Tim Stuart
"Yes. I think we're not making specific announcements on first-party pricing yet. So we'll do that sort of in due time. But again, if -- I think if publishers can find a price point that works for their audience, defines a price point that works for the maximization of, I'll say users and revenue, because you want to drive engagement. I talk about engagement equals currency a lot. Engagement is the ability for you to drive wholesale monetization, to drive activation of your content, to drive sort of hours in your service. Because these games are becoming, as we all know, they're becoming ecosystems under their own -- or onto their own. Call of Duty wants to keep a Call of Duty player and monetize them down the road. FIFA wants to keep a FIFA player in their ecosystem and monetize down the road.
So I think we'll look at publishers to make the right decision for their content. If they can drive a premium price point or a higher price point, I think that's warranted. And I'd say, your point is exactly right. Prices have not gone up in -- what, for a couple of generations now, so it's not unheard of to see things like this going on.
And to the point earlier, content creation costs go up. And these publishers and content creators, including ourselves, want to make sure you're driving the right gross margin profiles, the right earnings profiles of what it takes to build these new, awesome, amazing games. And you want to make sure you have a good top line to support that."
Wow. I'm kind of blown away by how non-chalantly he talks about "driving engagement, and revenue". Allow me to translate this corpo-speak into normal human words...
Stuart: Yes. I think we're not making specific announcements on first-party pricing yet.
Translation: We haven't announced it yet, but we're going to ask for $70 for all of our MS first party titles.
Stuart: But again, if -- I think if publishers can find a price point that works for their audience, defines a price point that works for the maximization of, I'll say users and revenue, because you want to drive engagement. I talk about engagement equals currency a lot. Engagement is the ability for you to drive wholesale monetization, to drive activation of your content, to drive sort of hours in your service.
Translation: Whatever price point gets the most users, while also getting the most money up front is the best price point. Because you want people hooked on a single game forever. If they are hooked on a single game forever, they will spend all of their money on the microtransactions. So we have to find a nice balance between charging as much as we possibly can for the initial game without lowering the userbase. That way we can design all our games to be grindy messes, and then offer MTX as the solution. This will maximize profits!
Stuart: Because these games are becoming, as we all know, they're becoming ecosystems under their own -- or onto their own. Call of Duty wants to keep a Call of Duty player and monetize them down the road. FIFA wants to keep a FIFA player in their ecosystem and monetize down the road.
Translation: EA and Activision have found a way to sell people digital goods that costs next to nothing for them to produce, and they are making a killing off it. Let's face it. All games will eventually become this. And as a corporate shill I really like that idea! Good for them!
Stuart:So I think we'll look at publishers to make the right decision for their content. If they can drive a premium price point or a higher price point, I think that's warranted. And I'd say, your point is exactly right. Prices have not gone up in -- what, for a couple of generations now, so it's not unheard of to see things like this going on.And to the point earlier, content creation costs go up. And these publishers and content creators, including ourselves, want to make sure you're driving the right gross margin profiles, the right earnings profiles of what it takes to build these new, awesome, amazing games. And you want to make sure you have a good top line to support that."
Translation: These games cost a bunch of money to make. So much so that we need to charge as much as humanly possible, while still having MTX in our games, or else we'll go bankrupt! Not really, but I'm going to lie to you about that because I want to swim in money like Scrooge McDuck!
