Gaming exec calls for videogame price hike

Sony’s former European President thinks the average cost of a blockbuster videogame should rise to £70 ($115/€82). Only a price jump would ensure a continued supply of groundbreaking games, according to Chris Deering, who noted the huge increase in development costs in recent years. “In order to price these games at a level …

[Anonymous Coward]

get real

If the price for games went to £70 per title I couldnt justify spending that amount on something that would be played for 6 - 9 hours.

The pre owned market would go through the roof with demand higher than the supply!!

Most games in the future will be heavily supported by DLC, You spend £40 to £50 (eg COD 6) buying the disc, and instead of getting the next release on disc, you download a new single player campaign every 9 months costing £25 - £30 with multiplayer maps being released as and when. Then further down the line, games will be download only for the next gen consoles, this should automatically reduce £7 - £8 per title for the developers.

I wouldnt pay more than £35 for a title that was download only,

[Daniel 22]

simple answer

The games industry is one of the few industries actually doing quite well during this economic down-turn. Games such as Modern Warfare 2, isn't going to cost them too much to make as it has only been in development for around 1.5years at the most. Better yet, it will most likely be similar to the first and won't take too much time to create. And this is coming from one of the richest games companies in the world! (Activision-Blizzzard).

More people own consoles now than ever before. So whilst costs haven't risen, the market has!

Now shut up and go and enjoy your trust fund.

[Gareth 18]

WTF!?

When you can get a 360 for £120 how the hell do the justify more then half that price for a game?

These people must be living on cloud cuckoo land.

[Patrick 14]

I can take the kids out for £70.00

Yes If I am been tight or running out of money I can take my wife and two kids to gullivers kingdom at Matlock bath.

I know that only gets me one day out but I only have to spend £15 on fuel and £45 to get in and all the rides are in the main price. and that leaves £10 for food and yes I do spend a bit more on food.

but it gets the family out for a day and its around 7 hours in the park and 1 hour each way driving. so theres your play time covered for the same price and its outside too. and the kids will have more fun.

But part from that I pay no more than £30 for xbox 360 games and thats at a push. as i do not think that more than that is worth my cash when I can spend it on better things .....lol

And if you really want to save money wait a few years and buy it second hand....

[Richard 31]

Streetfighter II et al

Those who remember the SNES and MegaDrive era may remember the above title retailing for around £70 at the time. Remember this was the early 90's. £70 would probably be more like £100 now.

[Monkey]

Lalalalalala

That's right, blame us for the grossly over inflated wages, premises and studio costs the gaming industry wilfully paid out and made no attempt to curb or control, putting all their eggs in unsuccessful baskets and failing to act despite the warning sign. Even with studios closing and high profile game development studios making talented people redundant did nothing. Put the prices up all you want, because the net result will be more of the same because games just won’t sell.

You gotta love his logic, really you have. He’ll be working in a bank soon, you watch.

[Peter 48]

how to kill a market in one move

If you follow his logic, we would all be paying £50,000 for a new car, because the development cost and technology inside has increased considerably. Seriously, does this guy understand anything about economics? If you want to make sure you only sell 100k copies of a game, hike the price to £75. or drop the price to 1/3 (£25) and sell 1 million copies. One brings a revenue of £7.5 million, the other £25 million. Which would you prefer? The movie industry tried that with Bluray, and look where it got them.

[Balefire]

Stop producing crap

Trying to put into words how I feel about the current games industry but kept falling into the potty mouth trap.

I have yet to see anything worth buying this year. And most of the ones released are just re-hashes of the same crap released last year, maybe with a slightly updated look.

[dirty8]

Don't do it.

I won't pay over £40 for COD 6. I'd rather wait then, as feel, be ripped off.

[Mike82]

Out of touch

In an alternate random universe this clueless game executive would be cleaning toilets.

[Graham 10]

games developers are going to be looking for new jobs then..

if they want to charge £70 for a game they are going to be out of work within a few months.

the banks will forclose on there loans and stripe them down to the clothes on there backs.

give it a year or two and you will be seeing graphic artists sitting on the promade of the shopping mall offering portraits for a £1.. and begging for food to feed there familys..

i generally wait 2-4 months after release to purchase a new game so that the bug fixes are released and before i spend my hard earned cash, this generally means i also benefit from £5-£10 off the price as well.