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Forums - Gaming - Different Price Models Needed in the Game Industry

burninmylight on 02 July 2013
JayWood2010 said:

I for one believes that the gaming industry needs to adapt.  Right now we are seeing the industry being dominated by two categories.  AAA and Indie/Arcade. Even then we also see plenty of failures.  B rated games on the other hand does not do so well and this is partly because the pricing sucks.  I believe every game should have a different price based off of their budgets and stop putting a set price for every game.   Why in the world would a B rated game need to be $60 anyways to turn a profit?  That would be like charging $40 for Limbo.  Just not worth it.

Example below.

AAA Games - $60

B Rated Games $30-$40

Arcade/Indie - 0.99c - $20

And while we are at it, please do something about DLC.  DLC has been a great introduction to added content to the market but as they stand they are also too expensive for the amount of content we are recieiving at this given moment.

Map Packs for example at most should b $10 although they should probably be around $5.  Anyways you know where I'm getting at.

So any thoughts?

I've felt this way for years. The direction of the industry now is killing the Double A game market. Games like Harvest Moon and Rune Factory will never compete with GTA and Mass Effect. And at the same price level, I don't blame anyone who'd rather purchase Super Mario Galaxy over Boom Blox. I can think of any number of games over the years that I would have loved to have, but the price just wasn't doing it for me.



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SvennoJ on 02 July 2013

I doubt it will be favorable to B rated niche titles. I don't think they'll sell twice as much to justify halving the price. The people that are looking for those titles will think they are worth it anyway.
It will sooner be the other way around, popular AAA titles going up to $70.

Why start with a low price if you can sell high, fans buy the game and spread word of mouth, then drop the price when sales decline to lure in the fence sitters.

How about $60 at release, offer $40 digital version one month after release, Steam like sales a year after release. That's also a much better way to combat second hand sales.



KHlover on 02 July 2013
JayWood2010 said:
NiKKoM said:
I would like to add that digital should be cheaper/or retail more expensive with 10 to 15 bucks with AAA games and 5 to 10 with B games


Agreed.  All digital needs to go the Steam route to be honest.  Even Nintendo.  I was looking through the Eshop last night and it annoyed me that they were selling games that are a decade old for $7.  

The only time Steam games are cheap is during the sales. The rest of the time most of the games are even more expensive than retail. And about old games:

Just an example - Valve still sells Half-Life 1 for 10€. Why shouldn't Nintendo be allowed to sell Ocarina of Time - which is only two years older - for 10€? GOG.com would have been a better example, with most games between 3-5€.



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Jaywood2010 on 02 July 2013
KHlover said:
JayWood2010 said:
NiKKoM said:
I would like to add that digital should be cheaper/or retail more expensive with 10 to 15 bucks with AAA games and 5 to 10 with B games


Agreed.  All digital needs to go the Steam route to be honest.  Even Nintendo.  I was looking through the Eshop last night and it annoyed me that they were selling games that are a decade old for $7.  

The only time Steam games are cheap is during the sales. The rest of the time most of the games are even more expensive than retail. And about old games:

Just an example - Valve still sells Half-Life 1 for 10€. Why shouldn't Nintendo be allowed to sell Ocarina of Time - which is only two years older - for 10€? GOG.com would have been a better example, with most games between 3-5€.


Steam sells most AAA games for a $50 entry point instead of $60 which is what I was referring to.  As for Nintendo Over pricing games that are decades old I stand behind that.  They dont have the steam like sales either to lower that price.




       

KHlover on 02 July 2013
JayWood2010 said:
KHlover said:
JayWood2010 said:
NiKKoM said:
I would like to add that digital should be cheaper/or retail more expensive with 10 to 15 bucks with AAA games and 5 to 10 with B games


Agreed.  All digital needs to go the Steam route to be honest.  Even Nintendo.  I was looking through the Eshop last night and it annoyed me that they were selling games that are a decade old for $7.  

The only time Steam games are cheap is during the sales. The rest of the time most of the games are even more expensive than retail. And about old games:

Just an example - Valve still sells Half-Life 1 for 10€. Why shouldn't Nintendo be allowed to sell Ocarina of Time - which is only two years older - for 10€? GOG.com would have been a better example, with most games between 3-5€.


Steam sells most AAA games for a $50 entry point instead of $60 which is what I was referring to.  As for Nintendo Over pricing games that are decades old I stand behind that.  They dont have the steam like sales either to lower that price.

What? Nintendo has deals on both eshops all the time. They might not have those crazy 75-90% off sales, but they have deals nontheless.



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Jaywood2010 on 02 July 2013
KHlover said:
JayWood2010 said:


Steam sells most AAA games for a $50 entry point instead of $60 which is what I was referring to.  As for Nintendo Over pricing games that are decades old I stand behind that.  They dont have the steam like sales either to lower that price.

What? Nintendo has deals on both eshops all the time. They might not have those crazy 75-90% off sales, but they have deals nontheless.


Again referring to the Steam like sales.  




       

crissindahouse on 02 July 2013
JayWood2010 said:
KHlover said:

The only time Steam games are cheap is during the sales. The rest of the time most of the games are even more expensive than retail. And about old games:

Just an example - Valve still sells Half-Life 1 for 10€. Why shouldn't Nintendo be allowed to sell Ocarina of Time - which is only two years older - for 10€? GOG.com would have been a better example, with most games between 3-5€.


Steam sells most AAA games for a $50 entry point instead of $60 which is what I was referring to.  As for Nintendo Over pricing games that are decades old I stand behind that.  They dont have the steam like sales either to lower that price.

no, pc games just cost 10 or even 20 bucks less. that's the same when you buy a pc game at retail and it was like that 10 years ago without steam. there are no royalties on pc, that's why console games cost 10 bucks more.



Jaywood2010 on 02 July 2013
crissindahouse said:
JayWood2010 said:
KHlover said:

The only time Steam games are cheap is during the sales. The rest of the time most of the games are even more expensive than retail. And about old games:

Just an example - Valve still sells Half-Life 1 for 10€. Why shouldn't Nintendo be allowed to sell Ocarina of Time - which is only two years older - for 10€? GOG.com would have been a better example, with most games between 3-5€.


Steam sells most AAA games for a $50 entry point instead of $60 which is what I was referring to.  As for Nintendo Over pricing games that are decades old I stand behind that.  They dont have the steam like sales either to lower that price.

no, pc games just cost 10 or even 20 bucks less. that's the same when you buy a pc game at retail and it was like that 10 years ago without steam. there are no royalties on pc, that's why console games cost 10 bucks more.

Interesting.  Didn't know that.  I haven't bought a retail PC game in a long time.




       

crissindahouse on 02 July 2013
JayWood2010 said:

Interesting.  Didn't know that.  I haven't bought a retail PC game in a long time.

there are maybe also other reasons but that is at least a big reason why pc games were always cheaper. publishers can sell the game for less money but will still get the same amount per sold game because there is no microsoft/nintendo/sony asking for a part of it.



RenCutypoison on 02 July 2013

Changes take time.

People will make it adapt, by buying what they think is worth the price, and marketing guys will follow, like always.