Will Game Prices Fall?

Seems like some people are starting to think the unthinkable: that retail prices for console games might not stay the $60 price point. A future where perhaps the game might be at a lower price point, and profits gathered by selling downloadable content (DLC) later on. This was an obvious strategy years ago, if you were paying attention, but I guess it's hard to pay attention when you're focused on the retail channel. Now that downloads are available on every platform, and revenue from them is growing, and retail is starting to shrink... now the idea begins to take hold.

It's going to mean huge changes in the business model of big publishers, which they will fight kicking and screaming. Let's hope they start experimenting with this idea soon before smaller and more agile publishers beat them to it.

Or maybe we should root for the smaller, more agile guys... this just seems like a way to make development less expensive and more predictable, though designers will have to change how they design games. And marketers will have to get busy and convince customers that this is the type of game they should look for, rather than the huge megablockbuster with hundreds of hours of content and years of costly development time.