A Short Exercise on Game Pricing with JRPGs

A strong case for your game’s price can be made simply by looking at direct competitive titles by genre, features and gameplay length. DDM recently looked a little further into premium pricing when a client asked about a specific genre, Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs). As this exercise demonstrates, a light investigation like this may yield additional insights.

We collected price points for titles released since 2015 by specific platforms—PlayStation 4 and Steam—as well as several publishers who specialize in JRPGs. We further narrowed the selection of Steam games to non-indie as the highest price points for Steam indie JPRGs tapped out at $19.99.

Though both PlayStation 4 and Steam have games priced as high as $59.99, it was interesting to note premium priced JPRGs were more commonly found on the PlayStation. Overall, almost three times more JPRGs have been released on Steam than PS4; however, the PS4 had more than twice the number of games priced at $59.99. Additionally, $59.99 was the most popular price point on the PS4 by a wide margin and boosted the platform’s median to $49.99.

We also found pricing ranges by publisher varied. Bandai Namco and Koei Tecmo’s catalog of JPRGs were primarily priced at $59.99. Square Enix had a more even price distribution across $59.99, $49.99 and $39.99 price points. Idea Factory and XSEED Games were mainly priced at $29.99 or lower with XSEED’s highest price a little lower than others at $49.99. Knowing the project was looking at premium pricing, it was clear that the most appropriate publishers to target may be Bandai Namco, Koei Tecmo and Square Enix.

Separately, we provided our client with a list of titles by platform and publisher. Providing this information aided in the next step of checking the pricing of comparable titles to see if they supported a premium price point, which further informed platform and publisher strategies.

Based on all this information, DDM worked with the client to determine a specific game price, platforms to target, and develop materials that made a compelling case for why their game was perfectly suited to the market.

Accounting for your game’s features along with a review by platform and publisher can help hone a strategy for pricing and pitching your game. DDM clients inquisitive about pricing can request assistance with data research via their agent. We are more than happy to pull together data by platform and publisher as well as include game lists to match comparable titles for your project.