Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors was recently featured in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz about the increasingly challenging reality of triple-A game development.
Just recently, following Embracer's full-year 2023-24 financial report, we learned that the Alone in the Dark reboot sold below the group's expectations. In the interview, Wingefors defended the game's quality but pointed to the need to find the necessary amount of consumers.
I believe Alone in the Dark was a quality product, and the developers went all in to deliver on that. It's very unfortunate to see that it didn't catch enough consumers out there willing to engage again in that IP and product. It's just a brutal truth. It was a big investment and, ultimately, we need to get those right. It's very tough… At the end of the day, games are a commercial industry and we need to earn money to have a future, to be able to invest, and ultimately we need to find that consumer.
More broadly, the Embracer boss mused on the possibility of raising prices of triple-A games. He believes that, with rising development costs, studios might be forced to either do that or make shorter games.
It's been hard to increase pricing in premium PC/console games. The pricing of those products has been the same for many years, which means that the margin to succeed is less, and on top of that, there is a higher cost of capital.
I'm not saying you can't increase the price. But the reality is no one has tried it. If you create an enormous RPG, for example, with 100 or 150 hours of gameplay, very polished and a unique experience, would the consumer be willing to pay more? If they would, they would have more products potentially coming to market. But no one tried it. It's something we have been discussing, but we are currently sticking to the practice of the industry. Would it be that one company one day that tries to increase pricing? That remains to be seen.
I just believe there are consumers willing to engage in those amazing RPGs and other single player games, and ultimately, they are willing to spend money on them. Do you increase pricing, or do you make them shorter? I think there are ways. I think it would be very sad if everything just became big multiplayer, in-game monetization titles. There are millions of consumers willing to engage more in classic games.
Most publishers actually raised prices from the standard $60 to $70 over the past couple of years. However, it is true that before this recent increase, prices had stayed the same for decades.
If faced with the choice presented by the Embracer CEO, would you choose to pay even more for a triple-A single-player game, or would you be fine with shorter games at the same pricing? Let us know in the comments and vote in the poll below.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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