14 DAY TRIAL // Initially, the videogame industry seemed impervious to the threat of the financial crisis. After all, if gas is very pricey and you cannot afford a vacation, you're gonna stay indoors, power up your gaming consoles and pop in your favorite release of 2008, be it GTA IV, Fable II or Fallout 3, right? As the financial crisis turned into a world wide economic depression, this scenario began to seem even shakier as big publishers and developers started cutting staff or just shutting down altogether.
Now, one of the most respected videogame developers, Peter Molyneux, the boss of Lionhead, is saying that one of the ways the industry could cope with the downturn is by reducing the prices charged for copies of a game. Molyneux talked to the BBC and said that “Everyone says games are good value for home entertainment, despite the relatively high price. I'm not so sure. I think we're going to see a lot of price pressure put on games.”
At the moment, many analysts reveal that the price point for AAA titles will likely remain the same during 2009, with the most important releases for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 costing 59.99 dollars and the big Nintendo Wii games going for 49.99 dollars. Still, budget priced games and family titles could see their prices slashed during the course of the year.
Peter Molyneux, who was the driving force behind last year's Xbox 360 exclusive role playing game Fable II, is also explaining that the Christmas period, which sees most of the important releases of a year, might be ill suited and is getting too crowded. He is cited as saying “I wonder if Christmas is really the right time to release a new title. We've got into a rhythm which is all fair and well while people are buying games but we have to make sure we don't get complacent.”
It seems that Lionhead's new project, which is already in development, will only be announced in 2010 and might be released in a non Christmas period of 2011.