Games now cost between $50-60. That's a lot of money for something that in many cases is done with after 4-6 hours. It's nice to see publishers THQ looking at whether that's the right way to do business.
"What we're thinking about the business is we're turning it on its head a little bit," THQ boss Brian Farrell says. "It's not, 'how high a price can we get', but 'how many users'."
"When we launched [MX vs. ATV] at $59.99, we'd do some units, and then when we brought the price down to the mass market-friendly price of $39.99, it would just pop," he continues. "So the thinking this time is, let's initially launch at $39.99 — it's a very robust game, very high quality, so this is not about trying to get a secondary title out."
"It's an AAA title, at that price point, but then with a series of DLC so people can extend their experience. We think this is the future of gaming. We think that's the way games are gonna go in the long term."
Makes sense. Don't charge people $60 per game to recoup costs: charge them less and get it back on the games they want to play for the amount of time they want to play them.
THQ's Farrell: 'Future Of Gaming' In Mass-Market Retail Prices, More DLC Sales [Gamasutra]