Multiple Game Companies Are Considering Raising the Price of Games to $69.99 for NextGen

[metaphysician]

Video game pricing is a complicated topic, not helped by the obvious dirty hands on the part of most of the companies in the industry, vis a vis MTX, games as a service, and "we don't want money, we want all the money". Nonetheless, I'm sympathetic to the idea that "prices need to go up". . . at least in the broader sense of "prices need to stop being locked to some perpetual fixed point". $60 has gained an unjustified placement as some morally-sanctified ceiling for video game prices, which has created or exacerbated a lot of negative trend. We'd be in a much healthier place as a market if everyone, both companies *and consumers*, were willing to accept that some games should be more expensive, and some games less. And yes, the other end is a problem, too; I can't count how many times I've seen a member of the public assume that because a game isn't $60 it must be trash, or deride that a game would dare charge more than $5 because its not a high resolution photorealistic experience.

 

[henzINNIT]

They don't need to go up though. The games industry is larger and more profitable than ever. The big studios are making record profits, benefiting from a growing consumer base, increased digital distribution and numerous extra forms of monetization; and yet are the same entities that decided to raise the prices. It was important to hold 60 as gospel, not because it was a particularly special number, but because it was a ceiling for companies who prove constantly that they will take as much as they can. That's why 60 became the norm: It was the most they could ask for.

 

[Iceman]

Video game pricing is a complicated topic, not helped by the obvious dirty hands on the part of most of the companies in the industry, vis a vis MTX, games as a service, and "we don't want money, we want all the money". Nonetheless, I'm sympathetic to the idea that "prices need to go up". . . at least in the broader sense of "prices need to stop being locked to some perpetual fixed point". $60 has gained an unjustified placement as some morally-sanctified ceiling for video game prices, which has created or exacerbated a lot of negative trend. We'd be in a much healthier place as a market if everyone, both companies *and consumers*, were willing to accept that some games should be more expensive, and some games less. And yes, the other end is a problem, too; I can't count how many times I've seen a member of the public assume that because a game isn't $60 it must be trash, or deride that a game would dare charge more than $5 because its not a high resolution photorealistic experience.

Yeah, the top price for the biggest and true AAA games can make sense if the price of the average run of the mill game is set lower.

 

[psylockolussus]

Hopefully they won't increase the prices for ps6 and ps7 games. That this 70 pricing would not increase for at least 3 generations of game consoles.

 

[Iceman]

Hopefully they won't increase the prices for ps6 and ps7 games. That this 70 pricing would not increase for at least 3 generations of game consoles.

Depends if Jim Ryan is still there or not.

 

[psylockolussus]

Depends if Jim Ryan is still there or not.

Who is Jim Ryan?

 

[Gee]

The current idiot in charge at Playstation

 

[spiderman2]

Games being 70 is not really that big of a surprise. I mean back with ps1 to ps2 games went from 40 to 50 than from ps2 to ps3 they went from 50 to 60. Ps3 to ps4 they staid the same and before ps5 price of consoles had not really went up other than ps3 but that was because of the Blu-ray drive. and cell chip. So really we had like 15 years of games being the same price even with games being more and more costly to make. I do think ps6 and what ever next gen is called that games will still be at 70 but by like ps7 or something they might go up again. Now the thing I worry about with ps6 is I think it could be all digital by than. I give it like a 75% chance of being all digital by than and I dont like digital you dont really own a game with it being digital. Now with games being 70 I might wait to get games longer. I have been for years getting most games I am interested in on day 1 even though I dont always get to them for a while has I have and will always have a backlog still got ps3 games I need to play in fact. Just wait a little and games are likely to go down 20-30 unless its Nintendo. I wonder if when ever Nintendo comes out with there next gen if there games will join the 70 or if they will stay at 60.

 

[psylockolussus]

I refuse to go all digital because bluray for movies and CDs for music are no longer available in my country due to lack of distributor and I used to buy lots of dvds and cds in the past. And shipping movies/cds from international sites and buying from resellers are so expensive. So I only get my physical copies with videogames as I don't buy books and stopped buying comiXs 11 years ago. And I like to look at the packaging and I don't want to wait hours to install a 50 to 100 gb game through wifi.

 

[metaphysician]

I imagine Nintendo will generally keep the current pricing for the foreseeable. While I'm sure someone will laugh at the idea, Nintendo leans more towards a price-sensitive market ( ie, families and kids ), so they have more to lose. They aren't going to engage in a generalized MSRP increase until and unless that new MSRP becomes fully normalized.

 

[psylockolussus]

Well from what I read,Nintendo rarely give discounts for their 1st party games, now imagine if they have to increase prices as well.

 

[metaphysician]

No, they regularly discount their first party games. What they don't do is *permanently reduce the MSRP*. And why should they? The things generally continue to sell with long legs for years.

Nintendo just doesn't follow the "only launch sales matter" marketing philosophy that most big video game publishers follow. They don't bank on neophilia the same as, say, Sony or EA, and they aren't worried about internal competition as much either. Whereas when a company like EA tanks their MSRP after a few months, its not out of the goodness of their heart, its because they want to make sure the absolute maximum units sell before the new release shininess wears off of the marketing, and before their next ( possibly very similar genre/style-wise ) release comes out. Call of Assassins 4 continuing to sell strongly for years would be, in their view, a *bad* thing, because a year later they don't want you to buy Call of Assassins 4, they want you to buy Call of Assassins 5.

 

[Sithborg]

Nintendo also generally has sensible AAA development.

 

[metaphysician]

Nintendo also generally has sensible AAA development.

Yeah, that too. They keep budgets under control, don't announce release targets years before they are plausible, and don't focus all their production on a tiny handfuls of genres/styles ( yes, they are most famous for platformers, but their big titles of the past few years also include action-adventure, RPG, strategy games, fighting games, deathmatch TPS. . . ).

And if this seems like a tangent, IMO, its not, because a lot of the industry trends including both prices and "alternate monetization" ultimately arise from unsustainable development practices. Those ridiculously huge budgets that justify, in truth or not, all the weird and aggressive monetization efforts? Happen largely because studios think they can "win" if they just spend more money on making their game incrementally shinier than all the rest, ignoring that if even one other company is *also* doing this, the market situation is utterly different. Putting all your resources into one single hot genre might mean you make more revenue *if* you are the one who "wins", but if 3-4 other companies do the same, than most of you *will* "lose", its inevitable. This is why more companies need to pursue diversification.