Could growing frustration with low App Store prices lead to better, more expensive games?

July 27, 2014

Stoic, the developers of the role playing game The Banner Saga, are trying to help solve the issues of pricing high end games made for the iPad, in an effort to fight the mainstream attitude that such games should either be free or very cheap. The Banner Saga, which has already been released for the PC, is due to launch on the iPad sometime this summer.

The PC version normally costs $25 but Stoic's John Watson thinks that price would likely be rejected by most App Store customers. According to what he told Polygon, he's not alone:

Apple is frustrated, along with everybody else, about the mentality that's gone rampant in mobile app markets, where people don't want to pay anything," Watson said. "They want to pay as little as possible. They think that four dollars is an exorbitant amount to pay for a game, which is very illogical considering most people's lifestyles. They'll spend $600 on an iPad, and $4 on a coffee, drop $20 on lunch, but when it comes to spending four or five dollars on a game, it's this life-altering decision. I'm frustrated with that too."

However, if the game is released at a higher price point and is accepted by iPad users, it could lead to many more games that will be higher priced but better developed than the normal mobile game.

What do you think of the prospect of having more expensive games for the iPad that are also of a higher quality than what we have come to expect from the platform?