Tuesday, September 13th 2022
$70 is the New $60: Ubisoft on AAA Game Pricing Going Forward
Ubisoft stated that USD $70 will be the new norm for pricing of its AAA game titles going forward. Count this as 16.6% inflation over the $60 ($59.99) that was normal for AAA games a few years ago. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, in an interview with Axios, stated that $70 would be considered the default for the publisher's big AAA releases across platforms. This would make $70 the base price for the "Standard Edition." Various premium editions and season passes would be priced higher. NBA 2K21 became the first title with its standard edition priced at $70 in August 2020. Ubisoft will effect the $70 pricing on the upcoming "Skull and Bones," which releases this November.
Source:
VideoGamesChronicle
68 Comments on $70 is the New $60: Ubisoft on AAA Game Pricing Going Forward
Granted these are Ubi games, so I wouldnt buy them anyway, but any other games that do this I'll wait for the inevitable sale.
I haven't done so in 3 years or so..
Blood soaked violence cost more these days
I agree free games at least epic games some are pretty damn good no need for high priced games atm just buggy mess for high dollar.
Uhm... yeah.
They know people have money to spend. All the cash going out towards micro transactions and out to the "collector editions" that cost upwards of $20+ over the standard editions (these are digital collector editions, you get nothing physical from these, just extra digital items. I liked the good old days of physical copies of games and that the collector editions came with awesome stuff you could display, read, admire). People will pay it. People have been paying it. Look as far back as the NES days, some of those new games were selling at $70-75 off the shelf (granted, most were $40-50).
It's just been a continuing trend that developers and distributors have seen over the years; people are spending and willing to spend that extra money on games. Then top it off with the fact that inflation kicked into high gear this past year and also with wages going up, it was inevitable. It was just a matter of time before this happened and it looks like Ubisoft took the first step. Expect to see EA, Activision/Blizzard and so on to follow suit here soon.
Anyone believe that Skull & Bones won't include MTX?
They've known for a while they're going steadily down and are trying to fix it but they've grown too much to be able to easily shed the extra weight. And they're spending a lot on server infrastructure and self inflicted DRM.
On one hand rising the prices will only lead to lower sales. Ironically that will alleviate a bit the server issues ... just not enough to matter. On the other hand with higher prices players are more likely to use their subscription service.
The thing with suscription services is that they need to hook you up so you keep paying for it and that requires games with (a) very high replayability or (b) a lot of stuff to do. For (b) you need players that will want to complete every chalenge and collect every item but that is becoming easier because gaming companies have been using achievement, trophies, etc. for years to train our behavior in that direction.
Also, I refuse to support franchises/publishers who monetize their products through microtransactions and paid DLCs. And let's not forget the pitiful state in which some recent overhyped titles have come out.
While collectors editions were alway priced ridiculously, DLC pricing reflects content being added at the same time letting popularity of a game also determining price.