its only abs. and the parts are standard off the shelf units (ics are really cheap when sourced in bulk). it costs more to produce a pcb than it does to populate it with components. still its not astronomical, you can order a pcb built to your specs for $30-$60, less if you order more than one, and less if you manufacture it in house in any reasonably large quantity. also all their sticks use a standard mobo, where the mcu firmware is specific to the model. so it can be mass produced across their entire line. but frankly the technology for making a joystick hasnt really changed much since the 90s. injection molding has been around for some time. the electronics are pretty much the same, button scan matrices and analog sensors. the only thing that has changed is the addition of an mcu (less than $1 when sourced in bulk) necessary for communicating on the usb bus (though they were often used in advanced gameport joysticks). so the technology hasn't really changed at all.
to be fair ch has come down in price to compete with warthog and all of saitek's premium line. add that to american quality, and i could kind of understand the price. still some prices for joysticks are completely unjustifiable. i mean you could build a low end computer with what it costs to buy a warthog.
what makes joysticks expensive though is the fact that no one is buying them. games are not supporting them much anymore. and the games that do are niche markets. and on top of that m$ is pushing their xbox control api on pc developers/users, and neglecting the superior direct input. i can understand wanting to roll out a new api but can it at least be better than its predecessor? anyway this is forcing game developers to support 360 gamepads and not pc joysticks.
