GTA 6 Publisher Says Games Should Be Priced Based On Length

thegamer.com:

The price hike from $60 to $70 was already controversial, but as reported by Exputer, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick thinks the industry should go a step further, and that games should be priced at their "per-hour value".

Essentially, the longer the game, the more it's worth. This is a very similar argument to what we've seen gamers say for years when something is 'too short', as many suggest breezier weekend games shouldn't be priced at the same point as goliath open-world RPGs.

In terms of pricing for any entertainment property, basically, the algorithm is the value of the expected entertainment usage, which is to say that the per-hour value times the number of expected hours plus the terminal value that’s perceived by the customer in ownership if the title is actually owned, not, say, rented or subscribed to. And you’ll see that that bears out in every kind of entertainment vehicle. By that standard, our frontline prices are still very, very low because we offer many hours of engagement.

Of course, not everyone agrees. A ResetEra thread from last year asked commenters to share "Games you felt were too short for their price", but some argued that it's a narrow way to view things. "I will and gladly do pay $60 for short games, that's never a problem," JinglesBuny said. "Five-to-15 hours is a sweet spot for me."

"I don't associate value with length," RockmanBN said. "It's more like, was the experience worth it?"

However, what Zelnick is arguing is that bigger games should be more expensive, rather than shorter games being cheaper, making the hobby even pricier.

But even he admits that this is an unrealistic goal. "That doesn't necessarily mean that the industry has pricing power or wants to have pricing power,"