Games Are Cheap, Actually?

I recently stumbled across the Sears Wish Book '84 on Archive.org . . . which was about as concentrated a nostalgia bomb as I could have injected into my brain (to mix a handful of metaphors).

As is probably obvious from the title, this catalog is a guide to drool over everything you might want to buy from Sears for the holidays. In particular, I was curious to note the game section (starting around p. 183 of the PDF, and p. 583 of the book itself). Therein I discovered venerable Trivial Pursuit – then still at the height of its popularity – for $26.99. Running that figure through an inflation calculator tells me that's about $87 in today's dollars.

A number of forces and elements have kept prices lower than expected, and I know costs are a lot more complicated than any simple calculator can show. But it was still eye-opening to realize that gamers have had it pretty good for quite some time. (Can I interest you in a 1984 copy of Frogger II for the Atari 2600? It's only $34.99. That's $112 adjusted for inflation – a mere $32 more than Grand Theft Auto VI's $79.99 price tag once it comes out in November . . .)

-- Steven Marsh