Publisher Take-Two Claims It's 'Not Seeing Pushback' From Players on $70 Price Tag

I mean they can come up with this rubbish; sadly even if they charged £90 for a GTA entry it would still sell strongly.

He might see a ‘pushback’ in end of year fiscal results.

Even stevie wonder can see the "push back" on the £70 asking prices..What a total pillock.

It’s loud online from the vocal minority, but I’d say all of my friends that buy games are “core and causal” gamers. I haven’t heard any of them mention it. It’s just as you were.

With the amount of comments that’s say they have pre ordered games months in advance, I doubt he is wrong.

Then you have the digital sales that are always 70 rather than the often 60 on physical.

With MS wanting to add advertising in gaming, and ‘timed slices’. people spending on MTX in everything, prices will soon try to be 80. Sadly it looks like gaming is heading in a weird direction.

Seems an unpopular opinion but I think $70 is actually pretty good, particularly for giant games like GTA. These games cost so much time and money to produce to meet everyones expectations of being bigger, better and more graphically impressive, yet gamers think they shouldn't cost a penny more, even despite inflationary pressures added into the mix.

It's not cheap clothes being made in a sweat shop, it's a huge production that offers hours and hours of value. I want things cheaper too so buy plenty at sales, but I'm not going to begrudge them pricing something reasonably.

At least it started too early to just blame on inflation.

$70 isn't horrible. It's not great either. Most games go on sale relatively quick so if you're willing to wait a couple months you're not paying more than $50 usually. I might not be typical but I've only picked up Hogwarts Legacy and Star Wars at $70 so far this year. I'll drop the $70 when necessary but I'm alright just being patient and not worrying about FOMO.

Video games tend to be relatively cheap compared to other forms of entertainment for the time you get out of them.

Some games dont deserve to be $70. The man isn't looking hard enough.

@maybemaybemaybe true, but if you think about how much games like GTA sell, they make their entire budget in less than a day. They don't need to charge more. Also, the comparison with clothes doesn't work. You can't copy and paste clothes after you made one. You need the materials each time.

It's games that sell less than need that $70 price tag. So, I get it for some games.

Personally, I don't mind any price, because I simply wait until I can afford the game.

@Anke
Isn't that the point. Their metric for measuring if pice hikes are an issue or not is probably measured around if they're raking it in or not. So if they're raking it in, for them it's obviously not an issue.

I can’t help notice stores dropping £70 games in price to £50 within 6 weeks, and a lot of them being reduced to £30-£40 within 6 months. I’m sure there’s a percentage of people who always pay full price on the day of release (and a lot of those are digital now), but the only game I’ve bought day one recently was TOTK, and I got that a tenner cheaper than the RRP.

I find it hard to care about the price increase because it’s going to be on sale in 4 to 6 weeks after launch or 2 week or less around the holidays.

It's certainly made me more picky but this year the 2 best games I've played only cost me £50 at retail, those being Resident Evil 4 and Zelda. The vast majority of these so called "blockbusters" I have little interest in these days and the state of some games at launch makes getting them day 1 largely pointless anyway

@SoulChimera It probably help that since your friends are “casuals”. They aren’t buy more than 2-3 games a year?

That $70 only starts to hurt when you’re buying like 15-20 games a year.

Most new games released nowadays need weeks/months of patching so besides the £70 price it's only sensible to hold off on a day one purchase. Unfortunately, digital prices don't drop half as quick as retail.

"This tells us, at the very least, that they must not be checking the Push Square comments section of related articles!" Well people who vocalize an opinion, are almost always people with strong views. There is a reason they call it the silent majority. A lot of people will feel its not worth their time to have an opinion about games being 10 bucks more than 2 years back.

Not surprised by this at all.

@AverageGamer No, I mean casual as in don’t take part in things like gaming forums and stuff. They buy pretty much the same games that I do (which is a lot).

@SoulChimera So they’re not casual but are core gamers.

@maybemaybemaybe Spot on mate, a football ticket is near £70 and that is for 90 minutes (maybe 95 these days).

I probably buy less day ones these days as it stings a bit more if they turn out a bit sh*t but I consider most purchases to be worth while considering time spent!

To be fair, he wasn’t talking about the conversation generally, he was talking about how their games specifically were not as price sensitive.

I wouldn't have minded the £10 increase of they ditched the thing where there's some sort of "deluxe" version that's usually £10 more expensive, but with a little bit of DLC or artwork and just rolled that content into the base version.

But they've kept those, which are now £10 more than the new increased price.

No offense to the industry, but they seem to be under the impression that the value in games has gone up, without the price increases, for years. Whereas consumers already know the true cost of gaming has increased over the years and the value proposition has gotten worse.

Games are stacked with DLC and micro transactions that used to come with the game, at no extra cost, which was usually £50. Now that's £70 and all the extra cool stuff is, at least, another £40 or so away.

I’ve not bought and i know quite a few from an online community I’m in that would have bought a couple of their games but we passed coz of the ridiculous new price and got them way cheaper just a couple of months later. With so much to play no need to panic buy a $70 game day one - prices drop so quickly as they know long term sales at $70 would be impossible.

Well the price tag certainly put me off buying it. Unless it’s a major AAA release, like God of War Ragnarok, or a game that I know will give me many hours of enjoyment, like the forthcoming Diablo 4, I won’t pay £70 for a game.

@AverageGamer Fair enough, I’ll edit my original post to say core and casual.

@SoulChimera So true. Internet is always about the loud minorities. It's not real life. We've seen this playing out over and over countless times.

I'll take the most recent example, Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. How many people predicted that the $70 price tag will affect its sales and how many people appeared outrageous?

It still sold 10m copies in 3 days. Then we see trolls claiming it will sell 12m if it was $60. Lol.

@puddinggirl I paid £40 for Zelda. Curry’s had a discount. Zelda wasn’t full price everywhere. Nintendo games rarely have the ridiculous price in the U.K. if you are savvy you pay 35-45 day one releases.

The 2k games I’ve not seen the same situation.

To be fair he said he hasn't seen "much" pushback. He has seen it I'm sure. However it's clear he doesn't think the pushback is strong enough to be too much of a concern. I know I don't really care about the extra $10 personally. Do I like paying more? Of course not but it's not enough of an issue to cause a fuss about.

Heck Zelda just sold over 10 million copies in three days! That was the only time I was a bit annoyed at paying $70 because it was for a Switch game. However I knew the whole "vote with your wallet" idea would be pointless because I knew the game would sell like crazy anyway so why even bother? In the end I payed $70 just like any PS5 game I have paid full price for and I don't regret it.

Say what you will about Zelnick but the guy tells it like he sees it which is refreshing from a CEO.

They obviously never looked at the PushSquare forums then!

@Futureshark well even looking at the comments, not everyone is as upset as I think this article makes them out to be. Great comment from someone explaining the costs and time involved in creating these games. It's business, if you don't like it, move on to the next game. Site gets run by a bunch of Karen's it seems.

We're in a bit of an odd place because on one hand we have a handful of games making billions of pounds but we keep hearing that the big AAA single player game is getting increasingly difficult. I personally have no issue paying the extra £10 a game if it supports the type of game I want to keep being made.

Take2 sell their sports games at $70, which sell even if they're bugged to the eyeballs. And their games are aimmed at the casual gamer, so I can understand they're not really effected, except by having mo' money!

What other games have Take2 released at $70?

“This tells us, at the very least, that they must not be checking the Push Square comments section of related articles“

Makes sense, most here are entitled babies and have been for years 😂

@Stocksy You anecdotal experience doesn't discredit fact. In another word, you can pay $0 but its RRP is $70.

I don’t care about a raise in price because I only purchase games when I really want them.

For example, if the new Dead Space game was 70$, I’m only interested in it on sale. So, they could charge 200$ and it wouldn’t bother me. If 70$ is a deal breaker for you, wait for a sale.

Every physical game hits the 50€ mark if you have a bit of self constraint and wait, so Mr. Take-two can go and put his market research where the sun don't shine.
And please stop preordering, especially digital, unless you're out for some special edition for a game which means a lot to you, otherwise we're giving such tools the ammunition for such wild claims.

BREAKING: Company blocks ears and covers eyes with hands, claims it can't see or hear any criticism.

Well... i don't buy their games, so from my perspective yeah, they didn't see a change. 🤣
But i haven't nor will buy any game at 70+€.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

It's a matter of days when Sony and Microsoft add ads into games

The quote here from Zelnick is certainly tone-deaf and smacks of corporate haughtiness, especially with the economy the way it is and the struggle of the proletariat right now. It reads kind of like, “We’re going to charge what we want and you’re going to pay it, whether you like it or not because you can’t live without our awesome products”

It would have been a better look for him to come across more modest about the value proposition their games offer and recognize the economic sacrifices people make to buy their games, perhaps show a little appreciation for consumer support, etc.

That said, the guy isn’t selling insulin or milk and eggs. These games aren’t necessities of life. In the end, games are luxuries and leisure activities. I personally don’t mind paying $70, but I also exercise patience and wait for sales frequently too. And as others have said, I think the new pricing just requires us to be a little more strategic in our purchasing patterns, wait for price drops and see the opportunities for sales, purchase physical games when cheaper, and so forth.

I think of the extra $10 as a “tax” of sorts to have early access to a game. And ironically as we saw with Hogwart’s and other games, there is a movement toward an additional $10 on top of the base $70 price to have actual early access like a week early. I suspect we’ll see more and more of these early access tricks to get the effective price up even higher without having the sticker shock of the actual base price go up.

I have stated that £70 is 'too much' for me to spend on ANY game. In my opinion, no game is worth that much. At best, the game-play loop, the stories, the 'experience' is NO better than it was a decade ago (and more). At best, its wrapped up in 'prettier' visuals but the 'core' of the experience is the same...

On top of that, most games release with bugs/glitches, not well optimised to the hardware, and even with only a 'fraction' of the Content with the 'rest' to be drip fed over the next year or two in a 'Live Service' model. You are 'paying' more for less, more to 'beta test', more to be the 'first' to play when I can wait a few months (or more), get the game a LOT cheaper when its actually 'playable'.

I know Sony's Games are 'polished' at Launch, but I still don't think they are worth £70+ just to play them at/near launch when I can pick them up in a Sale for 'half' that price and still get to enjoy a Great game.

It's not as if we don't have a plethora of Great Games to play with Back Compat, Sales, Sub Services(inc Monthly free PS+ Essential games) etc all offering Great Games to play at a 'fraction' of the Cost until those 'new' releases drop to 'affordable' prices.

The Price hike has only affected my Purchases of 'New' releases. I still game just as much (if not more), I am just playing games I can access a LOT cheaper until these become a LOT cheaper too...

I’ve said this before but games aren’t expensive at all, relatively speaking. In over 25 years they’ve seen little to none inflation, including the transition from guilders to euros (I’m from the Netherlands) which caused huge inflation to other sectors.

When the PS4 launched in 2013, we were being charged £50 for AAA games in the UK.
In todays money that's £73, so prices haven't actually gone anywhere.
Each and every person can make their own value decisions I'm sure, but that narrative that games have gotten more expensive is simply wrong in relative terms. They were always expensive and they remain expensive.

If £70 today is such a rip off, why weren't we all saying this in 2013, when games were just as expensive?

I should add I feel huge sympathy for anyone who is struggling financially, but this kind of manufactured outrage at prices that are essentially the same as they were a decade ago is simply pointless.

I didn’t by Horizon or GOW because they were £70, I just thought I’m not that bothered, I’ll get them in a sale. I’d have probably got both if they were £49.99. I’m buying more physical games now too. Just got Hogwarts for £48 new. £70 is just too much for an impulse buy, I only get games I know I’ll love (Jedi Survivor, GT7) at that price

While the initial part of his statement is irksome to hear, the second part (where he said that consumers are now being more selective) is totally correct. Honestly, I used to buy yearly releases such as FIFA around 5 years ago, but now? No way - I had to be really sure that I like the game I purchase day one or pre-order (physical release, obviously) enough or if the developer has rather clean track record on their previous releases. For example, the last game I pre-ordered was Like a Dragon ishin, and RGG Studios have so far never disappointed me from my day one purchases.

On the other hand, I steer clear from any developers that have bad track records on this, such as WB Games (for Gotham Knights & Hogwarts Legacy), EA (for Star wars), and so forth.

So again, it doesn't deter me from buying games outright, but rather force me to be really selective

They clearly mean their sales haven't taken a nose dive. They really won't care about comments from people who don't buy full price anyway.

I have no idea why everyone is so up in arms over pricing going up anyway. Everything is going up in price so why wouldn't games? They are bigger, better and cost significantly more to make.

Also, everyone moaning. When was the last time you even bought a game full price? You don't do it. You shop around and find a good deal.

And finally. Like it or not... whe you don't buy brand new full price, you are still accepting the price rise by buying it cheaper elsewhere or waiting for a sale. That's because the sale price is higher than previously. The discount is the same % NOT the same value.

I knew the cat was out of the big when even Nintendo jumped on that bandwagon with Zelda. All major AAA releases will likely be $70 at launch soon.

When I bought final fantasy 3 on SNES in 1994 it was $70. Games are one of the few things on the planet that haven’t gone up in price since then. I feel lucky when I gladly hand over $70 for Elden Ring, a game which I played for 250 hours. Renting 250 hours of movies would cost $5,000+.

Not sure what metrics they’re using, but I have most definitely suspended most game purchases until they hit the bargain bin 1 month after launch - may be an exaggeration, but far to many games receive a $20+ discount after mere weeks on the market. Perhaps they’re not seeing the hit because retailers are voluntarily taking a hit to their profits to move product and the games have already left Take Two’s inventory.

Translated: I like how he first says there's "no pushback" and then says people are limiting their spending by either buying only blockbusters or older lower priced games.

That's not "no pushback" that's "we own NBA and GTA and therefore people still buy our games and cut their spending on someone else's so it works for us." That's different from "no pushback."

I’m old, so I remember when SNES games were $70. I remember paying $79.99 for Phantasy Star 4 on Genesis. Really we’ve been fortunate that game prices have remained relatively static over a long period of time. Even now, if you can wait a month or so, you don’t usually have to pay $70.

This is BS. Of course people will buy big established games, but nobody is buying these smaller titles for $70 other than whales.

I feel that a lot of people that complain about the price increase rarely buy full price games anyway.
It's too easy to fill your backlog with cheap AAA games these days, so just be patienced and it will drop to the right price soon.

There are few games worth owning (spending any actual money on) that release in today's realm of GaaS focused publishers/developers. Even fewer are worth the $70 asking price. Zelda TotK was one of the few worth it. I cancelled my preorder for Immortals of Aveum after seeing it was $70. It's an unproven new IP. It looks interesting, but only at $50 or less.

Not even the upcoming MK1 is worth $70 to me and I've been an MK fan for 30 years now. One of the reasons for this is because I know modern developers don't release completed games anymore. Especially fighting games, you get half the roster. The rest will be slowly released as overly expensive DLC.

Hopefully I see at least one announcement from Sony next week of a game deserving of the $70 asking price.

Anecdotally, I'm far more picky about buying games at release which hasn't always been the case for me. Horizon is the last ($70) game I bought day one and it's looking like that might be the only one for the year.

Not saying $70 titles is the end of the world but I've definitely started waiting for sales more than I used to.

@BcXhC @Niktaw Those SNES prices were great haha. £70 for Jurassic Park, £90 for a US import of Super Street Fighter 2, £110 for Lethal Enforcers, amongst others.

In practice the AAA games are around £59 and usually can skim off a few % with cashback deals etc.. For games where I don't expect DLC I can usually sell the game afterwards for a few £10's - so £30-£40 for ~100 hours of entertainment is actually not bad value IMHO

It's easy to miss things that you ignore.

I buy full price game once per 4-5 years. I personally think that any game doesn't have more value than 30 pounds and it must be super game that convinces me to buy it for 35 pounds.

Anyone thinking games are expensive today is clearly far too young to have a profile on a message board. He's not wrong, each new title seems to hit record numbers despite being "more expensive". Nevermind the fact that games in the SNES/N64 era regularly hit $50 - $70, and aren't even half as big and involved as most games today. Now, are most games today worth $70? No, but the only ones complaining are casuals who don't really play good games, these are the same people who think GTA, CoD, Halo, and Madden are good. We real gamers know gaming is a luxury, an inexpensive one at that, and if you're also buying digitally you know it's cheaper than ever to be a gamer today than it was 20 years ago.

If you disagree, you're not old enough to have this conversation, simple as that.

There is pushback , most people buy when price goes down , or now a saying when gets in ps plus, only YouTubers will buy because they need to rush , games becoming mainstream is becoming less and less enjoyable