Last week, theEmbracer Groupgave their intention of possibly hiking up the price of video games, which they believe aren’t currently high enough to sustain “rising development costs and a brutally competitive market.”
In a world where price increases are already through the roof, making surviving difficult for many people, CEO Lars Wingefors, who laid off thousands of staff and shut down multiple studios, now thinks that players don’t pay enough for the entertainment they receive already. Although it has been proven over the last four years that gamers are willing to spend $70 on new titles, another rise could see many possible issues. Mat Piscatella, Circana’s Executive Director and video game industry analyst, believes that if this price rise happens, the Embracer Group will need “luck” on their side.
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“Enjoy Your Quick Price Drop”
In a report issued byGI.biz, Embracer Group boss Lars Wingefors told the site that the company is considering pushing the video game price up even more in a bid to challenge the reality of triple-A game development.
“I’m not saying you can’t increase the price, but the reality is no one has tried it. If you create an enormous role-playing game, for example, with 100 or 150 hours of gameplay, very polished, and a unique experience, would the consumer be willing to pay more?” Wingefors said. “If they would, they would have more products potentially coming to market. But no one tried it.
Mat Piscatella, who has two decades under his belt as Circana’s video game industry analyst and has worked with Warner Bros Games andActivisionBlizzard, thinks that this move could cost the company some financial burdens.
Speaking in a Twitter/X post, specifically about Embracer’s comment that “no one has tried” to increase a game’s prices before, Piscatella said that this statement was “just completely not true.” as publishers have done this method by offering up gold and deluxe editions at “higher price points” for a long time.
He also went on to say that ramping up video game’s price to more than $70 at this point in time, the company would need a certain amount of luck on their side to make it successful. “If you want to increase the base price point above $70 right now, well, good luck with that. Enjoy your quick price drop, I guess?.”
“What an odd statement for anyone that’s actually been paying attention.”
Embracer doesn’t look like they are planning to jump into action with a price hike anytime soon and may wait to follow another video game companies' lead, but it certainly gives some food for thought in the meantime, as well as Piscatella’s concerns.
The question is whether gamers will want to pay extra for games already at the expensive end of the spectrum that could contain even more playable hours when many already struggle to complete hefty games as it is, prefering shorter titles that suit their lifestyle better.
