In An Unaffordable World, The Future Is Friendslop

Gaming has never been more expensive. We're here to investigate why, and help you play more while spending less. Welcome to GameSpot Cheap Week. You don't need me to tell you things are getting more expensive. Unless you're incredibly wealthy, you're already feeling the pinch. The world is less affordable, from groceries to gas to rent to, yeah, even video games. For the first time, consoles aren't getting cheaper over a generation: They're skyrocketing in price. While the price of games themselves stagnated for a long time, they're now moving rather quickly, with $70 and even $80 games becoming the new normal, and that's before you launch the games to find season passes, cosmetics shops, and other add-ons meant to entice you to spend further. There are a lot of reasons this is happening, but if you add it all up, it's simply more expensive to play games right now. But in one corner of the gaming landscape, a certain trend feels future-proofed for our unaffordable world. Friendslop, the sometimes-derogatory, sometimes-favorable term for a particular type of co-op game, is still rising in popularity since the pandemic. Games such as Lethal Company, Among Us, and Peak ha…