It’s solely been about two years or so for the reason that online game trade started charging $70 for giant video games as an alternative of the same old $60, on account of sport improvement prices growing (and greed). This shift, understandably, didn’t go over effectively with gamers as the price to remain up-to-date with fashionable gaming continues to rise, however that may not cease Take-Two Interactive (the guardian firm of Rockstar Video games) from making an attempt to push it additional with Grand Theft Auto VI—one of many few upcoming video games that might most likely promote for $80.
In 2022, the period of $70 video video games started. Since then we’ve seen WB Video games, Activision, Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, and different corporations start promoting their greatest, fanciest video games for $10 greater than the $60 price ticket that had been in place for years. The response to those elevated costs wasn’t nice, however video games like Name of Obligation and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom bought effectively even with the upper price ticket. And in Take-Two’s newest earnings name, CEO Strauss Zelnick appeared to set the groundwork for costs going up.
As reported by Gamespot, when Zelnick was requested about how Take-Two decides what to cost for video games like Grand Theft Auto VI and Borderlands, he didn’t present any particular costs and as an alternative shared the writer’s pricing philosophy.
“Look, there’s extra content material continuously being made obtainable, and we actually purpose to ship nice worth at any given time,” stated Zelnick. “We’re so targeted on delivering extra worth than what we cost. And that’s type of the rubric.”
He additional added that every time Take-Two establishes a sport’s value, the corporate desires to ensure that it’s “excellent news” for gamers and that “the expertise vastly over delivers” in comparison with the value level. “ That’s the purpose,” added Zelnick.
If we glance again at latest feedback from Zelnick, I’ve some severe questions on what he considers excellent news and good worth for shoppers.
Zelnick’s ideas on good worth and $70 video games
In August 2023, when followers criticized Take-Two for charging $50 for the great, however bare-bones Pink Useless Redemption and Undead Nightmare PS4 and Swap ports, this was Zelnick’s response:
“That’s simply what we consider is the commercially correct value for it,” Zelnick informed IGN after an earnings name.
“[Red Dead Redemption] was a terrific standalone sport in its personal proper when it was initially launched, so we really feel prefer it’s a terrific bundle for the primary time, and definitely a terrific worth for shoppers.” I’d argue that $50 isn’t an “correct value” for a fundamental port of a decade-plus previous open-world Xbox 360 sport that, at launch no less than, didn’t assist 60FPS and eliminated all the net multiplayer modes.
In Could 2023, Zelnick additionally indicated that there wasn’t any shopper pushback on publishers charging $70 as an alternative of $60 on some large video games, like Gotham Knights.
“What we’re seeing is shoppers are looking for to restrict their spending by going both to the stuff they actually, actually care about, blockbusters, or to worth, and generally it may very well be each,” stated Zelnick.“And the excellent news is, we’ve got a bunch of blockbusters and we’ve got a beautiful catalog.”
All of this appears to recommend that Zelnick believes $70 video games work, shoppers don’t thoughts them, ports are value $50, and folks will purchase your blockbuster video games if they’re actually enthusiastic about them, even when they must handle their cash. That makes me marvel what Grand Theft Auto 6’s value will find yourself being when it launches in 2025.
If any sport can cost $80 (or extra) it’s GTA 6
Wanting again in any respect his feedback and Take-Two’s latest historical past makes me marvel: Will Zelnick determine that GTA 6 is value greater than $70?
Will he take a look at some of the hyped video games in human historical past, the sequel to one of many best-selling video video games of all time, and a blockbuster open-world journey that may probably be huge, and suppose “Oh gamers can pay $80 and even $90 for that!” I believe that’s an actual risk and if it occurs, I’d wager my subsequent lunch that he’d clarify on an earnings name that followers are getting a “nice worth” for that $80.
Certain, it appears foolish and even downright idiotic in 2024 or 2025 to cost greater than $70. We’ve seen numerous examples during the last 18 months or so of massive, costly video games failing to attach with gamers, critics, and fandoms, whereas smaller indie titles charging much less are exploding in recognition. I imply, one of many greatest video games in 2024 is Helldivers 2 and it sports activities a $40 price ticket. In simply the previous few months, Manor Lords, Grey Zone Warfare, and Content material Warning have discovered large success on Steam and so they all price far lower than $70.
However Grand Theft Auto 6 is completely different. It’s the following entry in one of many greatest online game franchises on the planet, will probably have a large advertising and marketing push, and is the follow-up to GTA V and GTA On-line, a number of the most profitable items of leisure in historical past.
It additionally has an nearly inconceivable quantity of hype surrounding it, with gamers and followers going feral over tiny updates to Rockstar’s back-end servers. These similar folks make theories based mostly on birds in teaser pictures and monitor down each piece of lower GTA content material they will discover utilizing all types of strategies. These are followers who, if requested, would probably purchase GTA 6 at $80. And I believe there are many different folks on the market who would rapidly toss $80 to Rockstar and Take-Two if it meant they may play what’s going to probably be the most important online game launch in 2025.
So actually, at this level, the one factor stopping Take-Two from charging greater than $70 (and providing shoppers a lot “nice worth”) is Zelnick and different executives taking a look at all this and deciding to not be grasping. And folk, I’m not holding my breath, particularly as video games price an increasing number of to make and take longer and longer to create. I believe if Zelnick and Take-Two consider GTA 6 can succeed at $80 they’ll cost that and promote you a particular version for much more.
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