$60 has become something of a de facto standard for next gen software pricing. Many would argue that the increase was necessary to compensate for rising development costs. However, EA Canada senior producer Jason DeLong thinks that price will actually be going down in the near future.
"I think that we’re going to start to see – maybe not in the next year, but in the near future – games go down the route of smaller up-front experiences and lower prices at the beginning and then the ability to extend the game through episodic material or future feature material,” said DeLong to Game Informer. “I think that’s a direction we’re probably heading in."
"Games are getting more expensive, and times are tough, and it’s getting harder to purchase every game you want,” he added. “So, how can we keep people playing and offer them more but not have to make them break the bank to do it? It’s going to be an interesting creative problem for us to solve."
EA has become very fond of “day one” DLC offerings, so what DeLong is talking about sounds like an expansion on that. We'd like to see more companies realign the way they sell packaged retail goods, particularly in the multiplayer arena.
1 Comments
January 6, 2010
Well, it's nice that someone is thinking about the post-retail future... I hope that there is executive support for this. I think the model for the future should be DLC-centric, not retail-centric. THis would lead to development schedules that could 1 year or less, with manageable teams, keeping the design to a more predictable schedule. Then you could sell the title for a lower price, if you didn't have to worry about cost of goods, and sell DLC as interest dictates. If the game is successful, create a retail package with some of the DLC and some new stuff. THis would lead to much less risk, more predictable schedules, and higher profits all around.
Some major publisher will wake up to this...