Report: Modern Warfare 2 triggering UK games price hike, EA not budging

by Griffin McElroy on Jul 16th 2009 4:00PM

We feel for our UK-based gaming brothers-and-sisters-in-arms. We've seen the gaming industry putting them through the financial wringer many times in the past, but a recent report from MCV describes the cruelest economic hardships they've ever had to face -- Activision has kicked the UK price of Modern Warfare 2 up to £54.99 (close to $90), and according to the report, other publishers may plan to follow suit, raising the prices on their titles as we move into the holiday season.

The price hike is attributed to rising game development costs and the faltering strength of the pound -- still, compared to last holiday season, when titles like Prince of Persia and Far Cry 2 hit store shelves for around £40, it's a pretty sizable leap to make in just one year. However, not everyone is following Activision's example -- Electronic Arts responded to MCV's report, confirming that it would not increase the RRP of its holiday releases. We'll see which strategy pays off once the smoke from the holiday shopping season clears.

Source

Tags: activision, economy, europe, Microsoft, modern-warfare-2, price, pricing, uk, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (126)

Agreed. and good point.

That sucks, I didn't realize they price everything to US dollar.

Attention: These prices are RRP's, which most places undercut, even on launch. Most console games come out at £40, I can't see a lot of online retailers doing this for anything more than £45 (which in itself is unprecedented).

I can't begin to say how stupid these price strategies are. £55 is 11 hours of work for the average young person working in retail, fast food etc. £40 (the price this will probably sell for) is over 5 times the price of a DVD or album, and most mainstream consumers don't really appreciate the difference in quality between the experiences. Start selling games at £20 and you'll still make about the same amount of money if not more, because there's a massive increase in people willing to buy the game at that price - see Steam titles going up thousands of percent in sales with a half-price discounts.

This really doesn't make much of a difference. Games NEVER sell at RRP these days. You can already pre-order MW2 online at just over £35.

That's the problem though, Activision are pushing up the price per unit for retailers. Our shop's already debating how much we're going to charge for it, because we obviously still need to make a profit, but charging £55 for a game is absurd, and likely going to screw us over as supermarkets will charge less and can afford to absorb the loss.

rising costs my ass their already gaining like 20 dollars a game, and a game like modern warfare 2 will sell millions so no need to raise price. I mean if it was a lil game that barely anyone knows about or a extreme game like with ps4 graphics and with 2560x1600 resolution and online,co-op, 100 hour singleplayer.

Complaining the PlayStation 3 is too expensive, eh Activision? Who's the bastard now?

Magicians!!
Taking attention away from the right hand by exaggerating the left!!!

Shame your comment will eventually be pushed down due to the above replies.

Number 1 comment of the day.

Activision CEO el Kabong can suck my balls.. Seriously, there is no way im buying this game..

It is worth pointing out that unlike American prices, UK prices incorporate sales tax, which is going up to 17.5% on Jan 1 (from 15%). So the real change is from £35 (old price, old sales tax) to £47 (new price, new sales tax). Or from $57 to $77.

Yes, but the sales tax actually went down last year, and the price of games didn't go down with it. The overall price is already working independent of tax.

I feel for you UK. Us canucks have it easy in comparison. I'll never complain about us getting a bad deal again. Only advice i can give is buy used. Keep your stick on the ice, we're all in this together.

Well if this becomes the norm this holiday season here in the UK then developers and retailers may face a huge boycott unless they drop the price. Modern Warfare 2 was never a game I intended to buy but I can imagine a lot of people are going to avoid it in the begining now. Nice way of shooting yourselves in the foot activision, now just stop suporting the PS3 and you'll be shooting yourself in the other foot!

Activision raping customers... thats new.

so is EA seemingly caring about customers...

Dead Space

At this price I'll be buying my game pre order from usenet

No sale.

If this is the case on release day guess I'll have to give it a miss, Halo: ODST and Splinter Cell : Conviction are higher up my most wanted list anyway so activision can stick their game where the sun dont shine.

SCREW ACTIVISION

But i pre-ordered mine from ukGame last year somtime when the price was £39.99 i recieved an e-mail from game stating they must sell it at the price i pre-ordered it @ so im in the clear.

Infact Game has only raised the price by £5
http://www.game.co.uk/PS3/Action/FirstPersonShooter/~r339835/Modern-Warfare-2/?s=Modern%20Warfare%202

I dont know where activision get off trying to rip off its loyal customers either, talk about money hungry.

I love GAME's policy on that. I got my Arkham Asylum Limited Edition when they had it up for £40 :)

In Canada games have taken a increase of $10 over the past few months (I noticed it started when RE5 came out). $70 freaking bucks!!!

Luckily, in Russia, game plays you.

(sorry, I couldn't resist.)

I know! The pricing seems so random, too. Prices for brand new games range from $50 - $70 loonies. And seriously, why are Wolverine and WWE Legends $70 bucks? As if.

ilikemonkeys,

You aren't the only one who's noticed that and, unfortunately, Capcom's not the only publisher who's hiked the prices of their games up. The first game I saw selling for $69.99 was Afro Samurai, followed by SF4, and then Halo Wars. It wasn't two weeks later the price for every multiplayer or console exclusive game followed suit; Killzone 2 launched at $59.99 but you'd be hard pressed to find it for less than that now. Hell, even older games like CoD4 and Fallout 3 went up an extra $10 (seemingly out of spite for us). Even Wii games went up in price to $54.99.

One can argue it's due to the decreased value of the Canadian dollar compared to the greenback (funnily enough, it's back up to $.90 vs. $1), but PC games didn't experience the same increase. Some tried testing the waters at $54.99 but almost every release since February has either maintained the $49.99 MSRP or actually released below it; Overlord II's $40 and Ghost Busters is just over $30.00. Me thinks publishers are using the exchange rate to their benefit.

I would say lets boycott MW2 but i know people just wont be able too lol, it would probably last 1hour lmao

Oh fuck you Activision. Try that on the States if you dare.

This means it will be around 140 dollars on my country, since we are receiving PS3 games from UK with an added price tag.

Which means this will be yet another CoD I will be buying months later in used condition.

Currency differences / tax rates my ass. No other product shows such rate of price inflation out of nowhere.

And don't come to me with thy "piracy" tears, I will beat you shitless with 300+ original games all bought %200 of their original price for US.

Games already cost 94$ here in Norway so stop fucking complaining

I don't fucking live in Norway, I live here in the UK.

IM SURE IT'S A VERY BEAUTIFUL COUTRY AND A WODERFUL, SAFE PLACE TO LIVE.

BUT IN THIS INSTANCE.
... Fuck Norway!

Im in blighty and the fuck am I paying more than £40 for any game!

For that price, this game better be out of this world good, must think I'm made of gold :O

This is disgusting. Companies then wonder why people are buying the used games. I've purchased GTA4, Fallout 3, Fable 2 (and some more big titles) all new..and all special editions. Some of them I've hardly even touched beyond a few hours. Not too long after that most of prices dropped 39 bucks. I thought this whole "digital distribution" was also suppose to help somehow. I don't see much of a price difference between the disc and paying for it digitally unless it's sometime after the release date.

Oh, it's the middle of a recession, lets bump up the price of a game 37.5%!!

I can smell the firmware being flashed already...

okay so now lets focus all our rage on Activision.
I will buy the Hardened edition for $80 since I am in the US, but still that is bullshit what they are trying to and have been doing to the Europeans.

This is the only Activision game i will buy and probably the last

Another thing worth noting is that we already had a price increase this generation. For the US it was from $50 to $60 but for us the UK it was from £40 to £50, a 25% increase instead of the 20% US increase.
Like many people have already said I have never had to pay more than £40 for new releases but £45 is going way too far. I'll wait until I can get it cheaper but that might be a while seeing as Call of Duty 4 is still £30 when older games are normally only £20, well that’s Activi$ion for you.

...

And the orange box sells in the UK for £13 new on amazon?

...

WUT!?

not be paying that much for it then, just wait for a 2nd hand copy i guess. dont pay over £40 for a game, unless its better than sliced bread, but not many things are. except breasts. mmm breasts in bread.

If any of the brits out there want me to send them the U.S. version of the game, I'll gladly do that if you pay the $60 USD + 9.25% tax up front. (that appears to be 40 GBP according to xe.net)

psn: kentuckyfried

55 GBP is outrageous. wtf...

oh, so free shipping?

In all actuality, people would be better off ordering a cdkey (yes, legal) from a site like ozcdkeys.com or cdkeysdirect.com (PC only). Hmm... come to think of it does Activision even have a digital download service you can register your keys with like EA Download Manager?

The shipping's not going to be too bad, but it's not on my tab. Nice try.

I'm now getting tired of games releasing over packaged, expensive "Collector's Edition" bundles and the crowds of gamers that feel they "need" to have it.

I say we protest starting with Modern Combat 2. If no one buys the Prestige Edition, they'll drop the price faster than pre-teens lose their virginity these days.

Whose with me?
\m
> < | |
~ | |

I say people protest Call of Duty. That series has turned into a shitty noob-fest since the third game.

The first two were really good. With the first being the best. It actually had recoil and non-rechargeable health. Now you can run and gun with an MP5 and get 30 kills before dying easily.

This coming from the company that requires you to buy a new peripheral every fucking time they come out with a new game. Not to mention they have rehashed every GH game, Tony Hawk and COD. Have they really come out with anything new. Oh wait that Wolfenstien game is theirs and DELAYED. Maybe they need the extra money to cover the money they will lose on that.

Add this to the Sony drop your price crap the CEO pulled. Maybe he needs the token phone call from Sony now to say if you dropped your price maybe then we could drop ours.

Region coding sucks ass.

Oh and worldwide recession, 500 gb HDD and Activision selling games for $90 yeah I can see the firmware flash coming for some. Insert foot here and Sony was worried about PSP piracy

One more sign on how Activision is waaaaaay worse than EA now.

To be fair, the real change is a 10% increase to the RRP, not a standardisation at £55, so expect games to be released at £45 instead of £40 for a while.

But it's still a fucking outrage.

you have to vote with your cash. It's only expensive if you choose to pay that much for it.

I won't pay full price for something that isn't going to give me at least a 20 hour gaming experience. I've only bought 2 full price console games in the last year, the rest I buy when they get reduced or go on sale.

Plus when you also have a PC you can be guaranteed of massive sales and cheaper prices. World at War was $25 when I bought it last week and I've stocked up on games that are less than a year old and only cost me $10 and I haven't played yet. Like C&C Red Alert 3 and BiA:Hell's Highway.

In the end you can complain about prices, but if you buy it anyway then you are justifying it.

Exactly like how the piss poor microtransaction business has taken hold now.

Another reason I'm glad to be an american.

...because 1 game is overpriced :/

What's the other one?

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Report: Modern Warfare 2 triggering UK games price hike, EA not budging

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