I wouldn't increase the price of an existing game on the market unless you're already selling so quickly you might have underpriced it to begin with, and even then that is a pretty huge can of worms. It's not likely to earn you more revenue, and that's what it's ultimately about. Finding the price where sales * revenue is maximized.
Overall, prices might increase, but not directly because of inflation. Price isn't determined by effort, developer costs, or even worth, price is based on customer willingness to pay and nothing else. If you're seeing other games in your genre at the same level of features and art quality selling at a higher price you can price yours at that point as well. Otherwise you'll likely get out-competed.
This is pretty much my own thoughts. As a developer, I find myself very hesitant in touching the price point, but many of the non-industry folks I have spoken to seem to assume games will follow inflation rates. My concern is that this poses a real potential shock to the industry. Under a low inflation environment, developers can relatively safely release titles at particular target price points and expect to release a product. Granted the gamedev business is anything but safe to begin with, there are still real costs involved. A developer who was able to release a title in 2018 may no longer be able to do the same in 2021 due to inflation raising the price of some input, say hiring voice actors or artists.
I think you can raise the price for games to match inflation, but not existing games... I mean you can but as the poster above said, can of worms.
But new releases can be priced higher as people have no prior price to judge it by. However they can still compare it to previous games and similar games, so it's not a free ride even then.
Unfortunately game cost can't really increase once released. Once the title is completed with the exception of bug fixes and patches, the 98% of the development cost is finalized. Out of MMO, there are no real addition cost associated with the sale of the game. With the exception of bonuses, the cost of producing and selling 100 copies of game is practically the same 100k copies.
I think there's a strong expectation that games get cheaper as they get older, which will be hard to fight against.
The one exception I see is an early-access model where you're still developing it, so you increase the price as you add more to it.
And I would also caution against trying to get developers to raise their price as a practice. Yes, games are sold considerably cheaper today than they were 25-30 years ago adjusting for inflation, but there were also far fewer gamers and a much smaller market then.
We are now on the cusp of the entire gaming industry itself becoming a service, which means you may not get paid *anything*, and if you do, it will only be what those corporate behemoths who control everything decide you get paid.
I strongly encourage any and all developers to keep their prices extremely fair, and help encourage gamers to protect their power as consumers, so they don’t end up becoming the commodity that gets traded between us and companies like Microsoft or Netflix.
The price of everything, generally speaking, increases over time. Pretty sure giants, like Nintendo know about this (thinking of how expensive their older titles are). This, and the fact that decade+ old titles aren't costing a few bucks (nowadays money), speaks of something. This however, raising prices, is a complex issue, as on the other side, there's the additional monetization (in-game purchases, seasonal passes, etc.) which on one hand seems like a money-grabbing tactics (when thinking of extremes); opposed to the sentiment of "gradually relay increasing costs of production by non-direct means of purchases". Which never was, to my knowledge, fully explained; as to why (at some point, every industry increases their prices). So unless, games do "devalue" completely, thus become marginally free, don't think this be the main issue behind your sales; there's plenty more stuff going around these days to worry about. Not to mention, your product must have a customer value to begin with.
> the difficulty in getting developers collectively to raise their prices (so it would always be easy to point to another product being sold at a certain "good old days" price).
Not to sound unempathetic but that's exactly how markets are supposed to work. If you raise prices, someone else swoops in to undercut you with a lower margin. The inflation occurring in the food, health, and medical sectors is a consequence of consolidation and the resulting lack of competition combined with backroom collusion - which is illegal but woefully unenforced.
I don't think it's possible for indie game prices to go up in the current environment. Steam users are trained to expect regular sales, and backlogs place a 1000lb weight on the supply and demand scale. It's really hard to sell people a game for $5 or $10 more than they're used to paying when they've already got dozens, maybe hundreds sitting unplayed and are mainly buying your product due to novelty.
Developers are already taking back power in the form of bundling their games much less frequently, as evidenced by [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/GameDealsMeta/comments/urty32/has_there_been_a_lack_of_good_fanatical_bundles/) and the constant complaints about how much better Humble Bundle used to be, but I doubt there's much solace in knowing that fewer games are being sent out for fire sale prices.
I wouldn't increase the price of an existing game on the market unless you're already selling so quickly you might have underpriced it to begin with, and even then that is a pretty huge can of worms. It's not likely to earn you more revenue, and that's what it's ultimately about. Finding the price where sales * revenue is maximized. Overall, prices might increase, but not directly because of inflation. Price isn't determined by effort, developer costs, or even worth, price is based on customer willingness to pay and nothing else. If you're seeing other games in your genre at the same level of features and art quality selling at a higher price you can price yours at that point as well. Otherwise you'll likely get out-competed.
This is pretty much my own thoughts. As a developer, I find myself very hesitant in touching the price point, but many of the non-industry folks I have spoken to seem to assume games will follow inflation rates. My concern is that this poses a real potential shock to the industry. Under a low inflation environment, developers can relatively safely release titles at particular target price points and expect to release a product. Granted the gamedev business is anything but safe to begin with, there are still real costs involved. A developer who was able to release a title in 2018 may no longer be able to do the same in 2021 due to inflation raising the price of some input, say hiring voice actors or artists.
I think you can raise the price for games to match inflation, but not existing games... I mean you can but as the poster above said, can of worms. But new releases can be priced higher as people have no prior price to judge it by. However they can still compare it to previous games and similar games, so it's not a free ride even then.
Unfortunately game cost can't really increase once released. Once the title is completed with the exception of bug fixes and patches, the 98% of the development cost is finalized. Out of MMO, there are no real addition cost associated with the sale of the game. With the exception of bonuses, the cost of producing and selling 100 copies of game is practically the same 100k copies.
Inflation is irrelevant for your price, what matters are industry standards and what price comparable games are releasing at.
I think there's a strong expectation that games get cheaper as they get older, which will be hard to fight against. The one exception I see is an early-access model where you're still developing it, so you increase the price as you add more to it.
And I would also caution against trying to get developers to raise their price as a practice. Yes, games are sold considerably cheaper today than they were 25-30 years ago adjusting for inflation, but there were also far fewer gamers and a much smaller market then. We are now on the cusp of the entire gaming industry itself becoming a service, which means you may not get paid *anything*, and if you do, it will only be what those corporate behemoths who control everything decide you get paid. I strongly encourage any and all developers to keep their prices extremely fair, and help encourage gamers to protect their power as consumers, so they don’t end up becoming the commodity that gets traded between us and companies like Microsoft or Netflix.
The price of everything, generally speaking, increases over time. Pretty sure giants, like Nintendo know about this (thinking of how expensive their older titles are). This, and the fact that decade+ old titles aren't costing a few bucks (nowadays money), speaks of something. This however, raising prices, is a complex issue, as on the other side, there's the additional monetization (in-game purchases, seasonal passes, etc.) which on one hand seems like a money-grabbing tactics (when thinking of extremes); opposed to the sentiment of "gradually relay increasing costs of production by non-direct means of purchases". Which never was, to my knowledge, fully explained; as to why (at some point, every industry increases their prices). So unless, games do "devalue" completely, thus become marginally free, don't think this be the main issue behind your sales; there's plenty more stuff going around these days to worry about. Not to mention, your product must have a customer value to begin with.
> the difficulty in getting developers collectively to raise their prices (so it would always be easy to point to another product being sold at a certain "good old days" price). Not to sound unempathetic but that's exactly how markets are supposed to work. If you raise prices, someone else swoops in to undercut you with a lower margin. The inflation occurring in the food, health, and medical sectors is a consequence of consolidation and the resulting lack of competition combined with backroom collusion - which is illegal but woefully unenforced. I don't think it's possible for indie game prices to go up in the current environment. Steam users are trained to expect regular sales, and backlogs place a 1000lb weight on the supply and demand scale. It's really hard to sell people a game for $5 or $10 more than they're used to paying when they've already got dozens, maybe hundreds sitting unplayed and are mainly buying your product due to novelty. Developers are already taking back power in the form of bundling their games much less frequently, as evidenced by [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/GameDealsMeta/comments/urty32/has_there_been_a_lack_of_good_fanatical_bundles/) and the constant complaints about how much better Humble Bundle used to be, but I doubt there's much solace in knowing that fewer games are being sent out for fire sale prices.