On The Mysteries Of PC Computer Game Pricing

Thanks to The Adrenaline Vault for its editorial discussing the recent, seemingly strange retail pricing of PC videogames. The author explains that he has "reviewed a series of recent PC titles with an initial retail price of either $19.99 or, at most, $29.99... This is occurring even as console versions of the same games are selling for around $49.99." He concludes: "From a consumer standpoint, this new pricing pattern is heaven. You can buy more hours of quality virtual interactive entertainment for a lower fee than ever before... The one downside is the ability to get titles released more than six months ago, as small profit margins have led to diminishing shelf space in ever-contracting retail stores." But is there indeed a danger that "smaller [PC-developing] companies often can't handle the loss of revenues from lowered prices, so too dramatic a drop might jeopardize their existence"?

Comments

Where can I find these prices?

[Pvt_Waldo]

$40-$50 seems more like what I'm seeing.

Re:The Theory of Everything (to do with games)

[0x0d0a]

So, in my opinion, there's no mystery -- PC games will go down in price quicker because PC games don't sell as well as console games.

That doesn't seem quite right. There are two cases where the publisher is going to reduce the price of their product. The first is when they simply misjudge the demand for their product, and realize that they cannot sell it at their initial price (as happened recently with the N-Gage). The second is when the publisher wants to benefit from price discrimination -- first they sell the game for $50 to all the people that are willing to pay $50 for itimmediately, then for $40 for the people that are willing to pay $40 for it, and so forth. A publisher will reduce their price more quickly if there is a broad spread of users willing to buy a product at different price points.

Simply not selling as well, volume of sales, doesn't directly relate to either of these two things.