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| manuelogando40 said: Most of AAA games released these years have a standard price. It is between 60-70 €/$. But after a few months or even weeks its price is well below that figure. As a more recent case we have two releases fallout 76 and Battlefield V. We might think that their initial sales have not been good and hence the discount. However we have cases like Detroit, which is down to $19.99, even though Sony has recently announced that it is the best release to date of Quantic Dream. On the other hand, Nintendo titles like Captain Toad, whose sales are not as good and its price remains stable over time. So, what do you think. Sales, marketing strategy? Thank you for your answers. |
We as humans are easy to manipulate. And both strategies - sales and price stability - are manipulation strategies, that mesh with different strategies to make money.
Slashing the prices is a strategy to incite buying. If a game sells initially at 20€, and you are meh about it, this price may still seem to high. If it was 50€ and then reduced to 20€, the same game suddenly seems like a real great bargain. You can even plan for it. You can calculate your budget with so much sales made at 20€, but release intially at 50€, for the only reason so that you can substantially take off the price and therefore get better sales than if you had it sold initially at that price.
Nintendo (and Apple for that) has a different strategy. They market their games at high value products. This means they have to look for actual quality - therefore you have testing, polish and quality control in most (not all) Nintendo games, which is above usual industry standards (some devs and studios have also high standards, but Nintendo is pretty big for that level). But another point for this is, that prices have for the most part stay stable. Because in our minds the value of any product is influenced by many things, these include the actual price. Take off the price and the product devalues in our minds. That strategy means you have to take the bullet if a game sells badly, but on the other hand you gain much higher profits from successful games and foster an environment with dedicated fans. This is a more risky approach, as you can easily lose said fans if your quality standards slip. But if it works, the profits are pretty stable.
