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[StreetsofBeige]

No shit...

I said it at the start of this gen, that $70 price point pushes games firmly out of that impulse buy/curious buy/FOMO buy category. You have to really want that game to spend $70 on it.

I said it before and I'll repeat it, the best price for games in this industry is $50. That special price point has this unique way of not just justifying itself, it encourages more sales.

At the time of buying any game, pretty much everyone can afford to spend $50 for a new game, and the majority of people would even have $100 in any given month they can spend on games. But it's a much easier sell to say, spend $100 and get two games than spend $70 for one.

I mean I get it, I get why game prices went up, considering how much was being spent making games, they simply needed to get more money from selling them. And there are only two ways to do that, you either sell to a lot of people at $50, or sell to enough people at $70. Guess they concluded that they would rather just sell to 3M people at $70 than sell to 5M at $50. What these publishers are going to quickly learn, is that an average game can do well commercially if its priced at $50. You are sending it out to die, however, if its priced at $70.

IMO, not only should digital games be cheaper as a whole, but the pricing is stupid because it's the only industry I can think of with standard prices where every full budget game is the same starting price of $70 US. Yes sometimes you get some AA games cheaper or a remake or remaster might be cheaper, but for the most part it's $70 US. Indie games are where there's totally odd prices. Every other industry has different prices. You dont get AAA best selling products leagues better at lets say $100 and then no name junk brand is also $100. But in gaming GTA will somehow be the same price as a trash game. Makes no sense.

Also, youd think digital games would be cheaper too, since the medium has zero costs of manufacture and shipping, no inventory costs, you cant trade it back and get money or buy used games, and every gamer has bought their share of backlog games you'll never bother playing which is just free revenue for doing nothing.

I dont think too many people are blowing their wallet backlogging on $70 new releases. But be cheap on a console or Steam deal for half price and suddenly the sales zoom because gamers get notified, buy it and possibly never even play it. Unless it's a top tier game people want at $70, the big sales are probably on e-store discount where people will consider it.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

IMO, not only should digital games be cheaper as a whole, but the pricing is stupid because it's the only industry I can think of with standard prices where every full budget game is the same starting price of $70 US. Yes sometimes you get some AA games cheaper or a remake or remaster might be cheaper, but for the most part it's $70 US. Indie games are where there's totally odd prices. Every other industry has different prices. You dont get AAA best selling products leagues better at lets say $100 and then no name junk brand is also $100. But in gaming GTA will somehow be the same price as a trash game. Makes no sense.

Also, youd think digital games would be cheaper too, since the medium has zero costs of manufacture and shipping, no inventory costs, you cant trade it back and get money or buy used games, and every gamer has bought their share of backlog games you'll never bother playing which is just free revenue for doing nothing.

I dont think too many people are blowing their wallet backlogging on $70 new releases. But be cheap on a console or Steam deal for half price and suddenly the sales zoom because gamers get notified, buy it and possibly never even play it. Unless it's a top tier game people want at $70, the big sales are probably on e-store discount where people will consider it.

Agreed. At the end of the day, you can blame this on dumb consumers. Things are priced as they are, because they "KNOW" they can get away with it. Until they can't.

As it stands, digital prices are what they are to as they claim, match physical retail prices to keep the physical vendors happy. But obviously, this is bullshit cause digital prices don't drop as quickly as physical prices do. So what we have is a system where the platform holders are basically selling into brackets. They sell as many copies as they can at $70. Then do some sort of promotion and sell as many copies as they can at $60, then do the same at $50, $40...etc, until they are giving it for "free" on the service.

If this was being "fair" a digital sale should not cost anything above $60.

But here we are...