RAM prices have been climbing at an alarming pace in recent months, and there’s little evidence the surge is about to ease. PC gamers are already feeling the squeeze when trying to upgrade, but the impact reaches far beyond home builds and retail shelves. The same RAM shortage driving up the cost of memory for consumers is now creating real obstacles for video game development, too.
Larian Studios, best known for the massive success of Baldur’s Gate 3, is currently deep in production on a new Divinity game. In an interview, studio CEO Swen Vincke revealed that the rising cost and tightening supply of RAM—and even SSDs—has become a serious complication for the team. He described the situation as something the studio simply hasn’t had to deal with at this scale before. In the past, developers could forecast hardware trends, estimate what players would reasonably have in their PCs, and plan performance targets accordingly. This time, those familiar patterns aren’t holding.
Vincke explained that the volatility is disrupting development projections. When RAM becomes both scarce and expensive, it changes the baseline assumptions about what a typical player’s system can handle. That forces studios to rethink how they allocate resources, test performance, and build features. In Larian’s case, it means turning attention to optimization far earlier than expected—work that normally comes later when major systems are more finalized.
That shift matters because Larian is expected to use an early access launch approach again for the next Divinity game, similar to how Baldur’s Gate 3 was developed with community feedback over time. Early access already demands a careful balancing act: the studio must maintain a playable live version for fans while continuing to build core content and improve the game behind the scenes. Adding deeper performance optimization on top of that increases the workload and complexity, especially when it wasn’t part of the original plan.
So what’s driving the RAM crunch? A major factor is soaring demand from AI data centers. Large-scale AI operations require enormous amounts of memory, and big buyers can secure supply in volumes the consumer market can’t compete with. The ripple effect is higher prices and tighter availability for everyone else, including gamers, PC builders, and creative studios that rely on reasonably priced memory to work efficiently.
The result has been extreme DDR5 pricing in particular. One recent example highlights just how inflated costs have become: a newly launched 256GB DDR5 kit in China was priced higher than a top-tier flagship graphics card. Even if most gamers aren’t shopping for ultra-high-capacity kits like that, it underscores how overheated the memory market is and why everyday upgrades feel so expensive right now.
There is some cautious optimism from parts of the industry that DDR5 pricing could improve within about six months, with advice to avoid panic buying. Still, the reality is that conditions remain unstable, and demand from AI-focused companies doesn’t appear to be slowing. For players and developers alike, that means RAM prices could stay elevated longer than expected—potentially affecting how PC games are built, optimized, and released over the next year.
