A New Blockbuster Video Games May Cost $115 If Chris Deering Has His Way
I don’t know about most of you, but I find the prices of some video games pretty steep, and I’m lucky if I can find enough disposable money to buy three games a year. And looks like things are about to change. Chris Deering the former President of Sony Europe believes people should be paying on average £70 ($115/€82) per blockbuster video game. His reasoning? According to Deering: “In order to price these games at a level where they would support an industry [as strongly as] they did ten years ago, they’d have to be sold at £70”. This is from recent statement MCVUK.com a website dedicated to the gaming business. This comment comes shortly after the recent price hike from Activision, raising the price of Modern Warfare 2.
It’s currently costing companies more and more to develop games and they publishers are finding that the return on investment (the production of video games) is dwindling. Of course companies, like people, want to make money; who doesn’t? I think a simple solution would be to keep keep initial prices the same, but in the longterm, prices should not drop so quickly. Prices for games should decrease after a year for consoles and for PC titles, they should drop prices after six months*. Not only will this bring in more money but it’ll alo provide a psychological improvement in people as well. I ask: How many of you have bought a game at `new release price`, only to get pissed off after the game drops in price after a couple of months? It happens to to me on a regular basis.
If anything like this does happen, the market itself will actually die down. Unlike oil (which is a necessity in life from everything to powering cars, to lubricants) when the price rises people have no other solution than to pay the price asked. In a market like video games, it’s based off of wants, not needs. People like myself currently take pause at $60 per game; at $115 per game, they will just stop buying games. Another drawback to higher game prices will be an increase in piracy, which will diminish profits even more.
This subject is a fine line which I feel dare not be crossed. What do you think?
*numbers reflect my current personal perception of price changes in the videogame market, I know not all games follow this pattern.
