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EA Slashing Current-Gen Pricetags
kukyfrope writes "In order to help push current-gen sales, EA is slashing prices on some of its upcoming titles. For instance, two of EA's most anticipated titles, The Godfather (March 14) and Black (February 28), will retail for $39.95." From the article: "It'll be interesting to see how the market reacts to these price cuts. We would guess that several other publishers could soon follow EA's lead and drop the prices on their upcoming current-gen software also. It could be just the strategy the industry needs to boost overall sales. $39.95 looks like a bargain when it's sitting on the shelf next to a next-generation game priced at $59.95."
Lower prices mean more sales. Umm, what else is there to say?
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I'm an avid Need for Speed fan... every recent release comes out at $70 (Canadian) and then a week later it's down to $60, then a month later it's $50... then about 2 months after that it's in the bargain bin for $20.
If they started pricing games more reasonably, based on length, quality, and quantity of game play, then maybe they'd make money, and a much better return on investment... but instead, I just sit around waiting for a month before buying the game.
Then again, if you can sell a crap game for 4 times as much as the reasonable market value, why not!?
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
There are very few games I'm willing to pay full price for these days. Especially when you can wait a few months to get the "collector's edition" for the same price as the regular. Otherwise, I'll wait for a significant discount on Amazon or the $20 USD or under bargin bin.
I seriously doubt this, but maybe some of the big ind.'s are starting to listen... Get rid of the bloat and you'll make for a happier customer!
Sabre
...If the game doesnt suck. Neither of those games looks particularly promising IMHO.
"To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable."
Just because no one is willing to give you a free T-shirt doesn't mean you should boycott every game company out there. Spend your money on clothes instead of video games for a change. :P
I seriously hope they never start pricing based on length or 'quantity of game play' or else studious will start stuffing their games with mindless repetition in order to boost both of those stats. It's bad enough with the current crop of RPGs which either feature mind-numbing repetitios features (maybe it's to prepare you for the level grind of MMORPGs) or endless cut scenes interspersed with 10 minutes of actual game play.
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Not that they've had anything remotely interesting lately anyway...
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I guess the workweek will have to go to 120 hours to make up for the lost revenue.
Give it a break, will 'ya. EA cutting prices on anticipated games such as Black and The Godfather is a good thing for anyone who's been waiting to sample these, and for those who think they will suck, well, let's wait for the reviews, shall we?
Sure, EA has published a fair number of crap games, but they have a long legacy of producing good stuff as well.
"In order to help push current-gen sales, EA is slashing prices on some of its upcoming titles. For instance, two of EA's most anticipated titles, The Godfather (March 14) and Black (February 28), will retail for $39.95."
That's what we call spin. What they really wanted to say is:
"Having reviewed testers' opinion on our upcoming games, we realise they stand no chance of being successful. Subsequently we will attempt to sell off as many copies at $40 as possible before the public wisens up to this."
Take Hacker:Elite - released a couple years back at 30 dollars to start. Box looked great, concept sounded great, game itself was short and ultimately pretty dull. Fortunately these days anyone with google, 4th grade reading comprehension, and enough patience to wait a day, can tell if a game sucks or not without blowing 30-50 dollars on it.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
Remember when EA said that all their sports games for the next (now current) gen systems were going to be $30 from then on 2-3 years ago? The focus being on Madden, so it could compete with the superior 2k series. Then remember the next two rounds of EA sports games debuted mostly at $50? Yeah. More EA doublespeak.
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
How does it look sitting next to the used game for $15? Especially if the new game is "Getting Up" sitting next to a copy of, oh, the first "Prince of Persia" or "GTA: San Andreas" or whatever older game you think was awesome.
Don't get me wrong, though: I'm all for cheaper video games. And frankly, I'm sure it's just a matter of the game-buying public being unwilling to shell out $50 for a "last-gen" game when the new hotness is available for just $10 more. I mean, have you looked at the price of PS1 games lately? They used to run $40, too.
By the same token, you should boycott Nintendo as well. Hmm. Maybe you can look up a used Amiga on ebay and get some games for that one (though many of the great ones were made by EA, and many more were distributed by EA, so I guess you're better off just passing on gaming altogether until a shiny and untarnished new corporation appears that will make a console to your liking).
You're assuming that they receive less with a lower suggested retail price.
We don't know the wholesale costs, nor do we know what in-game-revenue deals for product placement, or pricing of game supplement materials (books, add-ons, t-shirts, sports cars paint jobs, etc) are.
It's possible that they could drop the pricing from $59.99 SRP to $39.99 SRP per unit, sell five times as many units but only drop production/marketing/delivery costs by a fraction - more volume discounts on shipping, easier channel costs, better ad buys, easier to spin marketing with higher demand, and also make up for it in the add-on and in-game-advertising (Coke/Pepsi/GM/etc) to where they really don't "lose" much at all, and gain a lot more.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
After firing thousands, why not reduce prices? Sounds great. On to the salad course.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I won't even look at buying a game until it's dropped below $30, and most I wait until it's below $20. A few exceptions are things like Psychonauts or Doom 3.
It might take a while, but by the time I get a game, it'll have most of it's patches out, the game guides will be up, and I'll have seen enough reviews to know if it is even worth buying in the first place.
MMORPGS are left until the client is released for free. I'm not spending money to buy a game that requires a monthly subscription.
(sorry: I just had to say that).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
...and I personally think the Winning Eleven series is a more solid series than FIFA is. Maybe they're learning that people aren't all to concerned about Madden 05, Madden 06, etc, when the only major difference is the roster, while more important aspects (like physics, which Konomi constantly improves in it's WE/Pro Evolution Soccer games) remain fundamentally unchanged for years at a time?
Funny. That web site comes up just fine in Firefox. Shouldn't anyone browsing the Interweb at this stage expect that many sites require Flash and use one of the many browsers (in Windows, OSX and Linux) that supports it? Either that, or not whine like a child when you choose not to subject yourself to something you don't want?
Our current economic system is built around charging an optimal amount for a given product. Basically prices are set at the sweet spot where the most people will pay the most money for a given product. Charge more and some people will still pay, but you'll make less money from all the people who opt not to buy the product. Charge less and more people might buy the product, but the greater sales don't make up the difference in profit you would get were you to charge more for the product.
While it's certainly possible (some would say en vouge) to debate the merits of our system here, there seems to me to be a big mistake that a lot of game publishers (and movie publishers) have traditionally made. The problem is the "a movie is a movie" or "a game is a game" attitude. The thing about it is, that sweet spot for how much I or many other people are willing to pay for a game varies greatly on a number of factors.
Games around here generally retail new for between $49.99 and $54.99. There are some games that I would certainly pay more for, because they hold more value for me. I would venture to say that there are a few top tier titles that could easily go for $65 and not stuffer hardly any loss in sales. Likewise there are a lot of games that I would buy if they were cheaper, but that I don't really see the value in for $50 or $55.
It seems though that the game industry has begun to realize that all games cannot be treated economically the same. I excpect that the end result of this will be that we'll see the average game cost less, with a rise in cost for premium games.
Hopefully this will also lead to more niche and experimental games that companies may have not forseen selling at all at $50 but which may do well at $25 (Katamari Damacy anybody?). The benefit of this is games that very possibly would have not turned any profit when sold at $50 could turn a small profit when soold at $25. Companies could then experiment more with genres and possibly find a new huge seller. This will be good for developers who won't be under so much preassure (instead of a game being either a breakway hit or a flop it could be mildy successfull), for companies (they find new product lines that could make them merry bundles of cash) and for games (we get some cheaper games and some better games).
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
EA Cuts Current-Gen Prices
;)
Let's at least mix the subjects around when we're going to get a month-late dupe
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Didn't they also slash the price on a handful of other games after less than spectacular holiday sales?
I know Need For Speed Most Wanted dropped to $40 from $50
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I think the price drop is an amazing strategy. Not only do brand new games like Black seem like a steal at $40, but lower rent games like Arena Football seem like highway robbery at a brand new price of only $30. I for one am much more inclined to buy, and have done so, at these lower prices. Additionally, with the "throw a dart at the calendar" release date of the PS3, which will cost between $5-$10,000, people will still feel like they're saving money for the PS3 while still building their PS2 libraries. Brilliant. "I'm a consumer whore!" "AND HOW!!!"
If video games are created by teams of designers and artists, how are they not art??? www.skylarscaling.com
Shocker #2: Apple uses QuickTime all over its own web site!
The difference is that Apple's site actually even works in links if you choose to go without the pretty pictures.
It's just a basic useability issue.