I'm planning to do a proper full game with more iteration and publish it as a playable build, not just a video. That should give a much better sense of actual quality ceiling.
The "Racing game" appeared to be a car following a set path with a freecam and there didn't seem to be any gameplay mechanics in the snowboarding one, just a physics entity wildly crashing down a hill with no consequences or score.
The asset generation costs are tracked precisely. The current cost table: images are 5–15 cents depending on resolution (7 cents at 1K default, 10 cents at 2K, 15 cents at 4K). 3D models via Tripo3D run 30–60 cents depending on quality tier (a full 3D asset including the reference image is 37 cents at medium). Visual QA (Gemini Flash) is essentially free at this scale.
A typical game needs maybe 10–20 images and a handful of 3D models, so total asset costs usually land under $3. For something like the snowboarding game, you're looking at roughly $5–8 all-in — closer to your $5 bucket than $50. And image gen costs are dropping fast, Grok Imagine is 2 cents per image now, which is on the migration roadmap.
Last summer I built a factorio-like automation game with older models and over time the game really started to take life.