Ail said:
It's standard practice for successfull companies to work on generating demand for their product up to a point where they can set up the price of their product independantly of the real cost of product but more based on the level of the demand... Some people consider that price gouging. Most of the successfull companies of these last 20 years have been doing so....( Apple and Microsoft being the prime example, Nintendo isn't that much different in regard to the pricing of the Wii...) |
Okay. I wanted to understand that point before I made some sort of smarmy comment.
And you are correct. Businesses work to create a product that can bring them a profit - that is positive cash flow after expenses have been taken out for said item, as well as correlating overhead.
You are also correct there is, and is not 'price gouging' of which the OP is trying to argue. Price gouging doesn't exist when there are competing products that are available. Price gouging usually exists when a company has a monopoly on a product, and can charge whatever they want for it (Windows comes to mind).
So how does a video game company commit price gouging? DLC? No. When you purchase a game, you agree to pay for whatever content is available - even if its hidden or made available for a price after launch. The company does not require you to purchase said content. Likewise, no company requires you to pay more than whatever the sticker price is. We can disagree with DLC all we want, but it does exist for purely financial reasons. The video game industry is an industry. It produces items for consumption. It is not there to meet gamers' whims or else we would have Mother 3 in the US and Chrono Gaiden would be a household staple. Video game businesses exist to bring profit, and create viability for their company. Some do it through ruthless product efficiency and high priced systems like Nintendo, while others use loss-leading strategy like Sony. Sometimes it worked for Sony during 1995-2005, and sometimes it fails abysmally such as >2006. That is the business cycle.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
