Crazy pricing in digital retailers

[T_ConX]

Ass is Red 5(frames per second) and Far Cry 4 are $70 CAN each, along with $30 CAN seasons passes...

That's cool... I can wait until Summer Sale for a reasonable price... It's not like I don't have a backlog to work through this holiday season or something...

You know, between this and those songs getting pulled from the Steam version of GTA:SA, I'm just happy that we can rely on a completely ethical and highly trust-worthy gaming press to look out for our best interest in all this!

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GamerGate was right...

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Digital sales of a game would be pretty close to pure profit after youve paid the cost of the development cycle unless I am missing something its kinda crazy that they price them like brick and mortar stores. Servers for downloading from surely wouldnt cost much to maintain. Maybe once this transitionary period has finished and all those brick and mortar stores sadly die we will see more reasonable pricing.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Ah, of course. Should have factored that in.
Then we might see another increase before many more people start complaining I'm thinking.

Well, they haven't gotten my money in a long while anyway. ,)

I actually sort of wonder how much they could get away with.

That is a good question. It also depends on whether you mean buying price or original price.
I'm thinking that one aspect of having constant sales is to hide and distort the value of the true price.
Making a guess, I would say that they could get away with as much as 120$.
Not counting that some would pay whatever price they set.

What do you think they could get away with?

 

[Cryselle]

You also have to keep in mind that there is a fair amount of unwillingness to rock the boat, as it were. Sure, you can distribute games digitally, but you can't move consoles that way, and the vast majority of publishers have a foot in the console market. Consoles need stores like Gamestop to sell them, which means anyone involved in that market doesn't want to piss off the stores too terribly much. If you sell your game for half what Gamestop can charge, then nobody buys from the store, and the store stops carrying your product. And advertising your product. And any other products you may want to sell, for that matter (keep in mind just how much money Activision makes from Skylanders... which NEEDS stores to sell them).

This is also why you see things like Gamestop Exclusive content. The "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" relationship between them and the publishers. As long as physical stores are relevant to publishers (even if you don't personally use them) you won't see free-market forces actually hitting AAA games on primary digital sellers like Steam.

 

[MetalDooley]

Been complaining about this for years and this is exactly why I don't buy digital games unless they're heavily discounted in a sale.Digital games on XBL can often be up to ?20 more expensive than physical copies and stay at the high price for way longer than physical.Nintendo's E-Shop is almost as bad with digital copies generally being ?5-?10 more expensive.Can't speak for PSN but I don't imagine they're much better

Problem is as long as people are willing to pay the extra publishers/retailers will continue to charge it

 

[Doom972]

Vote with your wallet by buying games only when they get to a reasonable price. After they'll collect enough sales data they will might change their pricing policy. Also, don't forget that the Steam Winter Sale is coming soon.

 

[Cryselle]

Vote with your wallet by buying games only when they get to a reasonable price. After they'll collect enough sales data they will might change their pricing policy. Also, don't forget that the Steam Winter Sale is coming soon.

The problem is that games 'success' is primarly based on two numbers. The amount of pre-orders, and the final tally for copies sold. I honestly think that most publishers would drop the price on their game by 50% the day after it got released if they didn't think it'd piss off every single person who pre-ordered it at full price.

 

[Doom972]

Vote with your wallet by buying games only when they get to a reasonable price. After they'll collect enough sales data they will might change their pricing policy. Also, don't forget that the Steam Winter Sale is coming soon.

The problem is that games 'success' is primarly based on two numbers. The amount of pre-orders, and the final tally for copies sold. I honestly think that most publishers would drop the price on their game by 50% the day after it got released if they didn't think it'd piss off every single person who pre-ordered it at full price.

I'm not sure if I see your point. A game could have a reasonable price to begin with, which means that pre-orders will also be reasonably priced.

 

[Cryselle]

Vote with your wallet by buying games only when they get to a reasonable price. After they'll collect enough sales data they will might change their pricing policy. Also, don't forget that the Steam Winter Sale is coming soon.

The problem is that games 'success' is primarly based on two numbers. The amount of pre-orders, and the final tally for copies sold. I honestly think that most publishers would drop the price on their game by 50% the day after it got released if they didn't think it'd piss off every single person who pre-ordered it at full price.

I'm not sure if I see your point. A game could have a reasonable price to begin with, which means that pre-orders will also be reasonably priced.

Yes, but there are other reasons why they price them where they do to start, some of which are touched on by mine and other posts above. The problem is that you see 1 million people buying at full price and 5 million people buying at 50% off and think "They over priced it, if they had started at the lower price point, they'd have had an easy 6 million or more sales to start with". They think "Cool! We got 1 million people to pay twice as much for it!"

 

[Something Amyss]

I hope you're not going to give me a run around and argue technicalities again.

There's no technicality:

The question is why it hasn't worked so far.

I didn't ask it. You even say this in your very next sentence, then go on to say it's implied. Which it wasn't. The fact that the very next thing I said went to the same sentiment should have indicated that. It wasn't even a different post where you claim I "answered my own question."

Come on.

That is a good question. It also depends on whether you mean buying price or original price.
I'm thinking that one aspect of having constant sales is to hide and distort the value of the true price.
Making a guess, I would say that they could get away with as much as 120$.
Not counting that some would pay whatever price they set.

What do you think they could get away with?

I mean strictly list price. Though to be honest, those list prices affect sale prices. A 95% off sale always looks more appealing, even if 95% of 100 dollars ends up costing you more than 95% of 60 dollars.

As for how much I think they could get away with, I don't know. I thought Microsoft was going to lose out with Games on Demand and several of their games being more expensive than the current store prices, but apparently, people were buying enough for them to expand the service and continue that same trend. And they're not Steam. So I'm really not sure. I can't even imagine paying list price for most games, espcially knowing they'll usually be half off or more in a year, so it baffles me that people would pay (retail+10) or more. I don't have an exact number, but I wonder if people would go to (retail+20) or (retail+30). I also wonder if it's relative. Would people who already pay more (UK or AUS) have a lower threshold because they're paying more, or since they're used to being gouged, would they be more willing to go above retail/list/whatever?

Especially Australia, a nation where it's already often cheaper to import.

 

[Cryselle]

I'll be perfectly honest, I'll pay list price on some games that I enjoy. $30 to get the game, and $30 for the ability to complete said game before some jackoff spoils the ending on me.

 

[Doom972]

Vote with your wallet by buying games only when they get to a reasonable price. After they'll collect enough sales data they will might change their pricing policy. Also, don't forget that the Steam Winter Sale is coming soon.

The problem is that games 'success' is primarly based on two numbers. The amount of pre-orders, and the final tally for copies sold. I honestly think that most publishers would drop the price on their game by 50% the day after it got released if they didn't think it'd piss off every single person who pre-ordered it at full price.

I'm not sure if I see your point. A game could have a reasonable price to begin with, which means that pre-orders will also be reasonably priced.

Yes, but there are other reasons why they price them where they do to start, some of which are touched on by mine and other posts above. The problem is that you see 1 million people buying at full price and 5 million people buying at 50% off and think "They over priced it, if they had started at the lower price point, they'd have had an easy 6 million or more sales to start with". They think "Cool! We got 1 million people to pay twice as much for it!"

Correct. That's why if more would wait for a price drop, their sales data would show that it's better for them to start from a lower price. It's also worth mentioning that as far as publishers are concerned, sales in the first two weeks after release determine whether or not a game is a success and how successful it is.

 

[panosbouk]

I jump a little late to this thread, but since I saw the pricing on Dragon Age, I remembered again the whole thing.

For the digital copies they don't have to pay for packing, shipping and (I don't remember the correct word) a form of insurance for copies that are not sold and left on selves. And most importantly for PC, royalties. So why should I pay 60 euros for the standard game (not deluxe witch is 70) and not 40 to my retailer near me? And the time I will get the game and start installing it would be much more faster than downloading 20-25GB, even with my 24Mbps internet connection.

 

[Dissentient]

There are many websites that buy physical disks and sell CD-keys from then online (to activate them on Steam/Origin). Getting new games this way is around 30% cheaper.
Yes, this is indeed backwards and wasteful.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Is it a sign of a sick pricing system?

No, it's a sign of the physical retailers (more specifically the large chains) still having the publishers by whatever-passes-for-their-balls.

Think back to a few years ago when some chain in the UK started threatening to stop carryingg PC games that used Steam.

Think back to the launch of The Witcher 2, when distributors where threatening legal action against CDP/CDPR/GOG for offering the game at a lower price than it's recommended shelf price in various regions (and is one of the reasons Bandai-Namco earn a giant Fuck Off from me)

 

[Ravinoff]

I was getting pretty excited for Far Cry 4 after picking up the franchise pack on Steam for $10. Then I see that the basic edition of 4 will run $70 on Steam, and the "Gold Edition" is $100. Fuck right off with that, I can wait.