In an industry where most avoid talking about pricing if they can help it, Ed Fong, the Managing Director of Ubisoft Australia, is one of the few who is actually willing to engage. So when the question of Australian Game Prices was presented at yesterday’s Game-Tech conference, it made sense that, as others shirked, he was the one who attempted to address it.
“All I will say today is that it’s about market forces,” said Fong, “and I think I mentioned this last year. If the consumer has a choice to buy overseas for half the price, they will vote with their wallets — and local businesses, including publishers, distributors and retailers will be forced to re-evaluate. Every company in this room has to make a choice when it comes to their pricing policies.
According to Ed Fong, Ubisoft has already attempted to “re-evaluate” its own pricing.
“I can only comment on Ubisoft here, but we’ve already readjusted our recommended retail price recently for Ghost Recon. We’ve also just announced our pricing for Assassin’s Creed III, and we really want to put a message out there. Whether the consumers will think that’s good enough, or not good enough, time will tell.
“Every business person has decisions to make with pricing. We need to compete.”
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