sideshowbob
24-08-2009, 10:13
I saw the thread in the bargain forums for Section 8 at £17.95 and that made me think that they (retailers and games publishers I guess) need to recognise that for non-A rated multiplayer titles (so anything other than Modern Warfare / COD / GoW) there should be much cannier pricing across the board early on, to get a good user base online and playing and to encourage people to take a gamble on a title that's perhaps sneaked in under the radar.
To me it makes sense for pre-orders or sales in the first month to be discounted by 40% or 50%. Games like Wolfenstein, Section 8 etc are just not going to sell well at £35 and if they don't sell well early on, they are basically going to end up in the bargain bins and struggle to get good numbers playing online. Re-thinking the pricing strategy for these games could give them a much better chance of success and I don't think that doing so would lose the retailers / publishers any money - after all, if the game's popular (or perceived to be so) it should support games sales after that initial discount period and might even prolong the inevitable dive into the bargain bins.
There you go - that's my idea for the day.
To me it makes sense for pre-orders or sales in the first month to be discounted by 40% or 50%. Games like Wolfenstein, Section 8 etc are just not going to sell well at £35 and if they don't sell well early on, they are basically going to end up in the bargain bins and struggle to get good numbers playing online. Re-thinking the pricing strategy for these games could give them a much better chance of success and I don't think that doing so would lose the retailers / publishers any money - after all, if the game's popular (or perceived to be so) it should support games sales after that initial discount period and might even prolong the inevitable dive into the bargain bins.
There you go - that's my idea for the day.