Industry veteran calls for £70 games

Gaming veteran Chris Deering has said that triple-A rated new titles should be priced at £70 so that the industry can remain sustainable.

It was recently revealed that Activision's highly-anticipated Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will carry a recommended retail price of £55 when it is released this November.

This has led to a furious reaction from many fans about the high price, including some strong opinions being discussed on Digital Spy's Gaming forum.

Deering - a former president of Sony Europe who is currently on the board of Codemasters and the IGA - told MCV that the high cost of development in today's gaming industry will likely push the price of new games even higher in the future.

"Before there can be as many successful blockbuster games as there were in the past, games have to be produced in a more efficient fashion," he explained.

"In order to price the games at a level where they would support an industry like they did ten years ago, they'd have to be sold at £70. But people just don't have that kind of money, there's a psychological glass ceiling.

"Consumers won't spend more, but to write the game, publishers are having to spend more than ever before. That's the key problem."

Deering explained that the cost of development is now ten times higher than it was for the PS2 and 20 to 50 times higher compared to making games for the original PlayStation.

"Yet there are lots of things you can get for less than the relative value of paying 50p an hour for a very high-end game," he added.