Eighty Dollars: The Audacity of Video Game Price Tags | Finley Lo

Many Nintendo fans are shocked at the price tag on the new Mario Kart, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2. The eighty-dollar game, although promised to be “the right price for the value of this entertainment” (Bill Trinen, Nintendo of America vice president of product and player experience), is clearly a test to see how much people will pay for a Nintendo game. With the fame that the company has and the millions of sales they get from regularly priced games, it is expected that Mario Kart World will sell well despite the hefty price tag. Nintendo clearly knows this. Tears of the Kingdom, the former most expensive game, clearly sold well, so why wouldn’t the new Mario Kart?

Video game prices are complicated. People who code the game need to be paid, and advertisements need to be paid for. Despite this, a video game (unless it is a physical copy) is not a physical product, and material costs do not need to be factored into the cost. Especially for a company like Nintendo, who knows their games will sell no matter what backlash they receive, they are raising software prices “because they think they can” (Dr. Serkan Toto, Kantan Games).

Although it is subjective, the quality of a game does not always reflect the price. ULTRAKILL, the best game I have ever played, is $30, costing $50 less than Mario Kart World. Pressure and Dandy’s World on Roblox are free. Balatro is only $15. Clearly, to make a high-quality game, the price does not need to be as high as AAA studios often imply.

The audacity of these studios is only getting worse as time goes on (and as people get more greedy and as inflation rises), so it is time to remind these studios that the people buying these games matter the most. Listen to real, unpaid reviews, don’t pre-order digital items, and consider that it may be time to Switch 2 an indie game.