I'm no economist, but my basic understanding of inflation is that it involves things getting more expensive and old people grumbling about how, because of broken Britain, penny sweets now cost two pence. I don't like moaning, but I get the sneaking suspicion that inflation is making itself felt in the prices of XBLA games.
In the beginning it was much simpler. The rules went thus - if your arcade game was a remake of an ancient pixellated 16-bit affair, you charged 400MP. If it was something a bit more, perhaps even an original title designed specifically for a download audience, you were allowed to make it 800MP. I say rules - it's not like Daddy Microsoft mandated that, it was just a sort of silent agreement.
Not that the Mutant Turtles have a spotless record. For the release of their second arcade outing, Ubisoft decided to rebuild the game in 3D, essentially creating something that neither looked nor played like the original. Then it slapped a 1200MP price on it.
After much guffawing from all and sundry, including us specifically describing 1200MP as "whopping" for an hour or so's entertainment in our review, Ubisoft made a hasty climb down and pegged it at 800MP instead. Which, in retrospect, is probably still too much. It's defensible, though, because to all intents and purposes it was a remake rather than a re-release. Balance was restored.
Fast forward a couple of years and, hurrah, there's a remake of classic helicopter rescue-em-up Choplifter on the way. Choplifter HD features the same straightforward concept but dolled up with 3D visuals. Dead cert 800MP, surely? Even the gloriously polished Daytona remake clocked in at under a grand.
Not so, apparently. Choplifter HD arrives next week for 1200MP. That's more than a tenner for a game whose mechanics could be explained solely in mime. I'm excited about its return and in no way going to condemn it before I've played it, but with a hefty price tag like that it's going to have to be something pretty spectacular.
It feels like there needs to be an outbreak of sanity on the subject of pricing on XBLA. As a general trend, downloadable games aren't getting more expensive, they're getting cheaper. It's one of the reasons why the iTunes Store is now rammed with high quality, affordable distractions. The fundamentals of a Choplifter game aren't much more complex than your average iPhone title, yet you can pick up quality mobile games for under a quid.
Besides, it's not like they're remaking prehistoric helicopter taxi game Ugh! Now that I'd pay 1200MP for...
26 comments so far...
Brianf333 on 6 Jan '12 said:
Well I could not help commenting on your article escpecially since I am the developer. I would ask that you keep in mind that in our case (and I know others) that we spent a far greater budget on Choplifter HD then do on our IOS games. I think there is a perception of similar budgets but we spent well in excess of 1.6 million dollars to insure we could bring the strongest visuals possible to Xbox 360. In fact some people have warned us that we might well have spent too much but we did it because we believed quality sells and that gamers will notice. Some of the "retro" games are indeed pretty inexpensive in their production but we went all out on this baby. The good news is that there is a free version to trial and play so gamers will be able to feel the production values and the variety. We made sure to continue to keep the variety of helicopters, enemies, backgrounds etc. continue through gameplay so the player doesn't experience most everything in 30 minutes. I think you will have a blast with the game and we also plan on free DLC to really make sure people feel they are getting the most value possible.
Thanks,
Brian Fargo
Decent_Jam on 7 Jan '12 said:
Well, you can't say fairer than that, you heard it here first folks!
Good to see the blog attracting some attention, since it's one of the strongest regular spots on the site and all.
If I'm honest I wouldn't spend more than 800 points on an XBLA game, I just wouldn't. I mean even if there were hours and hours in it like super duper retro collection X or something, I just think that 4 quid or so you can almost spend without thinking, I mean it's not even two pints in London, but once you get into double figures, alarm bells start to go.
I'm glad the production values of the game are high, but this is still fundamentally a re-make of a game years and years old, what makes it worth it? I'll be interested to see the review.
Bezza89 on 7 Jan '12 said:
While I agree we should all support developers, 1200mp is considered in my eyes to only be for exceptional titles, and even then I wont pay it until it's cheaper. (Exception, 1600mp for Crysis, that is worth it).
As a customer, I see 800mp as a great deal for any new arcade game, especially remakes, but when we hit four digits I really call into question whether it will be worth the money, it may only seem petty at 400mp, but that's how my brain works. Like the 99p/£1 thing.
It's like minecraft, that game looks awesome but I wont buy until it is 800 or less.
I'm echoing Decent Jam here I've just realised.
comabob on 7 Jan '12 said:
@ Brian Fargo - is that of Interplay fame?
Ive bought quite a few xbla games at 1200 points - if i enjoy the demo enough ill grab it.
Shadow COmplex, Trials, Lara Croft, Renegade Ops, M&MClash Of Titans, Bastion, Plants Vs Zombies, Torchlight, Deathspank - ALL 1200 points - a 10er aint much at all for any of them.
ON THE FLIPSIDE - isnt the survival horror Amy out nex week for 800mspoints?
msbhvn on 7 Jan '12 said:
I believe XBLA prices have risen because DLC prices have risen. If you charge less for a full game than Acti want for four MP maps for CoD, your game is going to be perceived as low quality. So I blame Activision.
OXM ETboy on 7 Jan '12 said:
Hey Brian, thanks for making time to comment here. Regarding your point about quality selling, do you think there's a general difficulty where consumers/reviewers don't really understand or appreciate what goes into any game, resource-wise? Ultimately the development process needn't have any bearing on player enjoyment, I guess, but I think people grade their expectations in response to how much time and effort they feel has been spent.
Brianf333 on 7 Jan '12 said:
Hey guys,
Yes this is the same Brian Fargo from the Interplay days and I'm always happy to comment where I can. I enjoy reading the comments and there certainly isn't much I can say if someone won't pay 1200 points for any game but at least I can comment to a few points that were raised.
The last comment was a very good question about whether the consumer/reviewer don't understand or appreciate what goes into a game in terms of resources/assets. On one hand I just can't help trying to make as big as an experience I can in some kind of reasonable budget. I know others have made XBLA games for a third of what we spent but I just can't bring myself to do that. I think the consumer would notice it in that they will have seen 90% of the art content in the first 20 minutes in a small budget game in which case I do believe the experience is compromised. At the end of the day we LOVE making games and want to continue to do so. If our game sells for 1200 points we get about $9 from that (after paying several in between parties) our breakeven is approximately 175,000 copies which is not trvial to attain. And if we go way beyond that number you know what we do? We make a kick ass sequel that is even better. But ultimately the consumer decides what things are worth so I respect that. But we do have a great free trial demo and you can decide it's value but we did take the route of giving away free DLC rather than try and price drop right away.
We have had 8 great previews and I'm pretty sure you will see some excellent reviews next week so fingers crossed. Have fun guys!
comabob on 7 Jan '12 said:
Well Brian can i just say from the bottom of my heart -
Thank You for some of the best gaming experiences of my life - i was about 14 when i first played Fallout and still cherish it and play i to this day.
Honestly fallout is my favourite game of all time (and its sequel) - the first game i played on PC - i could spend hours typing about it and how many beloved memories i have of those games. (even on this site in the past ive harped on about how much i love those games)
Thank you.
S
GHOSTY05 on 7 Jan '12 said:
I don't tend to buy them to be honest, regardless of their quality an arcade game is exactly that....an arcade game and should be reasonably priced.
1200 or 1600 for any arcade game is excessive and i would sooner save those points for DLC on games i already own.
Why spend £10-15 on an arcade game when i can buy skyrim for £25.00! or even battlefield for £25.00,big, quality games at very reasonable prices
I agree the quality of these games is improving and i fully appreciate the time and expense these games require to create, but they are becoming too expensive to justify.
Just my opinion mind.
schwepterbrowser on 7 Jan '12 said:
I don't see a problem with XBLA pricing. The games keep getting bigger and better, obviously this comes at a cost to the developer and they need to recoup that cost - I've bought plenty of Arcade games for 1200, or even 1600 points.
I can see why this might be perceived to not be worth it, being a re-make. As with every other Arcade game, though, I'll play the Trial and judge it on it's own merits. If I enjoy it, I'll buy it; if it's alright, I'll wait for a sale; if I don't enjoy it, I'll pass.
It might not help releasing Choplifter on the same day as the new, original and excellent looking Amy, which will only cost 800 points, though. Price comparisons are inevitable and unfortunately, Choplifter comes out on the losing end.
NBA Kirkland on 9 Jan '12 said:
I hate to be the bearer of bad news because I've been looking forward to this game, but I just got my print issue of OXM (US) and they gave Choplifter HD a 4.5. And oddly enough they have it priced at 800MSP. (Maybe they reviewed the cheaper, mediocre version???)
Strong visuals don't make a good game. Gameplay is king. I'll be trying out the demo on Wednesday.
Update: Good news. IGN just chimed in with a 8.0.
Furie on 10 Jan '12 said:
Hmmm, I haven't actually bought all that many arcade titles as I'm kind of new to the "being able to get the damn box online at all" party. I've tried demos and bought some of what I liked, but price has always been at the back of my mind. While the rerelease of Beyond Good & Evil got snapped up as soon as it was released and games like Torchlight and Bastion (Amy this week will be added to the list I expect) were picked up at those prices due to sheer quality of the experience and how much of the experience they offered, these are the exceptions rather than the rule. So many titles haven't made it into console as they were simply too much money for what I expected to get out of them.
Even when so many of these games get put on sale they tend to not quite reach what I'm willing to pay for them (my own rule is a maximum price of £1 per hour of gameplay or it's not worth my money). I have the same rule for other forms of media too, only buying movies and television boxsets when they're on sale, and I know I'm not alone in this. As arcade titles become more in depth and reach the quality of boxed titles, I'm fine with people charging more for the game and will even pay that premium if the result is something that interests me that much. But if the extra price is more to cover money spent on graphics rather than gameplay then I'm much less willing to shell out on the game, even if it had previously interested me.
CunningSmile on 10 Jan '12 said:
One of the main reasons I have a Gold membership is to take advantage of deal of the week. There are a ton of great games on XBLA, but I find it hard to justify the cost of a lot of them so I just wait until they pop up in a sale.
Bezza89 on 10 Jan '12 said:
I've never seen a developer speaking to gamers in this fashion before a release so I'll definitely give this trial a go, kudos for taking your time out. This guy made fallout 1? Dude start a remake of that! I bet that'd sell for 2400.
comabob on 10 Jan '12 said:
Bethesda now own the righst to the fallout IP
i would happily pay 2400 for a xbla/Games on Dmeand fallout 1 remake. HELL - id pay hat much for a rerelease
Bezza89 on 10 Jan '12 said:
Ah but interplay own the rights to sell Fallout 1 + 2 and something else until 2013.
comabob on 10 Jan '12 said:
I hought behesda own the whole IP?
never gonna see a return of the original games hough - i still have them both installed on he laptop - fo2 is the bigger file of he two and its around 650mb - so the size limit is feasible for xbla.
But i doubt the controls would work on a control pad.
CunningSmile on 10 Jan '12 said:
Didn't Interplay just loose an IP law suit against Bethesda regarding the rights to Fallout? I know it focused on the MMO rights, but wasn't sure if the re-release rights of Fallout 1 & 2 were included.
Bezza89 on 10 Jan '12 said:
Yeah interplay lost (came out today) but they can still sell until 2013, when bethesda then get the rights to sell f1 and 2. According to cvg anyway. You can buy the games for cheap probably and they'd work on any pc really wouldn't they?
golliwoza on 10 Jan '12 said:
The earlier games have problems on newer pc's but tactics seems to work fine on my dell inspiron laptop but when I try to game on FO1 and FO2 they dont load some graphics or something.
comabob on 10 Jan '12 said:
Haven played Tactics but 1 and 2 run fine on my laptop.
Only issue is that 2 sometimes crashes to desktop (usually when im in San Francisco) and 1 has issues with the voice acting sometimes cutting out, Killian Darkwater in Junkown (Macgyver himself!) has no voice for eg...
muppy_2k on 10 Jan '12 said:
In my opinion 400 is about right MAX for an old IP that has had little done to it.
800 for new games and those old IPs if they have had a redesign on the HD front.
1200 for games that include avatar awards.
1600 points is just stupid, thats what Games on demand should be sold at
But asking us to pay 1200 for a really old game? It seems criminal to me. I don't care that you spent X amount of hours making it look all good. Like any product you should have done the market research first to see if your price point was justified, judging by these comments it isn't. So when your game doesn't sell, and people will vote with thier money, are you going to charge 2400 points for the next game to cover the losses or are we going to be denied a another title because no one bought into your greed? If it does sell then where does it stop? You sold enough at 1200 so the next game no matter how much work went into it will sell off the back of this one?
It's great to see some games get really high review scores, be it an XBLA title a retail game, but at the end of the day they didn't pay for the game they are reviewing, so I am pretty sure that its never taken into consideration. Am I paying to cover the cost of those codes you give away for free to review sites and magazines?
Brianf333 on 10 Jan '12 said:
I just saw that someone posted that OXM gave Choplifter a 45%... pretty shocking. So far IGN give us an 8.0, Presspushstart 4/5 and a great review on UGO. The quotes from the reviewers thus far have been fantastic. And user feedback has been great for people who have bought the Sony version that went live today. Well I hope you guys give the free demo a whirl and make up your mind.
See what you think....
comabob on 11 Jan '12 said:
Actually enjoyed the choplifter demo. Reminded me of an old Amiga game called Apocalypse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8dlRA0Ccns
Strange that with all he comments on whether or not you will see everything within the first 20 minutes or not - the demo showed pretty much he same objectives on each mission (fly left to right shooting stuff and occasionally land to pick up people and then go back again) And the repetition set in before i got through the entire demo.
Thing is with the majority of xbla games they are developed with the more casual (i hate that word) gamer in mind. What i mean by this is people who will only play the game a few minutes each sitting. Whereas myself and i dare say the vast majority of 360 owners can and do play games for hour long sessions.
Played in small doses choplifter would be worthwhile - but for some one like me who likes to sink their teeth into whatever game they are playing - its a repetitive slog.
So Brian - as much as i do want to support you and your development team (the least i can do after the cherished memories youve given me) - ill give the demo my customary second try, but i doubt i will be buying anything this week.
gooner77 on 12 Jan '12 said:
I think 1200 mps is waaaay too high for this and any other arcade game. will wait for the inevitable sale
CPT Random 82 on 13 Jan '12 said:
Awesome blast from the past, played that to death!