Wouldn't it be easier to give the game away for free?
Charging money for the game gives you access to the United State's most efficient content delivery system: a trailer full of CDs delivered to your local Best Buy. If you give away the game for free, then Best Buy will ditch your CD in favor of one they can actually make money on, and you get to watch huge swathes of your potential market fail to download its next-generation multi-gigabyte heft.
By comparison, most of the free to play MMORPGs come out of Asia, where broadband is rather more widespread and asset production budgets can fit in X0 ~ Y00 MB. That will just about cover the mandatory intro cinema in an American AAA game these days.
Charging money for the game gives you access to the United State's most efficient content delivery system: a trailer full of CDs delivered to your local Best Buy. If you give away the game for free, then Best Buy will ditch your CD in favor of one they can actually make money on, and you get to watch huge swathes of your potential market fail to download its next-generation multi-gigabyte heft.
By comparison, most of the free to play MMORPGs come out of Asia, where broadband is rather more widespread and asset production budgets can fit in X0 ~ Y00 MB. That will just about cover the mandatory intro cinema in an American AAA game these days.