Video Game Pricing Trends and the Value Debate

What can you tell about a video game from its price tag?

In the UK, £70 may not guarantee quality, but it tends to mean you are getting a blockbuster or "AAA" - a big-budget game made by a large team, built around cutting-edge graphics, sprawling worlds and dozens of hours of gameplay.

In 2025 Nintendo set a new benchmark for game prices when it listed major Switch titles such as Mario Kart World at £74.99 (launching in the US at $79.99).

Meanwhile speculation grew from a 2025 report by gaming industry advisory company Epyllion that the next Grand Theft Auto will be the first game to be priced at $100, paving the way for others to either follow suit or at least contemplate a price hike.

But a handful of recent games lauded for their AAA-feel by critics and gamers alike - such as ARC Raiders, Split Fiction, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - asked for more modest prices of £30-£40.

No title has won more game of the year awards (a whopping 436) than Clair Obscur, but Alexis Garavaryan, boss of publisher Kepler Interactive, told the BBC the decision to launch it below the blockbuster norm was, in fact, deliberate.

"Ultimately we've seen a number of larger companies increase prices quite regularly. And we've kind of taken the opposite action," he told BBC News.

"We try to think, 'What do we think the price should be?' And then we price it lower."

Garavaryan believes we are seeing a shift in player taste away from the kinds of things that big AAA studios are expected to provide, including high-fidelity graphics and "the number of hours you get out of the content".

Instead, he claimed, players are now more interested in how "exceptional" or "novel" the experience is.

And if spectacle is no longer the decisive factor, then is a blockbuster price tag becoming harder to justify?

A recent consumer study found most gamers are spending less on new games - with only 4% of US video game players buying a new one more often than once per month, and a third of players not buying any games at all.

Neither Take Two Interactive nor Rockstar, GTA 6's publisher and developer, have confirmed where they plan to price the long-awaited sixth game in the franchise.

But for a game with thousands of people working under it that has already been delayed twice, many expect to see its pricetag at least push higher than the current benchmark.

And if increasing costs for gamers were a concern in 2025, they are even more so in 2026, with the price of Ram - the computer components that power much of our tech - more than doubling since October 2025.

Garavaryan said Kepler's strategy to price away from the blockbuster model was designed to make players feel like they were getting "a bargain".

"We want them to feel like we are respectful of their money, respectful of their time, and that fundamentally every time they buy a game from us, they're getting a great deal," he said.

"And we're excited for players to be able to play five, six different experiences with the same amount of money than a traditional AAA game would bring them."

Kepler Interactive itself is not exactly a small indie production, but a collective made up of several independent studios.

Rebekah Valentine, senior reporter at IGN, told the BBC Clair Obscur's success may not mean a "shift away from AAA expectations" entirely.

And she pointed out that "forever" AAA games that players can play with their friends and are frequently updated, such as Fortnite and Call of Duty, "consistently have the most players, month after month after month".

"There are dozens, hundreds of really unique, interesting games published every week, month, and year - most of which do not sell well nor do they gain this level of attention," she added.

Christopher Dring, editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Game Business, agreed that while sometimes smaller-budgeted games do go out and "deliver major success", it was worth remembering that blockbuster titles such as Resident Evil Requiem and GTA 6 are still this year's "two most-anticipated games".

Instead, he framed the battle for a game's success as more centred around their attention than their wallets, adding: "In a challenged attention economy, where consumers are awash with choice, doing something interesting is key."

Garavaryan is certainly confident that the work Kepler Interactive is doing is at the very least going to catch people's attention, adding the team are working on producing a physical magazine, an unusual analogue step for a company mostly working in the digital world.

"I think as people move away from the more physical, the more human touch, we want to find that as a place where we find a lot of comfort," he said.

"It may not be for everybody, but we know that there's an audience that's going to care about well-crafted, human-crafted products."