can't wake up
Hero's gonna hero.
master of the dark hado
Yeah the idea of making a game be 100 - 200 bucks is insane, that said though, aren't some publishers/devs effectively doing that with DLC. I may be wrong on this but some one was telling me Forza has a $50 season pass for the DLC, which effectively makes the game $110 for who ever buys into that. Granted it is different since the price hike is only effecting the people buying the DLC.
It's a thought experiment. If a niche thing costs a ton to make, in many other industries that's considered boutique, sells at a high price, and still captures its niche, or at least enough of that niche to justify the ridiculous price and continue production.Originally Posted by Diff-chan
Sure, at $100 some people may bow out altogether, but the question would be - would an even smaller number of buyers at $100 a pop net them more than the relatively larger audience at $60? Or, at what point would that approach work best? I only ask this because, doing it like it's been done isn't sustainable and other people on the forum have ruled out cutting production cost (I want me my CoH with a large budget). So what's left?
ShinJohn mentions Season Passes. Effectively, developers are already going the route of $100 games, but shaving off the cost as DLC-this, Season Pass that, Online Project $10 Whatever...by the time you hit the full experience, you've paid about $100. So that's another possible solution - sell in this manner and get the early adopter suckers, and bleed out the audience over time. Some may bail out and not take DLC, but by then you at least have $60 from 'em.
You can't just jack the price up and expect the consumer to know the game is a boutique item. 'Boutique' implies a certain level of care, class, and personal love that is not available in a mass produced product. It's like comparing a hand painted portrait to a mass produced print.
Just jacking the price up on a game that has always been $60 isn't going to position the product into the boutique market for gamers. They're going to see it is a price gouging.
The only comparable item for gamers is collectors and limited edition releases that come with more and/or limited features and goods. The consumer can hold it in their hands and clearly see that they are getting more stuff for the increase in price. (though even the worth of these packs are dropping in the eyes of gamers, as most of the extra product is useless crap or stuff that will go DLC in 6 months)
Price positioning is tricky shit. You can't just jack the price up on bullshit and then expect the consumer to assume quality. That only works in Asia.
Me in heap big trouble.
Hostages? **** em'
No. Never.
I can think of a few exceptions.
But not for games that sell more than 20K copies.
Load"*",8,1
Why not go the 2K route and sell the games for $30-$40? It worked well for NFL2K5.
From a mathematical standpoint, yes. Sometimes.
Consider this:
60x = y, where x= number of copies sold at $60 and y equals net revenue
100z = y where z= number of copies sold at $100 and y equals net revenue
So then, you'd want to know the point at which 60x = 100z, or at what point does revenue generated by both price points equal the same.
In this example, consider that x=20,000 copies
60x = 1,200,000, so at what point does 100z = 1,200,000?
z = 1,200,000/100, or 12,000
So a game selling at $60 that sells 20k copies, if sold at $100, only needs 12,000 copies sold to earn the same amount. As soon as it sells one copy more, it's doing better. So, 12,001 buyers (a smaller number of buyers) WOULD earn more at a higher price than 20,000 buyers at $60. The real question would be "can you get 12,001 people to buy a game that, at $60 would get 20,000 in sales?" but since you just said "No. Never." to my prior question, I wanted to show you how, on paper, it's possible.
In economics, there's a term (that I can't remember) that refers to a market of largely identical products and how the supply/demand curve works and can be adjusted there. In books they often use industries like lumber or coal, and that the only way a competitor can beat another larger incumbent is in undercutting cost, thus driving demand. I think that's similar in serious sports games - there's very little, at least now, that differentiates titles, so dropping cost is one of the few ways 2K can drive demand for their specific titles. I'm not sure if that would work in another genre where a lot of variables and wants can fluctuate.
Last edited by Hero; 08 Nov 2012 at 01:12 AM.
I'm really glad you went to that first week of econ in community college
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