Game Industry Could Raise Prices

[PoorComputerMan]

I just read the following article on CNN.com. I guess that it had to happen eventually.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/29/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm

[Demolition Man]

Interesting read. One thing to keep in mind however is that even if the game publisher decides to release a game at a slightly higher than usual MSRP many big box chain stores (ie: Circuit City, Best Buy, Wal-Mart) do run it on sale far below the MSRP or have special promotions like $10 gift cards in order to get people to buy the game.

Hell, the author of this article didn't take that into consideration with Doom 3...

[rolisme]

I think raising prices=raising the amount of piracy out there. I dunno, 1 million units at $49.95 seems like a pretty good profit to me. Greed is just going to get these companies to start bitching more about people downloading software as opposed to buying it.

[Shane R. Monroe]

You know ... its disturbing.

In the old days .. $50 for a computer game got you tons of goodies ... velvet maps, pewter icons, nice manuals, and sometimes secret decoder gizmos with a hint book. And the game loaded on like 10 diskettes. They really went the extra mile.

Now, you get a chinsey box, a cheap ass pressed CD, and if you're lucky, a warrantly card. Oh, and its still $50.

And now they want to up it further?

The movie industry has already seen falloffs due to quality vs price issues. Many people that used to go to the movies every single week with their families are more and more turning to DVD now. And its showing - Theater to DVD release windows are getting tighter and tighter; heck, Resident Evil 2 will be on DVD before Christmas! I've heard some directors are actually shooting DVD footage and stuff BEFORE principle photography on the theatrical films.

Its always easy for these industries to scream PIRACY as the reason that the prices are so high. I call shenanigans. Stop making crappy movies and me-too video games and I believe that people would pay what you ask. As it stands, its now too GREAT of a consumer risk to spend that kind of cash. VIDEO GAMES can be rented from Blockbuster the day they come out. MOVIES have a theatrical window.

I predict (someone write this down) that video games will eventually move to sales protection windows ... where games are not ALLOWED to be rented until they have been on sale x number of days. Imagine - you want to play Halo 2... no "try before you buy" ... you buy it full price right now. No rental. No returns. No kidding. Don't think it won't happen.

I do believe that people WILL PAY for quality product. Don't blame piracy for lost revenue. Blame yourselves.

The math speaks miles ... if you sell your game to retailers for $30 and they sell it for $50, you're still talking about $30M cleared - hell, I'll even give you $1M for actual cost to make those one million cheap ass boxes and cheap ass pressed CDs. So, $29M profit on a $5-$10M game ... Damn ... what a great deal. 2.9x profit return. Nice. No wonder everyone wants in the video game business.

[WorknMan]

Its always easy for these industries to scream PIRACY as the reason that the prices are so high. I call shenanigans.

As an example, how much as the price of Windows and MS Office gone down since MS threw in their product activation to thwart piracy? If it's working, lower the prices. If it's not, then remove the product activation.

[Darksol]

I do believe that people WILL PAY for quality product. Don't blame piracy for lost revenue. Blame yourselves.


Couldn't be more true. Why should consumers be expected to reward crap? It should be the other way around. We should reward good stuff and purposely crap on the bad. What does the industry want next ? Entitlements ?