Games soon to increase in price but how?

Its inevitable and gamers should be aware that your typical game could cost more. This coming from Jason Rubin himself, co-founder of Naughty Dog Productions, on Bonus Round. You can watch the Bonus Round Interview at Game Trailers.

In the interview Jason Rubin makes some interesting suggestions about how to strategically gain profit from games without increasing the initial retail cost of the game. He suggests that people can have the option of paying REAL money for items in a game that may take countless hours of gameplay to acquire. I think this is a brilliant idea and I think it is a great way for the gaming industry to gain profit without effecting our wallets unless we choose to of course.

You see it has been proven that some people are willing to pay money to play a game at a certain level without committing a massive amount of hours. World of Warcraft is a great example. This game takes a ton of hours to get to a decent level and from what I hear gets funner when you reach those levels and people have actually payed some serious money for a character with a high level. They average around $100 for a character and Im pretty sure that someone has paid $1000 for one. Jason Rubin makes a point of this by using farmville as an example. Farmville is a Facebook game that is free to play but it makes millions monthly. The reason is because people can get further in the game quicker by forking out cash.

So the question I ask is, which direction is the gaming industry gonna go. Will we see more games with the option of paying real money for quicker access to items inside the game or will the initial retail price of the game just increase?