Lead dev of one of 2025’s best games goes on a wild ramble about pricing, but hold up, let him cook — it actually makes perfect sense, and he’s right

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As game development costs continue to rise, publishers face a tough challenge in setting prices. They need to make a profit while also ensuring players feel they’re getting a good value.

Like all businesses, game developers also play with how prices *seem* to players versus their actual cost. According to a key developer on a highly anticipated 2025 game, this difference between perceived value and the real price can be substantial.

I’ve been following Nick Kaman, the studio head at Aggro Crab, for a while now. They’re the indie team behind popular games like *Going Under* and *Another Crab’s Treasure*, which you might know from Xbox Game Pass. Recently, they partnered with Landfall Games – the creators of *Totally Accurate Battle Simulator* and *Content Warning* – to co-develop *PEAK*, a really fun and well-received co-op climbing game that came out last year.

I was listening to a recent interview with Kaman on Game File, and he was explaining how they landed on the $7.99 price tag for their game. He went into a pretty detailed story about the whole process – it was interesting to hear how they figured it all out!

We used to joke about how people perceive game prices. We realized that to a player, the difference between $5 and $6 isn’t huge – it still feels like around $5. Even $4 feels pretty similar, while $3 feels like $2, and $2 is almost like getting it for free.

I was digging into the pricing structure, and it’s a bit weird. Basically, we tested different price points, and it seems like jumping from $7.99 to $8.00 actually made a bigger difference in how people responded than any other price change. Anything at or below $8 was perceived as being around $5, but once we hit $8.01, it jumped up to around $15. It was surprising to see such a clear ‘sweet spot’ – that $8 to $5 drop was the most impactful difference we found, making it the most efficient price point for us.

The initial explanation from Kaman seemed a bit unhinged, and it probably was meant to be, since it was presented as a joke. It reminded me strongly of the famous “Pepe Silvia” scene from *It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia*, where Charlie Kelly delivers a rambling, conspiratorial speech while surrounded by a chaotic web of papers and red string.

This conversation definitely got me thinking about how I buy games. Looking back, what Kaman said actually makes a lot of sense. I often mentally adjust prices to nice, round numbers like $5 or $10, and that can trick me into feeling like I’m spending less than I really am on a game.

PEAK is sold for $7.99 because customers generally see it as costing around $5, even though its actual value is closer to $10. While people think about prices differently, this price has been very successful for PEAK – it sold over 10 million copies last year.

A large number of PEAK sales happened when the price was dropped to $4.95, both before release and during special promotions (one of which is happening right now). It’s curious they chose $4.95 instead of $4.99 – it seems like a smart pricing tactic. $4.95 probably *feels* significantly cheaper than $5 to customers, even though it’s only four cents less than $4.99. It’s an interesting psychological effect, isn’t it?

When you’re buying video games, what do you think about the prices? Do prices ending in .99, like $5.99 or $6.99, seem like a round number to you, such as just five dollars? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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2026-01-14 00:09