That makes no sense, you're saying games are getting cheaper but the cost of production is rising? That is not at all how economics works. The cost of games is not getting cheaper, the standard wasn't always $60.
No, they were even more expensive. I don't know how long you have been around the industry, but games used to cost 80-$100 in retail, not the $60 of today. Games on PC today are cheaper than ever, and with the rise of DLC content, and the fall of "expansion packs", addons are now priced around the 10-$20 range.
Making games IS getting more expensive. What MOST developers do to compensate this rise in cost, is to not take risks with new IP's and to make smaller packets of addon content which takes less dev time. Relic is trying to keep the old-school system of expansion packs, but the problem here is AA doesn't contain the content that justifies it.