It feels to me like the closer we get to the Nintendo Switch 2’s June launch and the, apparently, $80 games associated with it, the more people are fighting with themselves over what is and isn’t worth it. But at least Sony veteran and previous head of PlayStation Indies Shuhei Yoshida is free from inner turmoil – he thinks relatively expensive, high quality video games are unequivocally necessary.
“I don’t believe that every game has to be priced the same,” Yoshida continues. "Each game has different value it provides, or the size of budget. I totally believe it’s up to the publisher – or developers self-publishing – decision to price their product to the value that they believe they are bringing in.
Yoshida continues to say that, “In terms of actual price of $70 or $80, for really great games, I think it will still be a steal in terms of the amount of entertainment that the top games, top quality games bring to people compared to other form of entertainment.”
“As long as people choose carefully how they spend their money,” he continues, “I don’t think they should be complaining.”
but like… if your entire customer base is saying you’re wrong, aren’t you then wrong by definition? the buyers set the prices, in a way.
If the customers still buy it in the end, the publisher was right. We will see over time. Maybe there will be a drop in sales but then GTA6 comes along and no one can resist, opening the path for other games.
Someone on lemmy recently put this into perspective for me. Even like 1% of the population of the USA is 3 million people. If you increase the cost of a product and don’t care about long-term sales, the immediate gain in profit can outweigh the loss of total customers down the line.
I still think cutting off customers and burning good will isn’t a good business model, but I’m not stupid wealthy, so what do I know.