Call Of Duty Invades The Mac App Store at $50

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/13/call-of-duty-mac-app-store/

by apress • 16 years ago

17 28 16 years ago

apress3• 16 years ago

Some apps are appearing in the mac app store at what look like bargain prices (Aperture for $80, but due for an upgrade soon). But Call of Duty, which is years old and available online for like $30, went up yesterday at $49.99.

ugh3• 16 years ago

Why should Aperture be due for an update soon? It was only updated a year ago and has had a much longer release cycle than that in the past.

apress3• 16 years ago

Aperture 2.0 came out in Feb 2009. Aperture 3.0 came out in Feb 2010. But I am basically speculating that Apple is following a very common software pricing strategy of significant cuts ahead of a major update...

kayoone2• 16 years ago

I still dont get what drives people to pay more for a digital download than an actual boxed version of the game. I also dont get why publishers dont try to reach a bigger audience with lower prices instead, which should roughly equal to the same amount of revenue.

cryptoz• 16 years ago

> I still dont get what drives people to pay more for a digital download than an actual boxed version of the game.

Convenience. People pay for convenience all the time. That's why Starbucks can charge $2.50 for a medium coffee that you could make at home for $0.10. Or why the corner store milk is $2 more than the grocery store milk.

Driving to a store takes up to an hour out of your day. You buy the game, accumulating more garbage and shit that you don't need. Then you have to keep it safe and not scratch the disc. Care must be taken.

A digital download is incredibly more convenient. You don't have to leave your home, it's faster, safer, easier, and even better, you don't have to take care of more garbage or carefully handle optical discs.

kayoone2• 16 years ago

You still pay more for less. Id argue that for a game you would want a good buying experience, and original box and stuff like that. That why people pay more fore Gold Editions etc. But paying more for just a download, i dont know...

Its not that its something you badly need like something to drink, its on the market for 3 years after all.

lsd5you• 16 years ago

It is probably just price differentiation. Probably app store customers are less frugal, and others will appreciate the illusion of a good deal and go and by the boxed copy.

joshklein• 16 years ago

Determine price by value, not cost. No one cares how hard a business has to work, only what it can do for them.

tvon• 16 years ago

I'm not sure how telling a 3 year old game hitting the Mac App Store at near-launch prices will be.

ryandvm• 16 years ago

Hmm. I had assumed that it was the latest Call of Duty: Black Ops juggernaut. You're right - trying to sell Modern Warfare at this price is silly. This has the fishy smell of an experiment designed to fail...

tptacek• 16 years ago

That's the point, right? If COD:MW1 does decently at this pricing in the Mac App Store, the argument will then exist that the Mac's distribution system makes up for some of the slack in its market share; it'll incentivize more game ports to the Mac.

bane• 16 years ago

Ridiculous on its face, but probably just an effort to feel out the top-end of the market (and ignore all the great market data Valve has been collecting over the years).

michaelbuckbee• 16 years ago

Given the comparatively small number of games for the Mac pricing situations like this have existed for some time (visit your local Mac Store to check out the exciting line of 5+ year old games for sale at full price).

The other way to interpret this is that the $50 price isn't the "full price" of the game so much as it is the same discounted price as elsewhere plus the 30% EA would otherwise lose to Apple.

ptomato2• 16 years ago

As far as the second, I'd wager that Valve's cut on Steam is not significantly <30%, even for publishers the size of Activision.

uxp• 16 years ago

I recall the split between publisher or developer and Valve on steam is determined per game, but for many indie games it hovers around 40% to Valve. For larger publishers and franchise games, this starts to drop considerably.

brudgers• 16 years ago

>"Apple wasted little time in featuring it in a main store banner today."

I don't know which is worse. Apple featuring a 2+ year old game at the app store, or TechCrunch writing an article about it.

oneplusone• 16 years ago

The Mac App store really has no chance against Steam when it comes to games. It is a better platform and not tied to a single operating system. Never-mind their approval process not being so finicky.

mbateman• 16 years ago

I find Steam to be unstable and frustrating on my Mac. I would certainly prefer to use the Mac App store.

revorad• 16 years ago

But who's got more advertising and marketing power? Apple deserves a lot of credit for its high quality products, but people seem to forget they also sell a lot because they sell hard.

alexophile2• 16 years ago

So if MW1 is available for Mac, why isn't it available on Steam? MW1 for Windows is listed at $30, perhaps EA won't sell the Mac version at that price and Steam doesn't want to endorse a precedent of multiple price points for different platforms?

I try not to presume ill-will, but there does seem to be something amiss here.

windsurfer• 16 years ago

Steam has a policy of "purchase once, play anywhere". EA likely doesn't want to give the mac version away for free for those people who bought the PC version.

ottbot• 16 years ago

The Call of Duty series is published by Activision, not EA.

alexophile2• 16 years ago

woops - good call. A few years ago, I think I just started assuming everything was published by EA by default.

Prisen• 16 years ago

The game is also massive in size, at over 6 gigabytes, so it’s going to take a while to download even on a fast connection.

That's pretty small these days.

Call Of Duty Invades The Mac App Store at $50

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