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Forums - General Discussion - $59.99. Who determines a video game's standard price?

Fellow gamers Happy new year.

I will like to know whether, there is a body or institution in US that determines the price of a disk game to consumers. I know development costs were all factors but who authorized it to be $59.99?



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Like every price tag, the market defines itself. Captain Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry



How long were games $60? Was it when the 7th gen consoles were release?



Proud to be a Californian.

darkenergy said:
How long were games $60? Was it when the 7th gen consoles were release?

since 2006



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I'm pretty sure I read that it's the Publishers that does the pricing.  They did studies that most consumers are fine with the $59.99 price for a game regardless if they're publishing a higher budget game. 



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Actually 60$ is way to low for AAA games, that's why all the lootboxes crap are common now



SKMBlake said:
Actually 60$ is way to low for AAA games, that's why all the lootboxes crap are common now

I think that canard was officially put to rest this year: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2017/11/20/ea-says-battlefront-ii-microtransaction-change-will-not-affect-earnings.aspx



Actually, $59.99 isn't the publisher's price tag. You can see that when a game is offered at $59.99 in one retailer and $54.99 in another.

The retail price tag is a sum of: Publisher's price tag ($30-$40, that's the price retailers buy a game for) + what the retailer needs to earn to cover all costs).

So actually it's the market who defines the tag and adjusts it when retailers offer different prices.

That's why many people often find digital games price tags too high. Actually, a publisher earns almost 100% of $59.99 when offering a game digitally, because he can massively reduce costs for shipping it.



Video Game industrie is like the movie industry. There is more than 3000 game out every year, 100 don't lose money, and 10 of them pay for the 3000 others.

So yes a AAA make a lot of money. but this one is paying for all the others.

And games are not really expensive today. If you remember, an Atari Jaguar Game was around 150$ at the time, and a neo geo CD was more like 250/300$ and pretty sure an snes game was also around the 150.



The market, usually. I guess publishers are concerned that the sales drop of a price increase aren't worth it.

I guess the first one to do it is afraid of the backlash.

But, in Europe, game prices have risen above 60 euros. I wish they did the same in the US rather than try to get everyone gambling with loot box systems that are not only deplorable and exploitative but ruin the game design.