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EA Boss Says Games Too Expensive

Posted by Zonk on from the nice-of-you-to-notice dept.

EA's John Riccitiello has been shaking things up at EA lately, with everything from layoffs to the purchase of BioWare. Now he's suggesting the company take some really drastic measures: make their games less expensive. "Riccitiello says the $31 billion gaming industry will suffer if it doesn't start to reevaluate its business model. Game executives at Sony, Microsoft and Activision must answer some tough questions in the coming years, like how long they can expect consumers to pay $59 for a video game. Riccitiello predicts the model will be obsolete in the next decade. 'In the next five years, we're all going to have to deal with this. In China, they're giving games away for free,' he says. 'People who benefit from the current model will need to embrace a new revenue model, or wait for others to disrupt.' As more publishers transition to making games for online distribution, Riccitiello says he expects EA will experiment with different pricing models."

3 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Cheap games would be nice but... by religious+freak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If this is an excuse to release crappier games, count me out. These things are expensive to make and I'd rather own 3 or 4 good games that have been invested in than 10 games that were just pounded out by some off-shore devs.

    Yes, I'm sure some troll with mod points will kill my karma by me stating the obvious.

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  2. Stop licencing sports then by DrXym · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I expect the cost of licencing NBA, FIFA, Nascar, NFL, Tiger Woods etc. far, far, far, far outweighs the costs of actual game development. Perhaps if EA wants to make a cut costs they'll relinquish their exclusive deals. Let some other company bear the weight of forking out for some exclusive franchise plough the savings into making decent titles.

    Interestingly the NBA & NHL both allow multiple game franchises and probably each is better for it.

  3. So he's saying games should be immune to inflation by r_jensen11 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    With SNES games costing sometimes $70 when they were launched (I have no clue what NES games cost when they were released), I'm surprised video games are as "cheap" as they are. Sure, some games have a rediculously high price now, like Guitar Hero and Rock Band come to mind. But there, you're also paying for new hardware, which doesn't cost *that* much more than a typical controller, and given that they're made in smaller quantities and require more materials, it makes sense that they cost more than a typical controller.

    If games cost $60-$70 for the SNES, if video games were subject to inflation, and given a modest 3% inflation rate, they would be costing between $93.48 and $109.06. Yes, I know that not all games cost $60-70 back fifteen years ago, but some very popular ones did.