Rock Band man defends Euro price Comments by Ellie Gibson

Much as I hate EA and enjoy all the EA bashing on here, isn't it misguided? MTV are the actual publisher here and therefore responsible for the shocking price. Not EA. EA are just guilty of the normal things they are guilty of.

Sigma0, yep I'm British born and bred, I would be more specific but judging from the mental agility of the vast number of posters I don't want to bother with the "humorous" national insults that they're likely to come up with.

@Penhalion - We aren't paying 100% more, if the US price is £85, then with an extra 100% that would be £170. You can pick it up from Play.com for £140 which is an extra 65% charge. The price difference isn't anything new either, I've been importing from North America for years because the exchange rate has been good. Go to DVDBoxoffice.com and the vast majority of Xbox360 titles are 60% of the UK prices which is in keeping with the Rockband kit. DS games are even better at being 55% of the UK price.

Seeing as this has been the case for years why the big uproar now?

@sneetch - My figures were from various official sources for national statistics, so regardless of whether they seem low, they are true figures which is quite clearly more than you posted. So please, before you post suspecting I have it asswiese, actually do some research and come up with facts.

@JimJam - If you could elaborate on the considerable differences in living costs please, though of course that would have to be compared to the US average wage at the time for a fair comparison. I won't disagree that certain skilled jobs will be paid more in the US compared to the UK but how much of the US population actually work in those jobs? I'd rather uses mode ranges for the "average" income as opposed to the mean averages used in most national statistics.

Listen to Jebus, he makes sense

i see alot have preordered on play.com

heh

If EA aren't publishing the game what is there capacity in the deal? just to have a big EA logo on the box?

more info please, i dont mind pushing the blame onto MTV, but i suspect this isnt the bottom line, MTV could just license the songs for all we/i know?

and yeah record amount of complaints and still i reckon this will sell like hotcakes....lol typical

They're so trying to rip us off...

No? No-one wants to go to Karaoke instead?

What's the opposite of damage limitation? Whatever it is, as far as the responses go - I think the effect of this interview might be it.

damage conflagration.

*FOOM!*

CHeck it out big discounts already available !

http://www.play.com/Search.aspx?searchty...

£139.98 for total package

Guys, registering your disappointment right here is easily as effective as mailing someone direct at EA. Believe me, a lot of EA peeps will be taking your thoughts on the matter very seriously.

I wonder what the reaction in the States would have been if the game retailed over there for over 300 bucks (before tax). We're used to being ripped off for everything, but for whatever reason they always seem to get a better deal on most consumer items, whether electronics, clothes, fuel, whatever.

My new Levis, for example, cost me £60 here. I then went to Austin a few weeks later and bought two pairs, including tax, for £37 for the pair, including credit card commission. It's demented.

"if people do [buy it] they'll have an amazing experience they couldn't get anywhere else."

guitar hero? yeh they don't have drums but i'll get by!

unless by "amazing experience" they mean bankrupt and living on the streets? Big Issue anyone?

If you don't feel this is reasonable, then here's my three-point plan:

1) Don't buy it. Not even if retailers discount it down to £140 - if it were priced in line with other gaming products then they'd be discounting it from £130.

2) Tell EA that you are not buying it. Tell EA why you are not buying it, and while you're at it demand an explanation for why Rock Band is marked up at 110% over the US price whereas most other gaming products are marked up at up to 50% over the US price. Accept that VAT, higher prices of consumer electronics at al increase the price, but not that they increase it by 110%.

3) Tell other people. Write to the letters page of any gaming mags you read. Tell Watchdog, or your local consumer affairs programs/magazines if you're outside the UK. Make it clear that this is going to be a PR disaster for EA.

Above all, don't accept the pricing. Anyone who purchases Rock Band at this price is sending a message to EA that they can get away with this sort of predatory practice and gives them permission to do it again in the future. As far as I'm concerned, that's just not acceptable.

Personally I think £140 for a game is beyond ridiculous. I can however understand that you get 'alot' with the game and its not a 'normal' game. But they must have known that from a marketing stand point, trying to convince someone to buy a single game for above £100 would be seen as a rip off by many people who are interested.

For me, it would be better value for money to buy a new console (or a Wii) than get this and I don't think I'd understand why anyone would think otherwise. I mean if your really into games, £140 will buy you a new console. If your really into music, 140 will buy you a new guitar, amp etc.

@Gastrian - I lived in Seattle between 1997 & 1999, and exchange rates never dipped below $1.75 to the £, and stayed at over $1.83 for the majority of my stay. Fuel when I moved to Seattle (1997-1998) was 98 cents a gallon, and increased to $1.10 while I was there. In England at the time it was about 60p a litre, so just upwards of £3 a gallon. I'm aware that a US gallon is about a litre less than an imperial gallon, but the markup on this is still huge. My rent, for a 2 bed apartment with access to swimming pool and gym, in Seattle, was $550 a month. I was renting my 2 bed flat here at the time for £650 a month. Levi 501s were $19.99 in the States, and I paid £50 for a pair 10 years previous to that. Krudster's anecdotal evidence shows that jeans still cost about the same. Food was a direct £ for $ swap. My 26" Sharp telly was $199. My salary in the UK was doubled when I moved, and that's still talking Sterling. Convert that to dollars using the exchange rate at the time and you nearly double the figure again. Bearing in mind that even expensive stuff was a straight £ to $ conversion, my spending power quadrupled. The reality was that most stuff was 'swap £ symbol for $ symbol, and then halve the number', and my spending power increased 8-fold in some instances. Bear in mind also that Seattle was then, as now, one of the most expensive cities in the US.

Guys,

This guy from Harmonix is an idiot and knows nothing about Economics but if you give me 20 seconds you'll see the logic of the pricing, they should hire me instead to do the explaining.

1)US prices for new games are $59.99 a new Xbox 360 game is typically GBP 49.99. So if you translate that to dollars in the UK you pay the equivalent of $100 for a game... that's 166% more than the price of a game in the US.... no complaints usually on that right? It's been accepted by the market
2)Rock band in the US is currently $169.99 or GBP 84 and in the UK its estimated at GBP 180 or $360. Ok so that's 211% more...
3)Basically EA is charging you 45% more than what they would... what were you expecting a USD 169 price tag or GBP 84 equivalent? that's a joke... In the US They paid almost 3 times as much for Rock band as they would for a normal game and in the UK the price tag reflects slightly more than 3x but hey that's where higher distribution and manufacturing costs come into play (this game isn't being imported into Europe from the US) additional tracks for Europe that the original game didn't have and to be downloaded at a cost for americans, as well as hell no one can deny they're trying to make a little extra money as well.

In any event the normal price for this would have been GBP 140 taking into account the previous analysis so there's an extra GBP 40. But again don't be fooled by thinking that they're ripping you off GBP 40... simply they've been so inefficient in all of this that it was get the game out now and at that price or delay it even more and that is obviously not as sellable...

I'd try to think first as to the reasons why games in all of europe are 1,66x the price of that in the US before thinking that Rock band is such a special case... Things in the US in general not just video games are very cheap now..

Best....

Not fucking buying this at that price

candilga: Most gaming equipment/software has an RRP that's marked up by about 50% over the US equivalent. We already know why that is. Rock Band goes way beyond that (closer to 110%), so yes, it is a special case.

Even compared to other products within their own markets it's expensive. Rock Band costs 2.8 times the price of a standard game in the US. It costs 4 times the price of a standard game in the UK. Sure, games are more expensive in the UK than in the US, but even by those standards Rock Band is massively overpriced - by an amount that would be addressed if EA were to include the game in the instrument pack.