Namco Bandai: Games too expensive?

[Kane Knight]

http://kotaku.com/5544236/publisher-...-too-expensive

I think games are too expensive. You think games are too expensive. Surprisingly, a major international publisher thinks the same, Namco Bandai calling for a "worldwide summit" to discuss this crisis.

"I feel all the big video game companies need to join together in a worldwide summit to discuss the future of our industry. I think we have to pull our thoughts together", Namco Bandai's Olivier Comte told MCV.

"I am convinced that in the future we must change the price of video games – they're too expensive for the audience. With the cost of development and the retail margins, £40 is a fair price [to us], but for the consumer it is too much."

"From September to December there are three new blockbusters every week, and consumers just can't afford to buy all that."

I like where this is going, I like where this is going....oh, wait. "A good price of a game should be around £20 – but for this price we can't make a ten to 15-hour adventure. So for £20 we should offer consumers four to five hours of gameplay, then after that we can make additional money with DLC."

Shame. Call me naive, but I've always like the idea of simply cutting the price of existing games by half. "Halve the price but triple the audience!", I yell with gusto at parties, before I wake up the next morning and realise there's a reason multinational corporations don't base their pricing strategies on my broke-ass whims.
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5 hours for 30 bucks doesnt' seem like a bad idea, considering we'll be asked to pay 60 bucks for 6-8 hours. Not sure how I feel about the "and then we'll make money on DLC" notion, but it depends on the cost and quality of the DLC, I suppose.

I think people frequently determine the value of games in terms of whether they're ones that should be purchased "new," "Cheap," or "Used." BDC;s got a thread for games of a certain price point, and I love picking up decent games at 20 dollars that I would never pay 60 for.

I mean, let's face it. Not every game is Red Dead.

IF Namco Bandai can put out decent games at a price point similar to shovelware, then awesome. If we're going to get weak games with pricy DLC, then fuck this.