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EA cheating the system?

Dragoro

Dragoro

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 27, 2010
469
8
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2010/tc20101216_991998.htm


Electronic Arts (EA) (ERTS) has a lot of games in the App Store (AAPL), and a huge chunk of them are now available for only $0.99 (via Touch Arcade) as part of a massive holiday sale the publisher started today. But EA isn't just getting into the giving spirit; this is a calculated move by an App Store bully designed to anticipate the holiday app rush.

Many of EA's games manage to ride high in the charts even when priced above the $0.99 mark, which seems to bring so many titles such a high degree of success. Offering 54 iPhone games and 15 iPad titles at $0.99 (as of this writing) is obviously an effort to flood those charts with EA titles in advance of the App Store freeze that begins Dec. 22 and continues until Dec. 26, which also covers the period during which iOS apps enjoy the heaviest sales volume
 
You can see this from both sides really.

From a competitors side it will be annoying as your games (Angry Birds - Yawn) will be pushed down or off the top charts.

But then for the customers it's great as it means we can all get some great games to play over the holiday at a great price.

For EA's, as I was saying in the "iPad price of games thread on here" it will be good to.

They have make the calculation that instead of asking say 5.99 or 9.99 for a game and selling X amount, they will slash the price right down and sell tons more copies.

People will buy them as they are so cheap, even if they only buy them for a little play or to try. And otherwise these people may have never bought them at the original prices.

There is nothing stopping others from trying the same technique. Price low sell more.

If EA feel it's time to raise their prices then they will.

I'm sure we as customers would much rather this be the case than a high price fixing system agreement where no-one dropped prices for fear of upsetting others.

The only people it upsets are those who want to keep their prices high.

But at the end of the day, unlike things in the real world, there is no manufacturing costs to factor in.

Plus it's Christmas time so perhaps with all the new iPad's going to be started up over the next few weeks, it would make sense to lower our prices for this short period and gather lots of sales from new iPad owners.
 
They do this every year at Christmas. So, it's nothing new in that respect. Obviously, this is the first year for iPad.

They also do it a few times throughout the year (usually for only 48 hours or so), but most of the time their games are full price.

I wish more developers would do it (I'm looking at you Omni Group). The App Store charts are a joke anyway. I find Apple's curated "Featured Apps" much more useful.

EA usually dominates the chart at full price anyway with Tetris, Monopoly, Madden, etc. I guess Angry Birds and Pocket God will have to slow down their money printing machines for a few weeks. Poor them.
 
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How is lowering prices cheating the system in any way?

I am enjoying my dollar SimCity.
 
Man. I hope they put monopoly on the list. I've been waiting for it but I just can't break down and buy it right yet. Not that I'd play it a lot, but I think it would be cool ton have on the iPad.
 
...

What they are doing is fine. I would fine it sketchy however if Christmas day the apps go back to regular price so they 9.99 again. IMO the EA apps are way subpar especially at 9.99. At 99 cents it's hard to find fault but for 10 bucks they should be better
 
Cheating? No. Bringing games to people for cheap to draw them in, yes. Sometimes setting your price point lower yields more profit because more people are prone to buy something that's a buck. I would have never bought 6 games that day knowing full well I'd end up doing the same thing I always do, tweet, surf, email, consume video, and play angry birds.
 
This is perfect marketing, in my opinion. For me, I would have never bought any of the EA games just because they are a bit too expensive at 5 dollars or more each, but at 99 cents, I ended up getting 3 of them.

Just like that, they made 3 dollars from someone that wouldn't have spent that money.
 
This cheating argument is nonsense. A company can have a sale. The customer wins. There's no cheating. End of discussion.
 
The OP sounds like an angry developer.

What he's saying is that it's cheating to have a sale. Sears is cheating by having a year end sale, so is Target stores, and Best Buy is really cheating by their sale at this time of year.
 
Just to add.

The 99c mark, or 59p in the UK is the price point that I will buy at just to have a go at some software.

I may well never really use or play with it much at all.

But for that price I will grab it, as I want to see what it's like and perhaps I may like it.

At full price, unless I'm really really sure I want it, and will get a lot of use from it, I won't touch it.

In total I will spend more money overall in 99c chunks than I would at full prices. And I'm 100% sure I'm not alone in this.

And unlike manufacturing, there is no real costs involved to duplicate the item, so after the items initial creation it's just making money.

Like for example movies on iTunes. If they were dead cheap, Apple and the Movie people would get some of my money as I'd happily pay a certain amount to watch the film.
At the price they are, I refuse to pay, so they get nothing from me.
 
newdeal said:
What they are doing is fine. I would fine it sketchy however if Christmas day the apps go back to regular price so they 9.99 again.
Click to expand...
I'm sure I read that Apple will initiate a price freeze a day or two before Christmas, to prevent such shenanigans. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Piggie said:
Just to add.

The 99c mark, or 59p in the UK is the price point that I will buy at just to have a go at some software.

I may well never really use or play with it much at all.

But for that price I will grab it, as I want to see what it's like and perhaps I may like it.

At full price, unless I'm really really sure I want it, and will get a lot of use from it, I won't touch it.

In total I will spend more money overall in 99c chunks than I would at full prices. And I'm 100% sure I'm not alone in this.

And unlike manufacturing, there is no real costs involved to duplicate the item, so after the items initial creation it's just making money.

Like for example movies on iTunes. If they were dead cheap, Apple and the Movie people would get some of my money as I'd happily pay a certain amount to watch the film.
At the price they are, I refuse to pay, so they get nothing from me.
Click to expand...
Blame the movie studios for that.
 
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BergerFan said:
I'm sure I read that Apple will initiate a price freeze a day or two before Christmas, to prevent such shenanigans. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.
Click to expand...

Yes, they already have announced a freeze from 12/23 through 12/28. That is why EA started their sale early to get to the top of the Top 10 lists now. Brilliant marketing move on their part, although it will be interesting to see if they change the prices back BEFORE the freeze.
 
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