i have paid more than $30 for a game ONCE in my life. even $30 is rare, it's usually $20 or less. it was when i was 10 or so and i bought an N-64 game (battletanx) for $60 i think it was. buying a year or more late has awsome advantages. price first and foremost, potentially having a better PC that can run it maxed without problems (ex: crysis), plenty of time for reviews so you don't waste money on a dud (ex: far cry 2, C&C 4), and the aforementioned bugfixing. sometimes multiplayer might already be dead by the time i get it, but that doesn't bother me because 1) i'm not really into multi anyway, and 2) that's probably a pretty good indication that the MP sucked.
woops, twice it was i paid more than $30. i bought FS2 for $80 on ebay, because i thought the sim of the year edition actually had meaningful extra content. oops.