I think games are too expensive. You think games are too expensive. Surprisingly, a major international publisher thinks the same, Namco Bandai calling for a "worldwide summit" to discuss this crisis.
"I feel all the big video game companies need to join together in a worldwide summit to discuss the future of our industry. I think we have to pull our thoughts together", Namco Bandai's Olivier Comte told MCV.
"I am convinced that in the future we must change the price of video games – they're too expensive for the audience. With the cost of development and the retail margins, £40 is a fair price [to us], but for the consumer it is too much."
"From September to December there are three new blockbusters every week, and consumers just can't afford to buy all that."
I like where this is going, I like where this is going....oh, wait. "A good price of a game should be around £20 – but for this price we can't make a ten to 15-hour adventure. So for £20 we should offer consumers four to five hours of gameplay, then after that we can make additional money with DLC."
Shame. Call me naive, but I've always like the idea of simply cutting the price of existing games by half. "Halve the price but triple the audience!", I yell with gusto at parties, before I wake up the next morning and realise there's a reason multinational corporations don't base their pricing strategies on my broke-ass whims.