Special Edition
Expensive, exclusive versions of games are increasingly common - but consumers are also growing wary of them
Downward pressure on game prices is a common theme in industry discussions, and, of course, no stranger to this column. The situation is fairly clear - with retail price wars further fuelled by the entry of supermarkets and mass-market online retailers, not to mention the continued growth of the second-hand market, games now find their price tags being assaulted on a new front, as consumers find entertainment value in vastly cheaper products on new platforms ranging from Xbox Live Arcade and PSN through to Facebook or the iPhone. Retail price wars will eventually yield winners and losers, and prices will rise again; the collapse in consumers' perception of the value of interactive entertainment, however, will take much longer to repair.
There is one bright light, however, in what's overall a somewhat gloomy picture (for publishers, at least - for consumers it's obviously fantastic, and for clever developers it's arguably a golden opportunity) regarding game prices. That bright light is special editions of games - a field which many publishers were slow to exploit, but which has gradually become a key part of the release strategy for any major title.
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