The general consensus among those in the gaming industry right now is that video games, despite their $70 price tag, are still too cheap. Many believe it's not a question of if, but when publishers will raise the cost. According to a Baldur's Gate developer, Grand Theft Auto 6 could be the one that starts the trend.
On social media, Michael Douse, director of publishing for Larian Studios (Baldur's Gate), shared his thoughts on the current pricing for video games. Douse began with criticism of the current pricing trend, which artificially hikes the price to "upsell a subscription."
Using Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws as an example, Douse wrote, "I don’t love the artificiality of pricing structures post retail. Use the inflated base price to upsell a subscription, and use vague content promises to inflate ultimate editions to make the base price look better. It all seems a bit dangerous & disconnected from the community."
"I think a game should be priced accordingly with its quality, breadth & depth," he added. "I’m not against higher prices, but this arbitrary uniformity just doesn’t make sense to me. It feels so unserious."
Douse then went on to acknowledge that right now video games should cost more "at a base level because the cost of making them is outpacing pricing trend." He pointed to inflation as one of the main reasons for the increase in development costs.
Continuing to analyze the market trends, he believes everyone is "just waiting for GTA 6 to do it." It, of course, would be raising the minimum price of a AAA blockbuster game from $69.99 to $79.99.
There's no doubt that Grand Theft Auto 6 is currently the biggest and most anticipated game in development right now. The question is how much consumers are willing to shell out for a game, even one with as much hype and anticipation as GTA 6.
In a recent earnings call, Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two, the parent company of developer Rockstar Games, was asked for his thoughts about "pricing dynamics" for the GTA franchise as well as other games in its portfolio. Zelnick sort of danced around the question, stating:
"Look, there's more content constantly being made available, and we really aim to deliver great value at any given time. We're so focused on delivering more value than what we charge. And that's sort of the rubric. And any time we establish a price, we want to make sure that it's good news for the consumer; that the experience vastly over delivers in the context of the cost. That's the goal."
Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to release at some point in 2025. Take-Two was one of the first publishers to charge $70 for new releases with the launch of this current console generation (Xbox Series X|S and PS5) back in 2020. They did so with NBA 2K21, with Zelnick saying at the time that raising the price of games by $10 was the right call, and a move accepted by consumers.
Prior to the 2020 price hike, new releases had typically cost around $60 since around 2006, coinciding with the release of the Xbox 360 and PS3. There's no new console generation upon us yet, but inflation has been running rampant across the globe since the pandemic disrupted everything. Will consumers accept another price hike for video games so quickly?
Are you willing to pay $70 to play GTA 6? What about other new releases?