We have already reported that many mobile games from the legendary Japanese publisher Square Enix have price tags with very high figures. The other day, a representative of the company’s press service revealed to the authors of the famous Kotaku game blog some details of its pricing policy.
Naturally, journalists were interested in the question of why, in a market dominated by freemium products and games for 99 cents, the publisher sells ports of its old RPGs (for example, Final Fantasy III) for $ 16 and above. The response that followed said that these products were originally developed for consoles and are now “reconfigured and optimized” for mobile platforms, and their prices are much lower than those of the “sources” for home and portable gaming systems.
However, in this case, it remains unclear why the price level for new, exclusive mobile games is so high. The full version of Final Fantasy Dimensions costs $29, and Demon’s Score costs even more – $45 (approximately like a console game). According to a representative of Square Enix, the price for each of the games is purely individual, and it is set based on many factors: the elaboration of the plot, the quality of graphics, the duration of the gameplay, etc.
In addition, users are puzzled by the significant price discrepancy for the Demon’s Score game in the Japanese and Western markets. So, the Japanese version costs $ 20, and it practically does not require IAP (in-app purchases) to complete the passage, while the Western player pays $6.99 for the basic version and then “for complete happiness” has to spend another $37 to purchase full content. Square Enix believes that in this way it gives the Western user the opportunity to buy and “try” the game at a relatively low price, and then decide whether he will continue it “to the bitter end.”
