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Embracer's head, Lars Wingefors, is not a favorite among gaming community members. His role has been central to the recent shutting down of numerous development houses within the Embracer Group, leading to the termination of thousands of employees.

This action is defended as a regrettable necessity in the wake of the challenging economic environment that emerged after the pandemic. Nevertheless, Wingefors continues his pursuit of higher profit margins and has recently suggested, in a dialogue with GamesIndustry.biz, the potential benefits of further increasing the costs of video games.

He posited that if a vast and intricately designed role-playing game offering 100 to 150 hours of immersive gameplay were available, consumers might be inclined to pay a premium. This approach could, in theory, facilitate the introduction of additional products into the market. This topic has been a matter of internal discussion, according to him.

Moreover, Wingefors drew parallels between the video game sector and other markets, pointing out the common challenges of inflation and escalating game creation expenses, which have made it problematic to augment game prices, especially for premium PC and console games. This pricing stagnation, coupled with amplified capital costs, reduces profitability. Despite Embracer not being at the forefront of hiking prices, Wingefors acknowledged that it is closely monitoring competitors’ pricing strategies.

The question arises then: How much more should games cost, and is it justifiable that their prices will increase further?