Ska Studios » On those crazy XBLA price tags…

On those crazy XBLA price tags…

So, here we are: Braid‘s on XBLA for 1200 points, and now Castle Crashers has hit XBLA for another 1200 points. They’re two excellent games (I unsurprisingly gravitated toward the latter, going as far as to dub yesterday “Castle Crashers Day”) and they both embody much of what the indie games industry can do right. Also, they’re both taking some of the most ridiculous flak I’ve ever heard over their price.

Such gems include:

“$15 for 5 hours of single player?”

“I could get [insert old game name here] for $5 less at Gamestop!”

“If it were $10, I’d pay, but at $15 it’s just too much.”

Probably my first reaction should be to not listen to anything morons say online.

However, assuming I failed to do the first part, here’s my second reaction:

Maybe I’m old. Maybe I’m old fashioned. However, I distinctly remember growing up with NES, where games like Contra debuted with price tags of about $100 when adjusted for inflation. Yes, Contra is classic. However, if you bought it, brought it home, sat down and gave it a shot, you would probably make it to level 2 and die. You could retry a bit, maybe make it to 3, possibly 4, probably not 5, and certainly not 6. What’s the play-through time there? You could probably beat the game in an hour with the 60 life code. That’s an hour for $100–no character building, no online play, no DLC, and no minigames.

I’m not saying we should be satisfied with Contra. But look how far we’ve come! We’ve gone from paying $100 for a game that is repeatedly outshined by free Flash games to paying $15 for games with art design that would make our 1980′s-era selves drool, rich gameplay, online multiplayer, and tons and tons of bells and whistles upon that–yet for some that’s $5 too expensive?

We shouldn’t need to be satisfied with Contra, but boy, have we got spoiled.

I would like to address the “I could buy [game name] used at Gamestop for $5 cheaper” argument specifically: sure, you could buy Perfect Dark Zero at Gamestop for $10 (probably $5 even), but here’s the thing: Perfect Dark Zero is not Castle Crashers. If you want to play Castle Crashers, you have to buy Castle Crashers, and the price happens to be $15. If you wanted to play PDZ (and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to do that these days), you can find yourself a nice used copy at Gamestop. You’ll get your 10 hours of gameplay, rather than that paltry 5 you would have got in the horrendously overpriced Castle Crashers, but those will be 10 hours of your life spent playing Perfect Dark Zero, which, as far as I can tell, is not something to brag about.

I don’t really think it’s about cost anymore. When you contrast the value of the dollar between today’s gaming industry and that of 20 years ago, there’s just no comparison–videogames are pretty much free. The question becomes not “how do you want to spend your money,” but “how do you want to spend your time?”

Average rating of 0.0 / 5.0

August 28, 2008 posted by James

Filed under: Games,Jerks

8 Comments Comment away!

1. rmatheso | August 28, 2008 at 11:58 PM

Let’s face it, people are cheap. One argument is that you cannot trade-in a digital copy of a game and get your $5 bucks back. But the prices of all Xbox Live games are under 20 bucks. I thought Castle Crashers was a really long game for a beat-em up. It took me 2 days to finish it which is unheard of for that type of game.
Silva does have a good point thought, I buy cheap games all the time and they sit on my shelf collecting dust because I dont have the time to play them all.
Oh BTW Castle Crashers still has nothing on the Dead Samurai combat system. Hey, maybe you could call them up and have one of the Knights as a secret character in Dead Samurai!
2. disgustipated | August 30, 2008 at 8:44 AM

I know you probably don’t read these comments, but I’d like to throw my two cents in anyways.

I’ve been in love with the Dishwasher since the XNA preview build debuted on Xbox Live and just recently decided to make an effort into getting more info on it. I hope it’s released soon.

That being said, I’d like to make my point as uneloquently as possible: fuck these people that scoff at paying $15 for Castle Crashers. I’d pay $30-40 for it, even if I knew beforehand what I was getting with it. Hell, ESPECIALLY knowing beforehand what I was getting.

These are the same morons that buy 10 hour games at $60. These are the same morons that drive 23 MPG cars. These are not economical, appreciative people. They expect 40 hours of gameplay for their $15… or else. Because it’s just a stupid XBLA game, right?

That being said, I’ll buy the Dishwasher for $20, no questions asked. I don’t think you’re dumb enough to price it there ($10-15 would be the sweet spot), but knowing what I was getting… $20 would be a bargain to me.

Keep up the good work.
3. James | August 31, 2008 at 2:37 PM

Thanks!

Yeah, this wasn’t some sort of crafty lead-in to a $15-$20 price tag; I think 800 points is probably the sweet spot (not that that’s official word or anything).
4. disgustipated | September 1, 2008 at 4:05 AM

Also, if you have time, I’d love to hear from you over at EvilAvatar.com. The community’s response to your game was pretty positive, so if you actually fed us a few tidbits about your game, we’d eat it up and hope to get you linked on Penny Arcade.
5. gigglefritz | September 2, 2008 at 6:14 AM

Hey James, I know this isn’t really the right place to ask, but I can’t find your email address. Is your book still coming out at the end of September? Could you do a blog post about what the book will cover? Most of the xna books I have looked though don’t really go into too much detail for 2d stuff, and I am hoping that your might break that mold.

thanks
6. mikekearn | September 3, 2008 at 7:24 AM

I haven’t bought a game in a while, but I’m so strapped for cash, I can barely afford to eat every day. (Starving student and all that). So for me, a game is an investment; it has to last. Last three games I bought? GTA IV, Mass Effect, and Oblivion. These are games that given 50+ hours of gameplay, easy. All for their same $60.

Given that, I can understand some people’s not wanting to pay $15 for 5 hours of gameplay. However, there is a simple solution: DON’T BUY THE GAME. Them complaining about it isn’t going to make it happen. Why don’t they complain about the $60 price tag on a game like Heavenly Sword? A game heavily panned by critics for being ridiculously short. Perhaps because, oh my, even though it was short, it still managed to be FUN.

I am proud to say that The Dishwasher is a game whose demo was excellent enough for to want to buy it whatever the cost, and that is my right. I didn’t feel the demo for Castle Crashers was fun enough for to spend my little free money on. It was fun, just not fun enough to buy right now. If I manage to earn a little extra free cash, then I would love to get it. Until then, I’m not going to bitch about it.
7. Sergey Galyonkin | Пер&hellip | September 5, 2008 at 5:55 PM

[...] Джеймс Сильва, разработчик аркадной игры Dishwasher пишет про цены на нынешние игры архиправильную фразу: The [...]
8. ultimategreyhound | October 10, 2008 at 3:37 PM

Amen. People need to learn economics. Things get sold at the price people will pay for them.

In a similar vein, a lot of people I know complained about the price tags for Wii VC games. “$5 to play Castlevania 2?! I’ll just download the ROM for my emulator…” However, there’s something undeniably authentic and pure about playing A Link to the Past on my Wii Classic Controller (designed after the greatest controller of all time, the SNES). And Capcom keyed in to that right away with Megaman 9. People will shell out $10 left and right just for the experience.