prices truly does drive hardware to make up for all of that and more, software is still pretty cheap.

I remember buying Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the SNES on release day... it was $70. Games then spent some time getting quite a bit cheaper for a long time, settling around $50, while the dollar inflated thereby making games functionally even cheaper still. Relative to cost, you still get quite a bit of bang for your buck with video games compared to most - definitely not all - forms of media. You can't beat literature for the hours of entertainment per dollar, if you like reading, but beyond that video games are very competitive.

Maybe I'm a spendthrift, but even a "short" game feels easily worth it to me. 10 hours of entertainment for $80 is about what moviegoers are paying. The vast majority of games give you more than that, some give you over 10x that. And if you are open to indie games or games from previous generations the ROI gets very crooked in your favor.

The people that complain about the price of games the most are overwhelmingly the same people that buy tons of games they never get around to playing which is why the costs pile up for them. Someone that picks up a game, plays it for a month or three to complete it, then picks up another probably feels like they're getting a good value for their money.