This is exactly my point.
If a person cannot afford to (or is not willing to) buy the game at full price. They will buy the game when the price is reduced below the maximum amount that they’re willing to pay. But from the developers perspective, they want the price to be as close as possible to the edge case for each individual. The matter is somewhat complicated by the fact that Microsoft can’t customise the price for each individual person, but I discuss that a little in my comment above.
Even though the analogy wasnt correct in this context I wrote something differently after it. They wont sell it at any price because they have to reach certain numbers to make a profit.
Like in your example if N is customers and P is price, then N is unknown. You want to reach your money you paid and want to make a profit. Seeing its a triple A game it will be around 60 million. AoE IV has to bring the franchise back, seeing the current fanbase is around max 50.000 people selling it for 20 bucks is going to lose them millions.
You want to get as much from every customer as its unknown how many customers you will get. So they already did regional pricing, if they are going to lower it even more they will simply not make money.
It doesnt matter they can make infinite copies, they have to be sold aswell. And if only 50.000 customers arrive those 20 bucks is not enough. An example for this is Atari ET game they made millions of copies of that game, yet they sold like 10.000 here you see that it doesnt matter how many you can make, it matters how much you are going to sell, in which it matters you earn enough per copy.
If they sell for 20 bucks, others want to buy it for 20 aswell and nobody is going to find 60 bucks accaptable anymore.
Hey ms devs what extra perks do we get for paying the purchasing power equivalent of ~100USD in India for the game that should cost 60USD?
Any extra features you are offering to the countries that have higher regional pricing than it should be?
The price in India is 2499 Rupee = 33.53 USD
Indian is a country with not good economy so it is logical to be cheaper. And it is. So, why to offer extra features? I will say an example of the ‘price equivalent’ because it is tricky.
I am from Greece. We have Euro and prices are similar in all EU countries but at the same time salaries, taxes, unemployment etc all are a lot worst. I believe because we have same prices, the quality of products ( etc a refrigerator ) is the same here and in the rest of EU . But I have heard that when we had our region coin (drachma) before 2000, the quality of products was worst (the materials for the same refrigerator - same model and brand - was not the same in our country then in ‘strong economy’ countries). And I don’t say it as something strange. It is logical, materials cost a lot. So ‘power equivalent’ does not always happens even if sometimes you think it is happening part of it.
I know digital products does not cost materials, but they cost ‘working hours’ for the company. Practically a ‘material’ that is the same quality for all the countries. So if they made the exactly ‘power equivalent’ might have problems especially in a AAA game (which means it cost a lot). So they made part of the discount but can’t make the ‘power equivalent’.
What are you talking about? People are not demanding the game to be 20 bucks everywhere. The discussion is about price discrimination between regional markets and - as has been shown - in some markets prices are a lot higher than usual and a lot higher compared to other counties when taking purchasing power into account.
You cannot simply say that there is a demand of N - it has to be looked at for each region. For people in those regions it is more about like buying the game for 120 bucks rather than the normal 60, or even worse. And I think you can agree that buying the game at those prices is just not realistic.
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Thats the thing there is already been adjusting for regional pricing. For example someone from Kazachstan gets the game for like 70% less then someone from Germany. The thing is people ask for even more adjusting when it is already adjusted and otherwise will just make microsoft lose money.
No the game is already on gamepass for cheaper than regional prices including hundreds of games. So regional prices makes extra money for Microsoft
Its cheaper because what most of those companies do is buy it in the country were its cheaper to then sell the key in countries were its more expansive.
If you honestly think 20 bucks for a triple A game is going to be sufficient you should either redo economics or never get into it.
You are comparing irrelevant things.
Euro is standardized. You can buy daily basic items for almost the same amount of euros across EU countries. Be it Greece or Portugal. That’s why these countries standardized their currencies. The same amount of work/product bears you the same amount of euros.
Having a weaker currency exchange rate has nothing to do with weak or strong economy. China regularly tries to weaken it’s currency intentionally for an edge in global market. Sometimes countries intentionally weaken their currency exchange rates to increase foreign direct investments. It can be easily changed by government policies.
For paying ₹2499 in India you have to do work (products/services) that is equivalent of doing work in USA to earn around 100USD
Exchange rate and purchasing power are two different things. You don’t seem to understand.
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I don’t comparing irrelevant things. I said about week economy, not about week coin. ( and saying week economy I mean mostly the economic power citizens have). As I said above about Greece:
Most people I know takes 550 Euros (greater salaries are usually for people much older).
The cost of life in Greece is very expensive as in all EU countries. ( etc the gas-gasoline for cars is more than 2 euros/ lit ). The theoretical unemployment is 26% ( there are many parameters that reduces this. Even if you worked 1 hour the last 3 months you do not count as unemployment ). Taxes are >40%. In a recent study the result was that people work 185 days per year to pay their taxes.
Also the country economy of Greece is a big mess. The ratio : ( Debt the country has / Money that the country earns every year ) is over 200%. It is the third worst ratio in the world. So yes, Greece has a strong coin but it has a very week economy both as country and as citizens.
I know that because we are in EU the game price here can not fall and is 60Euros. I also know that other countries with week economy is good to have a discount because this is fair. I just said that it is hard to follow the ‘power equivalent’ but usually you follow part of it. And the ‘power equivalent’ almost never is real for products that are producing in ‘strong economy countries’. ( etc products usually ‘power equivalent’ follows cheaper materials. And the game has a material also. It is the working hours. ).
We don’t argue practically I think. I preorder the game. Many people in Greece will wait to buy the game during sale period. I suspect the same will happen to every country. And the weaker economic power the citizens in a country have, this ratio will be bigger. But in every country there are a lot of people who can afford a higher price than the ‘power equivalent’ and people who can’t afford it, will wait for a sale period. This is the way a company can find the people in a country who can afford to pay more and the ones who can’t. Because if it lower the price to everyone without trying to determine who can afford more it will not have any profit and production might fail. Even in America, there are people who will wait the sales to buy the game. And don’t forget about the free AOE 2 DLC. So practically the cost now is less. And we are speaking about an AAA game (which means an expensive production).
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You still don’t get the point.
Case about Greece is different. It is in international debt that’s why it has higher taxes so that it can pay off it’s international debt. It still follows the same Euro system of EU, doesn’t have a separate currency system. Purchasing power is the same. If it doesn’t pay the debt, price of goods across EU (not just Greece) will inflate. One of the reasons for UK’s Brexit was this problem.
I am not talking about average salaries or whether people can afford it or not. Am talking about the “purchasing power” of the currencies.
Check the OECD link in this post to understand what I mean:
Working hours needed to earn INR2500 in India is the same as earning around 2500/21≈120USD in America.
Yes the game did take working hours to create. We are also giving our own working hours to earn money to buy the game.
Why should an Indian do double the work than a person in USA to get a product with exact same features? That’s the point.
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Saying week economy I mean mostly the economic power citizens have. Sorry if it wasn’t clear. This is determining by the salaries, taxes etc ) and the cost of life. In Turkey, India and a lot of other countries, the cost of life is less. Taking all these into consideration you have the ‘power equivalent’, which I don’t argue, I totally agree that 33USD in India might be equivalent to 100USD in America.
I said something different. In every country there are people who earns more and the one who earn less. And in America there are unemployment people as in every country, people who earns less than some Indian citizens etc. When you make a product obviously you want to have profit. For countries where the economic power citizens have ( this is the ‘power equivalent’ ) is less than in other countries you make a discount. So you want to find the golden way to procced. This is happens via sales.
Example:
examples of buying the game ratios:
In America: 40% at full price and 60% at sales.
In India : 20% if people will buy it at full price and 80% will wait for sales. ( because as we mention the equivalent of price is 100 USD ).
Now I will think it from the position of the company. In countries where people have not the ‘power equivalent’ than in others company decides to make a discount. But:
- As the ‘power equivalent’ of a country falls, the economic differences between people rises. There are many who can easily afford even full price. So we make a discount but not equivalent to the ‘power equivalent’. By doing this we find the ones who can afford more and the others will buy it via sales (as in every country). Also by doing this company loose money and with different ways. When prices fall in a country there are ways for other countries where the game is more expensive to take it cheaper. So making discounts you will loose money and from countries you have not make discounts. It is not moral to not make discounts because of this, but at the same time you want to restraints the losses.
- Why should an Indian do double the work than a person in USA to get a product with exact same features? That’s the point. —> I totally agree. But at the same country there are people in India (as in every country) that needs to work a lot less than other compatriots needs. Unfortunately we are not leaving in heaven and everyone does not earn the same money neither in the same country.
The company needs to follow a middle way to process. Clearly it is not fair to have same price to everyone. At the same time it is not possible to follow the economic equivalent to everyone because it looses and from other countries. So it chooses a middle way decision. Is it correct? There is not correct here. If the company does not take the money it invested back, the production will fail.
Well it depends on target audience truely, if they only want their older fan generation to be on board then the higher price is somewhat okay…
As those kids who were in college at the time of 2005 are most probably now earning decent enough to continue their old passion for the game and maybe able to afford the game now, coz price maybe not a barrier anymore for them.
But if this game is, intended to ALL types of audience/generations and wants to to capture the current younger generation. The current higher prices arent going to lure any of those budding gamers.
it’ll become a collection of old passionate AoE 1,2,3 players and negligible newer gen of players, and probably wont reach its , ever-desired status of a major league game
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For this reasons there are the sales. Even in same country the economic power each one has is different, the games each one wants are not the same etc. Practically, the amount of money each one is willingness to pay for each game differs.
We are speaking about the starting price of the game before sales. In my opinion the price for an expensive production ( 3 studios works the game for 4 years ) is a logical price. And if you preorder the game you take free the new AOE 2 DE dlc. I have seen much cheaper productions to be more expensive without any replayability etc.
Some might say that we are not talking about the 60Euros but about the price equivalent in each country. I saw some games in steam. Almost all have the similar % discount as AOE 4 has between countries with less ‘power equivalent’. I saw 3-4 games. I suspect this is happening for most of the games. So the exact ‘power equivalent’ almost no-one follows it because of the parameters I mentioned before (obviously there might be and a lot other, these are some I mentioned ).
I’m going to write it again so maybe you can understand this time…
"The game is already on gamepass for cheaper than regional prices including hundreds of games. So regional prices makes extra money for Microsoft"
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Damn that Crisis really did a number on you.
Oh god sorry, I read it as gamepass for some reason being a key seller, but yeah thats xbox thingy.
The gamepass costs 12,99 per month so its more of a service and you dont really own the game as far as I know. If you want to play the game for a year you would spend more then 60 euros.
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Gamepass is 30 TL per month in Turkey. 300 TL is the game price. Game wont take %50 sale for one year. If you play the game one year qith game pass you pay 360 TL. Game pass is not beneficial for long term. You can play with game pass then you buy the game with sales, this time game is more expensive than release price. 
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But the game is already available for $20 or less in certain regions. So how can it be that M$ is not yet bankrupt?? Curious 
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Because its just a part of their overall pricing strategy. You can get that game for 20 because US rest fortunate people will pay your share also.
If the game was for 20 everywhere we would get lower quality game or none at all.
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