Triple-A games have been priced at $60 for years now, and only recently this increased to $70, but how far are gamers willing to go before price starts to impact demand and perception of value?
With prices for AAA games being steady at $60 since 2006, and key titles by multiple publishers (EA, Nintendo, and others) priced at $70 since 2023, we wanted to find out if gamers are ready to pay even more for the most wanted games.
To be able to get the answer to our question, and to find out how far they are willing to go, we needed an ideal product to test, and that came in the form of Grand Theft Auto VI – a highly anticipated sequel in the popular series, which is expected to be released in November 2026.
With development costs up to $2 billion (several times more than the previous release), they need to come up with a price that will help them ensure that investment was sound.
To find the answer to our question, we chose a list of AAA titles and put them into a concept matrix for a choice based conjoint study.
We included 5 unique attributes: Game, Single Player, Multiplayer, Additional Content, and Base Price. For each attribute, unique levels were defined and randomly shown each time a set of choice cards was presented to respondents.
The respondents for the research were gamers responsible for purchasing games in their household. We made sure to represent the general demographics of the industry, with the age range of 18-44 being the prominent majority, and to also examine those that primarily game on mobile.
On each card, the respondents were asked to select the game they would purchase. Each time a choice card was selected from the set, the respondent was shown another unique set of options with different levels for each attribute. This process was repeated 10 times.
We also used the Gabor-Granger methodology to measure price elasticity and estimate demand for GTA VI by presenting respondents with a range of price levels and asking them to indicate their willingness to purchase at each price point.
When we looked at all of the respondent choice card data it indicated that they would be most likely to purchase GTA VI if it was priced between $60-80. Amazingly, a large proportion was willing to pay as much as $110.
The ideal price range was also confirmed by Gabor-Granger which showed 60% of people are willing to pay $80 for GTA VI which would be the optimal price point for revenue for Rockstar Games. Furthermore, 45% would be willing to purchase at $100.
Latest news suggests that GTA VI will most likely be priced at $100, and potentially even more.
