Square Enix has been doing a decent job with bringing games to Android and even though iOS has more titles from the company, Android is slowly catching up. However, it is no secret that the prices Square Enix happens to be charging for their titles are more on the higher end of the scale. For instance, Chaos Rings rolls in at $12.99 while Final Fantasy III is sitting at $15.99. Recently Square Enix talked about their pricing and defending the price tags that come with some of their games. However, that may be heading for a change soon.
While people love to complain about all the freemium or free-to-play titles out there on either platform, even when it comes to premium games most developers won’t charge more than a few bucks, mostly because even when the game is worth $10-15 dollars, people will complain and leave bad ratings. Even really high end games sit between $5-8 bucks in price usually. Even though Square Enix recently defended their pricing, Casual Connect at Kiev had Square Enix’s General Manager of Mobile for Europe Antony Douglas answering questions once again on this very topic. While still defending the pricing policies of Square Enix, he did tease people with a statement that looks like Square Enix may be changing those policies and lower pricing could be on the way.
“I think that the Japanese view of this is that we have built quality games, whether they’re for handheld or for mobile… the business model is not set in this world. Everything is free-to-play right now, tomorrow it could be different, [and] it’ll change the day after that. I think Japan wanted to try things – bear in mind that game sells incredibly well at that price, [and] I think there’s something honest about it, because it tells you how much the game is going to be.”
“$20 for something you can play for 30 or 40 hours is still cheaper than what you can get on a handheld. [Square Enix] Japan are trying that and seeing how it works, and it works very well in Japan. It has been commented on quite a lot in Europe in the West, [and] they’re responding to it. They’re seeing the feedback, and there will probably be changes in the way that it’s structured.”
Prices could end up staying the same with current releases and even future ones being in the higher end bracket but the fact that Square Enix does know people are not overly keen on the current pricing of their games is a step in the right direction.
Website Referenced: Gamezebo
