The boss of Saber Interactive thinks publishers will stop trying to charge £70 for a new video game, as they reign in the budgets on games.
One of the main arguments for trying to make more money from games with microtransactions, battle passes, and the like is that the price of video games has been largely static since their inception.
The price hike to $70/£70, at the start of the generation, has now been adopted by most of the big publishers but even then it was only a £10 increase from the high-end norm. It’s also true that even in the 16-bit era there were occasional examples of games, such as Virtua Racing on the Mega Drive, which also cost £70.
Nevertheless, it’s still clearly a lot of money, that people can ill afford in these trying times, but the head of the recently emancipated Saber Interactive thinks that the prices will eventually decrease, along with video game budgets.
The high cost of making modern video games has been one of the key causes for the current industry turmoil, with games such as Sony’s Spider-Man 2 costing over $300 million (over £240 million).
You would’ve thought the obvious solution to this was simply to cut the budgets but that’s not been mentioned once, by any publisher, who instead seem more keen to simply give up and make live service and mobile games instead.
Saber Interactive is both a publisher and developer, but in terms of their own original titles generally only work with more modestly budgeted ‘AA’ games – something most larger publishers gave up on last generation.
However, CEO Matthew Karch is adamant that the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 won’t be £70 and thinks that other publishers will eventually begin to see sense when it come to their budgets.
‘I think that as games become more expensive to make, the $70 title is going to go the way of the dodo. I do. I just don’t think it’s sustainable…,’ he told IGN.
After pointing out that even large companies can quickly get into trouble if just a single big budget game fails, Karch added: ‘I think the market is going to shift to development which is not necessarily lower quality, but there’s going to be an emphasis on trying to find ways to reduce costs.’
Karch suggests that AI may help to lower costs but that it will not be enough and that simply not spending so much in the first place is not only the best option, but one that should’ve been taken up a long time ago.
‘I think that there’s going to be a real shortage of game content over the coming few years,’ he says. ‘You’ve seen how many layoffs there’s been, you see how many games have gotten killed. But we have a lot of good projects going on that I’m proud of and that I feel really, really strongly about.’
Although the start of 2024 has generally been very good in terms of the quantity and quality of new games the release schedules for the rest of the year, and beyond, are certainly looking very barren at the moment.
However, between Sony’s continued secrecy and the apparent delay of the Switch 2 it’s difficult to tell whether that’s just a temporary problem or, as Karch suggests, an issue that is going to last several years, until the industry rights itself.
Saber Interactive was bought by Embracer Group in 2020, when it was buying up seemingly every independent games company available, but Saber broke away from them this year in what is essentially a management buyout.
Despite Embracer being heavily criticised in some quarters, for their reckless purchases that have quickly led to job cuts and sell-offs, Karch defended Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors.
‘He loves IP. He loves games. He loves game developers,’ said Karch. ‘I remember a lot of negative comments about them gobbling everything up. And so now they’re a little bit gleeful… which I don’t think is entirely equitable.
‘Give Lars a break or have somebody give him a break. Tell the world that I said they need to give this guy a break.’
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