/vr/ - Retro Games

It was so THIS would not turn that $40-80 game into a $5 fee that the publisher even ever see. Same reason "Nintendo Hard" was a thing back when game carts were too small to hold a game longer than 15-45 minutes for 95% of genres.

Other reasons include many games were just ports from arcade games that let you put in as many quarters as you wanted so they had no idea how to properly balance that and a lot of programmers back then had little to no experience designing games as well as there being almost no prior knowledge of what design choices are a good idea back then.