Analyst Claims Stimulus Package Shouldve Cost More

Analyst Claims Stimulus Package Should’ve Cost More

In a recent interview with IGN, Jesse Divnich, Director of Analyst Services at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) Management, claimed that Activision could’ve priced their recently released Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package even higher and still achieved record breaking sales. Divinch explained some of the reasoning behind this bold claim:

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“The accepted commercial success benchmark for DLC for a console game is 20% of the install base. The stimulus map pack was able to reach that benchmark in just a week, and should reach 30 — 35% (of Modern Warfare 2 owners purchasing the add-on) through its lifetime.”

“It is evident that 2.5 million Xbox Live players felt that $15 was either just right or a good bargain and given the enormous quantity sold (2.5 million), I’d argue that Activision could have charged more and still obtain the same results.”

Interesting points from Divinch, but I can’t help but feel like we’re missing pieces of the picture. Most everyone I know, regardless of whether or not they purchased the map pack, felt that it was a massive rip off. I won’t dispute that raising the price another $5 might have still ended with similar sales results, but at what point does Activision need to draw the line? Not oblivious to the media coverage and the general negative response to the choice to price the map pack at $15, Divinch gave some of his own insight into the price hike and how it affected sales:

“Of course the rate hike from $10 to $15 was met with many complaints from consumers, but the commercial success makes it evident that gamers felt the price tag was a good deal.”

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I can’t help but disagree here. Perhaps it was more that gamers weren’t sure if it was a good deal, and were willing to test out the waters to see how they felt about the value of the Stimulus Package. If a gamer purchases the map pack only to find after the fact that it wasn’t worth the price tag associated with it, there’s the chance that future purchases might get a lot more serious thought and have a lesser chance of being an impulse buy. Divinch doesn’t seem to think this is a trend that’s going to change anytime soon either:

“Whatever the case, you can bet that DLC prices are going to rise to the point where pricing reaches its most optimum in relation to demand.”

I’m hoping that Divinch is wrong about this. With gaming constantly moving further into the online space, and additional content being added through DLC more frequently, I can’t help but feel like we’re moving further away from complete products and more towards incomplete products that become complete after an additional fee has been paid. I think it’s important for companies to leverage their choices additionally by the cost of development for the product they’ve created. The map packs were no doubt simpler jobs than, say, developing Modern Warfare 2 itself.

How do you feel about the cost of DLC and the direction it seems to be heading in?

Source: IGN

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