EA Join the ?54.99 club

[speedlolita]

Have they not had to pay the same cost since Fifa's creation?

I'm sure they've adjust it in accordance to how much moolah EA makes from the franchise which kind of negates your point.

What I'm saying is, it costs EA far less to produce the games for sale that it did and so ?55 is a cheek.

Just my opinion. According to some internet source the sales of Fifa 11 were 2.8 million in the first week of sale, which means the licensing fee is paid in less than a few days no doubt. Probably.

I guess.

[toythatkills]

A ?60 SNES game from 1992 comes to ?86 in today's money so this is a bargain.

What's this based on?

Anyway, this is some absurd pricing, but I just won't buy it so I don't care. It'd be hilarious if Konami slapped an RRP of ?30 on this year's Pro Evo though.

[merf]

This is a perennial argument but modern games cost far more to produce than on older machines and sell for less

Why the surprise that publishers have to recoup that and the people who play the games are being asked to fund it

I dont even know why its considered news

Pro evo looks and plays like a budget game nowadays so may as well price it accordingly

[Number45]

To quote myself from the FIFA thread:

Activision paved the way for the biggest titles to add ?5 to the RRP, bless 'em. Will not buy (I wouldn't have anyway to be fair) regardless of actual store prices, same as CoD.

[speedlolita]

Pro evo looks and plays like a budget game nowadays so may as well price it accordingly

So I've heard!

Oh well, I'll just pop into CeX and get a copy of Pro Evo 2 for 50 pence.

[sj33]

The odd big-name title getting a price increase like this won't really matter to the consumer, because this is the kind of game where retailers will compete on price and accept slim margins.

The danger is if this new price point becomes more common. Realistically, retailers won't be able to take the same approach they did with Modern Warfare 2 with all games, it would not be realistic to scarifice profit margins to such a degree going forward. If this new price point becomes more accepted, the retailers would have to adjust their prices accordingly, and gradually that price point would become accepted by consumers too. It is worrying.

[eastyy]

i can picture it now in my local gamestop ?54.99 for fifa....or second hand ?52.99

[koopatroopa90]

i can picture it now in my local gamestop ?54.99 for fifa....or second hand ?52.99

HMV wins here, for NSMB on the DS for example "New" (but not sealed) ?29.99 "used" ?29.98. Yay!

[speedlolita]

Better than my HMV where the used games are consistently more than the new games.

[merf]

The danger is if this new price point becomes more common. Realistically, retailers won't be able to take the same approach they did with Modern Warfare 2 with all games, it would not be realistic to scarifice profit margins to such a degree going forward. If this new price point becomes more accepted, the retailers would have to adjust their prices accordingly, and gradually that price point would become accepted by consumers too. It is worrying.

What is worrying ?

Almost every consumer item that sees the cost of production rise passes that on to the consumer or the producer goes bust.

I'd like petrol to cost 50p a litre, leccy to cost ?5 a month and my car insurance to be ?100 not ?1,200 but thats not the world is it ?

[koopatroopa90]

Better than my HMV where the used games are consistently more than the new games.

Lol, this reminds me in GAME on Thursday where Motorstorm Apocalypse was ?24.99 new and ?37.99 used.
But more on topic...

A ?60 SNES game from 1992 comes to ?86 in today's money so this is a bargain.

How did you calculate that? Aparrently the average inflation rate is 2.7% so is ?60 in 1992 not ?99.54ish today?

Regardless, the amount of people purchasing games these days is significantly larger than it was in the day of the SNES (as far as I am aware?) and games like Fifa have one of the largest audiences so it is right the RRP is lower than it was back then.

[kernow]

Who buys modern games new anyway? You walk out the shop and ?20 of value has instantly gone.

Used ftw.

[speedlolita]

Who buys modern games new anyway? You walk out the shop and ?20 of value has instantly gone.

Used ftw.

Stop KILLING THE INDUSTRY. Buying used is WORSE THAN PIRACY. Don't you read newspapers?

[EvilBoris]

What's that based on?

There are inflation calculators you can use to see the value if money and how it's changed over time in accordance with cost of living

[JSR]

I suspect it's all some charade to manipulate prices and for selling to stores. Both Fifa and Call of Duty have been subject to massive day one price cuts when they've launched. I doubt that happens without the backing of the publishers

Big titles are often used to promote store chains by low prices at launch. This is always (to my knowledge) done without the publishers consent. The problem with this - for the publisher at least - is that it devalues the game in the eyes of the consumers. They find it hard to spend 50 quids on a game that was sold for just 30 a couple of weeks back. So it essentially hurts long-time sales of the games. So to combat this, they raise the RRP of the most popular games.