$60 Games Soon To Be Slashed

[King_Of_Vagabonds]

I think the industry should just be more responsive to demand pressure for games, and adjust pricing according. Let Retailers fluctuate pricing according to their inventories and prior agreed minimum (say 35 dollars,euros, cowry shells, whatever) and max (70-100 choice of currency) pricing schemes. As retailers get better price price per shipment (with a minimum # of items shipped, say 5K) they should be rewarded by an extra percent or more of avg price, something to help offset credit card purchases on the titles at least.

With ebay, rentals, other online retailers, internet piracy, and other factors, I doubt that the added market place chaos would be all that detrimental to consumer confidence in the industry. If anything more people will buy games as they think that they've came across a good deal at an opportune time and make a purchase that they might otherwise have held off on. Conversely new games could go for higher prices than they might other wise have fetched with the current pricing scheme.

The only downfall is I don't know how firmly entrenched the market place is to the current pricing scheme, but all the other markets are adapting (see DRM free iTunes), video game publishers are probably going to have to do something to match. Because for anyone who hasn't taken an economics class yet, video games are in competition with every single other industry, and not just fellow publishers. Game pricing seems the only viable tool publishers have. Anti-piracy measures are too quickly subverted.

Lowering prices should not be the only option left to publishers, to increase sales. It might make all of us consumers feel better about our situations, but I don't see how down(lowering prices) should be the only way to go up...Unless your bias to consumers is just a mere act of self-preservation.

The plus side is that according to the information I have. The game industry is one of the few industries that is really actively growing YoY, so as a whole there is no need to panic. Lowering prices would probably just be pandering to an ailment that doesn't afflict the industry. If anything it would just let certain publishers wreck long term business plans of their fellow software publishers.