Gamers Have Scared EA Away From An $80 ‘Battlefield 6’

We will learn a whole lot more about Battlefield 6 today in a reveal event, which EA is hoping will finally be a legitimate competitor to Call of Duty after being dormant a while, and its past 2042 misfire. But we already know one bit of good news.

In yet another example of this happening, gamer pushback appears to have forced EA’s hand to not raise prices of its new games, including Battlefield 6, to $80 instead of $70. This comes from Andrew Wilson in a Q1 earnings call:

“We’re not looking to make any changes on pricing at this stage,” Wilson said. “That’s in the construct of, we already offer a fairly broad pricing scheme across our various products. When you think about everything from free-to-play through to our premium products and deluxe editions, our orientation is always to capture the full spectrum of pricing so that we can serve players in the best way possible and offer them the greatest value. We’ll continue to look at opportunities to deliver great value to our players through various pricing schemes over the course of time, but no dramatic changes planned yet.”

This is yet another example of consumer pushback to the Nintendo-driven $80 price point, which began with Mario Kart World at the launch of the Switch 2. It seemed likely that once that dam broke, it would quickly become the standard. But that has not happened, despite some publishers attempting to dip their toes in the water (and finding its scalding):

• Sony has kept the price of its big fall game, Ghost of Yotei, at $70 and has said nothing about increasing the price of its AAA games to $80.
• After a some back and forth with Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford online, he ultimately revealed to gamers that this fall’s Borderlands 4 would in fact cost $70, not $80.
• Things went so far as to have Microsoft announce and $80 price for The Outer Worlds 2 before actually backtracking on that, and lowering it to $70. In the same breath, they said they would do the same with “full priced holiday releases.” They didn’t say that outright, but that should mean Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. And that would make both it and Battlefield 6 $70.

All of this means that right now, there are no big games approaching with confirmed $80 price points despite Nintendo’s move with Mario Kart World. Nintendo may be at trend-setter, but other publishers may realize that a 15% price hike on games is not exactly what players want to see in the current state of the global economy. How long this lasts, however, is anyone’s guess.

We will earn more about Battlefield 6 today, including possibly confirmation of its price and release date. My colleague Erik Kain will be covering that reveal.

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