Earlier this year, Nintendo took an unprecedented step: it priced Mario Kart World, its marquee Switch 2 launch title, at $79.99. This broke new ground for the base edition of a major game release, where prices had been stable at $69.99 for years.
It was a controversial move, and it was an unexpected twist that Nintendo was the first to make it. The company had only hit $70 two years previously, with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a price point it had been reluctant to apply to any other Switch games; most of its catalog remained at $59.99.
But the price hike wasn’t unexpected generally. The gaming industry and community had been holding their breath waiting for it for some time. The rising cost of game development was often cited as an issue by publishers, developers, and industry-watchers, and game prices had not kept pace with inflation — as Nintendo executive Bill Trinen explained to Polygon when justifying Mario Kart World’s sticker price.
“We’re unfortunately living in an era where I think inflation is affecting everything,” Trinen said. “The price of video games has been very stable for a very long time. I actually have an ad on my phone that I found from 1993, when Donkey Kong Country released on the SNES at $59. That’s a very, very long time where pricing on games has been very stable. And so obviously, it would be great if we didn’t live in an era when everything is getting more expensive, so there’s that reality of it.”
The expectation was that Nintendo had opened the floodgates with Mario Kart World’s price, and many other publishers would follow. Sure enough, a few weeks after the Mario Kart announcement, Microsoft said that “we will adjust the pricing of some of our new first-party games starting this holiday season to $79.99.” It was assumed to be the first of many such announcements.
But they haven’t come, and Microsoft appears to have backtracked, too. Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds 2 was initially priced at $80, but the price was reduced to $70 after a fan outcry. Microsoft’s flagship fall release, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, will also be priced at $70 according to reliable leaker billbil-kun. An Xbox spokesperson told Windows Central that it would keep its “full priced holiday releases” at $69.99 “in line with current market conditions.” Before Microsoft’s U-turn, Electronic Arts pledged not to raise its game prices — yet.
What happened? Why did publishers back off, is the advent of the $80 game as inevitable as we thought — and if so, who will be the next to jump? Will we get another $80 game this fall?
Probably not, reckons Louise Wooldridge, a game industry analyst at Ampere Analysis.
“It is just not the right climate to increase prices at the moment,” Wooldridge told Polygon over email. She said a number of factors were undermining the viability of price rises. The first and most significant is that, in a tough economic climate, gamers are acutely price-sensitive. And you can tell this by the games people are buying, not just the strength of feeling about price rises online.
“This year we’ve seen huge success among indie and AA titles, such as Schedule I, REPO, Peak, Clair Obscur, which tells us that at the moment, gamers are seeking value. Average spend per gamer is down year-on-year,” Wooldridge said. All the games she mentioned retail for less than $70, sometimes considerably. It’s not a given that players will simply stomach higher prices for their favourite games; they might buy something else — or stop buying games outright.
Wooldridge notes that the game industry faces competition from “more media content than ever […] outside of games” and also points out that the value proposition of subscription services like Microsoft’s Game Pass makes price increases even more difficult. “Premium sales are also potentially being negatively impacted by multi-game subscription services, so increasing prices is going to exacerbate that issue,” she said.
Wooldridge also argues that, to begin with at least, only certain publishers will be able to charge $80, and only for certain games. “The reason Nintendo has been able to get away with it is because they know people will still buy the games, no matter what — the brand is so strong and the perceived quality is so high that players are willing to pay,” she said.
“Not many companies can say the same thing. Games like Call of Duty and EA FC are obvious contenders in this regard given they are two of the biggest premium game franchises in the world, but both publishers have already stated they won’t go there (yet).”
If even juggernauts like Call of Duty and EA’s sports titles can’t carry off a price increase at the moment, what title possibly can? There’s an obvious answer, but it’s not due until May next year: Grand Theft Auto 6. There’s been speculation that the Rockstar Games mega-production could be priced at as much as $100. “I think GTA 6 will be at least $80,” Wooldridge said. “But will it be $100? I’m not sure.”
There is a crucial difference between GTA 6 and Mario Kart World on the one side, and annualized franchises like COD and the EA Sports games on the other. Nintendo and Rockstar are setting prices now for games they expect to sell consistently over many years. They’re playing a long game with where game prices will be in an entire hardware generation’s time, or maybe even more. By contrast, EA and Microsoft are only making pricing calls for the next 12 months. They can afford to respond to “current market conditions” and consumer antipathy, and then see where things stand next year.
Mario Kart World has yet to prove a game can be a runaway hit at an $80 price point; as of now, it’s being outsold by its predecessor, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. GTA 6 will be different, and may break the seal for the rest of the industry in a way Nintendo’s game hasn’t. “I do think a move to $80 is inevitable,” Wooldridge said, “especially following the launch of GTA 6, which may set the precedent if no other game takes the leap before then. It could just be that GTA 6 opens the floodgates.”