While video game prices may not all hit the $80 mark like Nintendo’s Mario Kart World did this year, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella believes that we will be seeing games getting expensive sooner rather than later. In an interview with GamesRadar, Piscatella referred to 2025 as “a little Wild West” when it comes to game pricing, since the most popular games of the year have covered a variety of price points. Ultimately, he notes that it comes down to the audience a game’s publisher might want to target, pointing out that they will have to decide if they want fewer buyers by making their games more expensive.
“I think it’s a little Wild West right now,” said Piscatella. “We have more variability in launch pricing and strategies than we’ve ever had. We have a lot of titles trying to kind of nibble at the high end of that market, and we have many more that are launching at lower prices, and the size of the game and everything else [affects that] as well. But ultimately, publishers and developers are trying to find the sweet spot for their pricing strategy. And sometimes you think, ‘Okay, we go for a higher price. We may not get as many people, but we know that the ones we get will be very enthusiastic and dedicated.’ Or, ‘Maybe we need to come out at a lower price and cast a wider net.’”
Piscatella also notes that even high-quality AAA games still have to ultimately compete with titles from across the pricing spectrum, bringing up the insanely popular and free-to-play titles Fortnite and Roblox.
“I think everyone’s just trying to figure things out in a market environment where the biggest competitor to any new game isn’t the other new games launching in the release window like it used to be. It’s Fortnite and Roblox and trying to pull people out of those, because that’s the primary competition now, getting those 35% of active players on console that play Fortnite every week. How do you get them to not do that and instead go buy a different game?”
As for current market realities, Piscatella believes that we are drifting further and further away from games having a “standard” price point, regardless of whether it is $60, $70, or $80. How some games handle post-launch monetisation also plays into this, since multiplayer games especially tend to feature extra things players can spend money on, like battle passes and cosmetics. Ultimately, he thinks that “every game is going to be a little bit different” when it comes to publishers figuring out their pricing strategies.
“Really, it’s going to be different for every game,” he explained. “And you know, things like post-launch monetization strategies will come into play, even the release timing of the game could come into play, or the platforms it’s on. I just think there’s so many options available now. It used to be, this game is going to be $60 because every game is $60, that’s fine. That’s just not where we are anymore. Those days are long gone. So, yeah, I don’t think there is a standard or a sweet spot in general. I think every game is going to be a little bit different.”
While some games, like for example Mario Kart World, have been able to hit the $80 price tag without seeing a problem in sales, Piscatella notes that, owing to these games already having dedicated fan bases, “price sensitivity, particularly at launch, is very low, meaning that people want to play this game no matter what it costs.”
“So it’s kind of ticking that up a little bit. And I know a lot of people don’t like it, but people still buy these games at these high price points, so they’re going to keep getting made at high price points for the right game that can do that. The market is what it is, and you can always drop the price of the game, but you can’t really raise it. So we’ll see what happens over time.”
Grand Theft Auto 6’s release on May 26, 2026 is also expected to have quite a profound effect on the market. While analysts believe that Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive might go for much higher price tags, Piscatella notes that all eyes are on the game at this point.
“There’s going to be billions of eyes looking at everything Grand Theft Auto does next year, no matter what it is. So let’s throw that on the pile.”
