He’d rather sell 10m ”at $25” with the chance of DLC than 5m ”at $50 on a disc” that ends up being ”traded around.” Mobile the ‘future console’.
Speaking at a GameHorizon panel in Gateshead, Mark Rein was part of a discussion of free vs paid games, to which he was largely in favour of the latter. However Rein acknowledges that pricing must fall for the industry to succeed long term.
”I’d rather sell 10 million games at $25 and have a chance to sell DLC than 5 million at $50 on a disc that gets traded around,” he said, reports GamesIndustry.biz. ”I think it’ll change, and it’ll change for the benefit of the customers.”
“We’re definitely going to experiment with micro-transactions and lower-price games.”
”I’m a big proponent of AAA games. Triple-A isn’t going away, it’s going everywhere. As the quality of the games go up, the cost of the games go up, you’re going to have to monetise them better.” Epic demonstrated Unreal Engine prototypes running on iPhone, iPad and Android - Rein noted that such devices could rival next-gen consoles.
”These are the consoles of the future,” he added, saying if the power of mobiles doubled ”even two more times, you can play Gears of War on this.”
Downloadable content is a way of life for videogames now so should studios and publishers bank more on long term DLC sales over a short term gouging at retail for the core game? Activision want it both ways with Call of Duty.
