Average price of announced iPad games is $3.52

As iPad's launch approaches, I've continued to keep track of announced games in the Pocket Gamer big iPad game list.

Deep within my bunker I've also got another spreadsheet which breaks out more details about these games; notably their prices and their price compared to iPhone games, in the case where the iPad game is based on an existing iPhone and iPod touch title.

My list isn't conclusive - big publishers such as Gameloft, EA Mobile and PopCap are yet to reveal their full plans.

However I've logged the prices of 88 announced iPad games so while incomplete, I think the data should be coherent.

The most first and most obvious thing to consider is the price of iPad games.

Surprisingly the most popular price for an iPad game is 99c, although in many cases this is because indie developers are releasing Universal Apps and hence are maintaining the same price for their iPad games as for the existing iPhone versions.

More significantly there are almost as many games priced at $9.99 and $4.99 as $1.99. And $2.99 is the second most popular price.

Also, there's seems to be a move, if limited, to push prices higher, with one game launching at $11.99 and another experimenting with a monthly subscription. The emerging free-to-play sector is well represented too.

Overall, the average price of announced iPad games is $3.52.

How developers are dealing with the perceived premium value of iPad games can be more clearly seen when we break down the differential in terms of price for iPad games which are based on versions of existing iPhone games.

This is a smaller set (65 games), but stripping out those Universal Apps, we can see that the majority of developers are looking to price their iPad games higher than the iPhone versions, typically by between $1 to $2.

In fact, in this case, the average premium for an iPad version of an iPhone game works out at $1.42.