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$70 pricing is coming to PC, starting with Square Enix next games

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Both Forspoken and Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (as pictured by DSOgaming) went up for pre-order on Steam and the Epic Games Store this week with the new higher price points.

The Digital Deluxe versions of the games are even more expensive at £90 / $95. Previously Square Enix’s games launched for $60 / £50.

The new pricing brings the PC games in line with new-gen consoles, which have pushed $70 games since PS5 and Xbox Series X|S’s launches last November.

Square Enix appears to be the first major publisher to bring $70 pricing to PC platforms.
 

GreatnessRD

Member
Morgan Freeman Good Luck GIF
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Pre-order bonuses, DLC, season passes (now multiple), micro-transactions and other lovely ideas have increased publisher revenues to the sky, far more than inflation has affected them. Increasing game prices on top of that is adding insult to injury.
I would also add that games are much cheaper to distribute than before, specially thanks to digital platforms.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
All these price hikes comes down to how strong the game is to get day one sales where gamers are itching to play asap.

I can see shooter and sports fans doing it as there is a big need for many to take part day one to be competitive. Nobody wants to be the Xmas noob getting destroyed.

But Square games seem to have a lot of SP kinds of games, which to me makes no difference if you buy day 1 or on deal on day 100.
 
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OZ9000

Banned
I've just noticed Forspoken is £65 on Steam; whilst I have zero interest in the game, this is going to set a bad precedent for PC gaming.

This has got to be a record for the most expensive launch for a PC title, and I thought £50 was bad.

I'm genuinely hope this game is a commercial disaster.

I don't condone piracy but I hope this POS gets cracked day one.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I've just noticed Forspoken is £65 on Steam; whilst I have zero interest in the game, this is going to set a bad precedent for PC gaming.

This has got to be a record for the most expensive launch for a PC title, and I thought £50 was bad.

I'm genuinely hope this game is a commercial disaster.

I don't condone piracy but I hope this POS gets cracked day one.
It's $93.49 CDN for the standard edition on Steam. The only time I have ever seen $100 games (not deluxe editions) goes back to the Genesis and N64 cartridge days where it could break $100. PS2 and Sword of Vermillion were $120 and N64 games topped out at $99.99. I dont think any N64 broke $100, but close enough.

Disc based games were steady at $60-80 since the PS1 days and only recently crept up to $90.

But now we're $6.51 away from breaking the century mark..... (and for a digital download too. At least cartridge roms cost a lot, battery back up added more, cost of printing boxes and inventory etc... Now were talking internet files with bandwidth costs of a nickel)
 
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STARSBarry

Gold Member
Remember square only think they can get away with this is because they are selling on a single storefront, this essentially means they can directly control the price because there is now no competition for sales.

Nice to see Epic once again declaring itself to be proconsumer at the same time as directly influencing anti consumer practices that result in things like this.
 

PerfectDark

Banned
Square Enix are not good devs. Nobody will follow them on PC.

I would pay $250 for a great game. Nobody makes anything worth $70.

Even Halo infinity is straight up trash. Went to play with my boys today only to find out there no coop.
 
PC is anti-consumer now? Well, maybe not yet, but in all seriousness I don’t like where this is going. I doubt they will be the last game company to try this.

Maybe I can understand them trying this with FF7: Remake for the obvious reasons, but doing that with a new, unproven franchise like Forspoken is very risky imo.
 
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Fuz

Banned
It’s not unfair given how game prices haven’t even attempted to increase with inflation.
I rarely pay $60 but when I do it’s for a must-have. The extra $10 won’t stop me in those cases.
And why didn't they go down for digital, since there's no package and much lower distribution costs?

I swear, you people drink all the shit they want you to believe like thirsty camels.
 

Fuz

Banned
80 euro for an unfinished, digital piece of a game which came out nearly 2 years ago. Dumb shortsighted decisions like this are why I don't think Square will be around another 10 years. Bankrupt or absorbed by another.
This is really weird to me, their single player games are already doing poorly, the company is kept afloat by FFXIV and their mobile games. I unironically don't understand if there's something I don't grasp or they are really dumb as fuck (or trying to push their luck).
 

Fuz

Banned
Remember square only think they can get away with this is because they are selling on a single storefront
Dumb statement. There are A LOT of company that sell on a single storefront, which is steam.
The "single storefront" argument has nothing to do with the matter at hand.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
And why didn't they go down for digital, since there's no package and much lower distribution costs?

I swear, you people drink all the shit they want you to believe like thirsty camels.
Anyone who believes prices go down is naive.

When barrel of oil hit $100 the costs to make anything petroleum based goes up. When oil drops to $20 do the prices go down? Nope.

And that's one thing manufacturers stick too, so thats why prices for thing almost always either are stagnant or go up.

When retailers tell us manufacturing companies why the fuck do you push cost increases to us when ingredient costs go up, but when they drop how come you guys never decrease the price down so we can drop retail price? We tell them to fuck off. No manufacturer does unless it's a very direct commodity based industry like gold or cattle prices.

Unless there's something that breaks our backs giving in, our costs to stores either is flat or goes up. And that's why all of you pay more for things. At best you get a 5 year stretch it flatlines. But at some point it'll creep up again.

The whole PR game makers would say back then about high costs of making roms and royalty costs etc..... most of that stuff was long gone years ago as most people have transitioned to digital downloads. Game makers make even more money now with MTX which has been a big trend for maybe 10 years when it started with map packs and now morphed into nickel and diming for cosmetics.

Sales and profits at the big companies are at record highs.

But notice how they all shut their mouths regarding costs now because with digital distribution a good chunk of costs are gone. Game studios just hope their last bastion of PR of "Game making is costly due to tons of people hired" is influential enough to convince gamers, where they also hope no gamers check out their record earnings reports.
 
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Fare thee well

Neophyte
It’s not unfair given how game prices haven’t even attempted to increase with inflation.
I rarely pay $60 but when I do it’s for a must-have. The extra $10 won’t stop me in those cases.
What's really nuts is the cost of gas. I buy a AAA video game or more everytime I fill my tank. I had a world record the other day. 80 fucking dollars. For most people they don't even make that much in 3 hours lol. Luckily I'm earning and don't have debts, but fuck I don't know how everyone else is holding up 🤪
 

kingfey

Banned
It’s not unfair given how game prices haven’t even attempted to increase with inflation.
I rarely pay $60 but when I do it’s for a must-have. The extra $10 won’t stop me in those cases.
Sometimes, we get idiots like this, supporting these garbage corporate practices.

Listen here buddy. Your inflation doesnt account the profit they are making from digital.

Here’s how the numbers look for a publisher at retail:

MSRP - $60

Retailer discount - $25 to $30

Physical cost of goods - $3 to $5

Cost of shipping and distribution - $1 to $2

Marketing - $3 to $5

Developer royalty (if external) - $3 to $10

When it’s all said and done, the publisher ends up with somewhere between $8 and $25 from each retail unit sold at full price.

Of course, the publisher takes all of the inventory risk. If they think they can sell 1M units of their new game to retailers, they have to spend $3M to $5M building those games and then another $1M to $2M shipping them. If the games don’t sell, they’re going to end up eating nearly all of that cost. You can imagine how quickly their profits will disappear if they overestimate sales and build too many copies. Conversely, if they build too few and retailers run out, then they’ll lose sales because buyers will often just pick up something else if the game they were looking for isn’t available.

Digital sales of a $60 title look quite different:

Digital price - $60

Digital distributor share - $18

Marketing - $3 to $5

Developer royalty (if external) - $4 to $12

This leaves the publisher with between $25 and $35, which is why digital sales are so attractive to publishers. And there’s no inventory risk. The cost of making the game available for sale is exactly zero. Note that the developer royalty will be higher because the distributor share is smaller, which leaves more for both publisher and developer.

Digital nets them more money. Since they dont have to pay for physical cost of goods and cost of shipping.
 
This is really weird to me, their single player games are already doing poorly, the company is kept afloat by FFXIV and their mobile games. I unironically don't understand if there's something I don't grasp or they are really dumb as fuck (or trying to push their luck).

FF7 Remake sold 5 million copies. Very front loaded I think but that's not terrible for a one platform release. XV sold really well too.

80 euro for an unfinished, digital piece of a game which came out nearly 2 years ago. Dumb shortsighted decisions like this are why I don't think Square will be around another 10 years. Bankrupt or absorbed by another.

You have no clue what you are talking about. There's plenty to complain about (hell I made an account to complain about the 60 fps mode being wonky) but the length of the game isn't one of them. Hell it comes with the DLC, doesn't it?
 
Sometimes, we get idiots like this, supporting these garbage corporate practices.

Listen here buddy. Your inflation doesnt account the profit they are making from digital.

Here’s how the numbers look for a publisher at retail:

MSRP - $60

Retailer discount - $25 to $30

Physical cost of goods - $3 to $5

Cost of shipping and distribution - $1 to $2

Marketing - $3 to $5

Developer royalty (if external) - $3 to $10

When it’s all said and done, the publisher ends up with somewhere between $8 and $25 from each retail unit sold at full price.

Of course, the publisher takes all of the inventory risk. If they think they can sell 1M units of their new game to retailers, they have to spend $3M to $5M building those games and then another $1M to $2M shipping them. If the games don’t sell, they’re going to end up eating nearly all of that cost. You can imagine how quickly their profits will disappear if they overestimate sales and build too many copies. Conversely, if they build too few and retailers run out, then they’ll lose sales because buyers will often just pick up something else if the game they were looking for isn’t available.

Digital sales of a $60 title look quite different:

Digital price - $60

Digital distributor share - $18

Marketing - $3 to $5

Developer royalty (if external) - $4 to $12

This leaves the publisher with between $25 and $35, which is why digital sales are so attractive to publishers. And there’s no inventory risk. The cost of making the game available for sale is exactly zero. Note that the developer royalty will be higher because the distributor share is smaller, which leaves more for both publisher and developer.

Digital nets them more money. Since they dont have to pay for physical cost of goods and cost of shipping.

It's $10
 

kingfey

Banned
It was just a golden horse armor. It wasnt harmless. It was meant as a nice horse you ride in the game.


That is where we are headed buddy, That 10$ wont be the end. Its just the start for some nasty shit, that will come on the future.

Just like how a single shitty dlc armor spawned tons of mtx games, this 10$ will spawn those shits.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Sometimes, we get idiots like this, supporting these garbage corporate practices.

Listen here buddy. Your inflation doesnt account the profit they are making from digital.

Here’s how the numbers look for a publisher at retail:

MSRP - $60

Retailer discount - $25 to $30

Physical cost of goods - $3 to $5

Cost of shipping and distribution - $1 to $2

Marketing - $3 to $5

Developer royalty (if external) - $3 to $10

When it’s all said and done, the publisher ends up with somewhere between $8 and $25 from each retail unit sold at full price.

Of course, the publisher takes all of the inventory risk. If they think they can sell 1M units of their new game to retailers, they have to spend $3M to $5M building those games and then another $1M to $2M shipping them. If the games don’t sell, they’re going to end up eating nearly all of that cost. You can imagine how quickly their profits will disappear if they overestimate sales and build too many copies. Conversely, if they build too few and retailers run out, then they’ll lose sales because buyers will often just pick up something else if the game they were looking for isn’t available.

Digital sales of a $60 title look quite different:

Digital price - $60

Digital distributor share - $18

Marketing - $3 to $5

Developer royalty (if external) - $4 to $12

This leaves the publisher with between $25 and $35, which is why digital sales are so attractive to publishers. And there’s no inventory risk. The cost of making the game available for sale is exactly zero. Note that the developer royalty will be higher because the distributor share is smaller, which leaves more for both publisher and developer.

Digital nets them more money. Since they dont have to pay for physical cost of goods and cost of shipping.
Yup.

When a dev cries why Steam or MS or Sony is charging 30% cuts, well the brick and mortar retailer probably took a similar cut. I think it's a bit lower than 30% actually but close enough.

As you said, the game maker/publisher saves costs and work cutting out all the disc pressing and costs of boxed copies. But notice how ZERO game studios and publishers ever bring that up? I have never seen "Hey, this digital sales thing is sweet since gamers are the ones spending bandwidth to buy it from us! We dont have to make anything anymore, not even a shitty instruction manual!"

Cutting out inventory costs is huge. It's something every company wants to reduce to as low as possible, while still serving customers well. And with digital sales, they all literally got their inventory costs reduced to ZERO for companies purely selling digital. Or reduced it a ton if they still press discs and got some hanging around the warehouse unsold.

Getting back to the 30%. Any game maker who says 30% is too much because all they do is put it up on a digital storefront, well same can be said back at them. You just saved countless headaches on boxed copies. So stop whining and lets call it a wash.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
Sometimes, we get idiots like this, supporting these garbage corporate practices.

Listen here buddy. Your inflation doesnt account the profit they are making from digital.

Here’s how the numbers look for a publisher at retail:

MSRP - $60

Retailer discount - $25 to $30

Physical cost of goods - $3 to $5

Cost of shipping and distribution - $1 to $2

Marketing - $3 to $5

Developer royalty (if external) - $3 to $10

When it’s all said and done, the publisher ends up with somewhere between $8 and $25 from each retail unit sold at full price.

Of course, the publisher takes all of the inventory risk. If they think they can sell 1M units of their new game to retailers, they have to spend $3M to $5M building those games and then another $1M to $2M shipping them. If the games don’t sell, they’re going to end up eating nearly all of that cost. You can imagine how quickly their profits will disappear if they overestimate sales and build too many copies. Conversely, if they build too few and retailers run out, then they’ll lose sales because buyers will often just pick up something else if the game they were looking for isn’t available.

Digital sales of a $60 title look quite different:

Digital price - $60

Digital distributor share - $18

Marketing - $3 to $5

Developer royalty (if external) - $4 to $12

This leaves the publisher with between $25 and $35, which is why digital sales are so attractive to publishers. And there’s no inventory risk. The cost of making the game available for sale is exactly zero. Note that the developer royalty will be higher because the distributor share is smaller, which leaves more for both publisher and developer.

Digital nets them more money. Since they dont have to pay for physical cost of goods and cost of shipping.

And not to forget u can sell of a physical copy and a digital copy u can't. Which again yields them massive gains on profit.

Anybody that thinks that games on PC should cost 70 dollars 80 euro's is fucking retarded.

The euro part is completely ridicilous as some country's in europe earn 3 if not 4x less then others, its straigh tup 300+ euro's for some country's if you look at what there income is.

We already had publishers doing the same exact shit 20 years ago, and they all died out because of it. Until people made game cheaper and sales went up again.

All square enix is doing, is people ignoring them and financing the piracy scene big time.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
And not to forget u can sell of a physical copy and a digital copy u can't. Which again yields them massive gains on profit.

Anybody that thinks that games on PC should cost 70 dollars 80 euro's is fucking retarded.

The euro part is completely ridicilous as some country's in europe earn 3 if not 4x less then others, its straigh tup 300+ euro's for some country's if you look at what there income is.

We already had publishers doing the same exact shit 20 years ago, and they all died out because of it. Until people made game cheaper and sales went up again.

All square enix is doing, is people ignoring them and financing the piracy scene big time.
Oh shit. I totally forgot about digital games preventing used sales. And some of those used copies will get flipped around to a third or 4th person. You never know. Nobody says a used game stops at the first buyer. I've bought used games sold them back so that means more people.

Even if there's tons of gamers waiting for dirt cheap games, it's still better for the company to have someone buy it at a giant BF deal on a digital store for $15 than that guy buying a used box copy from GS or eBay for $15.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
It's fair
game-prices.001-640x480.jpeg
Prices of games have edged up $10 lately, so the green line will bump back up to $70 for 2021 and beyond. Never the less it'll be a stable green line of around $70 for 20 years.

However, it comes down to whether someone wants to incorporate profits into the mix, which are giant the last bunch of years as MTX took off and digital cuts cut out physical costs of inventory, disc pressing shipping etc....

And if the big upswing in profits on the back end should ethically lead to a drop in the price on the front end.
 

kingfey

Banned
Prices of games have edged up $10 lately, so the green line will bump back up to $70 for 2021 and beyond. Never the less it'll be a stable green line of around $70 for 20 years.

However, it comes down to whether someone wants to incorporate profits into the mix, which are giant the last bunch of years as MTX took off and digital cuts cut out physical costs of inventory, disc pressing shipping etc....

And if the big upswing in profits on the back end should ethically lead to a drop in the price on the front end.
dont argue with them. All they care is their gatcha moments.

They are the same people who hailed the 70$ price as high quality gaming. These people have screws in their brains.
 

Braag

Member
$70?
Square is charging 80€ for Forspoken and FFVII Remake here while everyone else is charging 60€ for new games.
Gonna be interesting to see how they fare with such pricing.
 

dotnotbot

Member
Prices of games have edged up $10 lately, so the green line will bump back up to $70 for 2021 and beyond. Never the less it'll be a stable green line of around $70 for 20 years.

However, it comes down to whether someone wants to incorporate profits into the mix, which are giant the last bunch of years as MTX took off and digital cuts cut out physical costs of inventory, disc pressing shipping etc....

And if the big upswing in profits on the back end should ethically lead to a drop in the price on the front end.

Well, Forspoken and FF7 are single player only, high-quality AAA games without MTX. I can agree that increasing prices for trash like NBA is wrong, but high quality SP games kinda deserve the increase due to development costs being insanely high and still growing.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
Well, Forspoken and FF7 are single player only, high-quality AAA games without MTX. I can agree that increasing prices for trash like NBA is wrong, but high quality SP games kinda deserve the increase due to development costs being insanely high and still growing.

NBA has a ton of replay value, those "high quality single player games" have the absolute worst replay value. Therefore they are not even remotely worth the same.

See how that works.

Also we should up the price to 1000 euro's for the game, because:

il_1588xN.2777580946_96b1.jpg
 
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kingfey

Banned
When games first went to $60, $60 was worth quite a bit more than $70 is today. Get over it.
60 is somewhat affordable, due to price sales. But 70$ is hard to do for sales.

If you have 70$ game, your sales would be $49.99, while at 60$ its $39.99.

You can buy it at 40$, but 50$ still not a sale, despite 20$ drop.
 
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