Maybe it is just me, but I have seen a lot more games with $7.99 and up price tags lately. I get it; the devs / publishers would rather charge more so as to not have to go the freemium route. But I am starting to see games that have these prices AND have IAP. It is funny how times have changed..... back in the day, I had lots of free - 100% free stuff - and now I have almost none of that. And I don't mind paying $5 for a mobile game, but if it goes higher than that, I absolutely need to think I will love the game, not just like it, but love it. I am not the preferred demographic for iOS gaming, for sure. But if these game prices keep going up, I will be buying a whole lot less games. Have you noticed prices going up? Or is it just me, and what I am looking at?
You're seeing the market equalizing and maturing, the 99 cent price point has always been unsustainable for anyone outside of the top ten.
I don't really see the prices going up. I just see devs constantly trying to adjust to take advantage of the market as much as possible. Those 7.99 games with IAP consumables will be converted to freemium soon enough after they exhaust all the suckers willing to spend money up front. They are designed that way in the first place. If anything I see the market getting more deplorable. It has become harder to find any good games that are just "games" and not monetization schemes with consumable items coupled with some psychological warfare for as much money as possible by creating the most "addictive" product out there.
It's possible that a higher price point actually influences people to spend more on IAPs. . . . "Sunk cost fallacy". I grinded through the Adventure Time Card Wars game without spending any money on IAP's. But, I'll admit that I was tempted more than once. . . If it was a free game, I would not have seriously considered buying $10 worth of IAP. But since I already had money in, I didn't want to "walk away" (delete it).
Have you also noticed that prices in supermarkets and groceries stores are constantly going up? Packages are getting smaller and smaller. It is called inflation. Get used to it. Governments tell us that inflation and rising cost of living is good. Game developers must somehow pass rising cost of production to consumers.
No need to be a wiseass. I understand the concept. But my point is that is seems to be escalating very quickly as of late.
There has been a few ports where prices have been compromised but have still been expensive for iOS, then there's been the niche genres like strategy TBS games which have stuck to their guns because of smaller, more dedicated potential markets. It influences others to have a go I guess, some people making games see their own stuff relative to personal time and cost rather than relative worth, and then as night said you have those just playing the market to see what they can get before they switch to freemium. In general iOS titles have been a bit cheap and it wouldn't hurt as long as the title is of quality to have it reflected by price, unfortunately there's also a lot of stuff that just isn't worth it, the copycat games done badly and the paidmium titles come to mind. Personally I'd like to see more expensive titles that were worth it, rather than junk sold for half price.