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    Game Room

    Game » consists of 6 releases. Released Mar 24, 2010

    A downloadable portal for official emulation of retro video games for the Xbox 360 and PC, featuring offerings from the Atari 2600 and Intellivision as well as early arcade games by Atari and Konami.

    How did they screw up the pricing so damn badly?

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    Sin4profit

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    #1  Edited By Sin4profit

    My current frustration with Game Room is as such; Shouldn't a 1 medal with no leaderboard support game cost $1...then justifying the $3 for the 3 medal games a little more? and further still..why is it Konami can half ass the effort with generic arcade cabinates and still charge $3 (i hope they can retrofit these machines with a later update). I'd love to own Shaolin's Road as a collector's item but a lot of these games, as games alone, aren't worth $1. As a virtual collector's item you can convince me to pay $3, but christ, put the full $3 effort into it.
     
    Also i'd like to reiterate; tokens should be the new one play buy in and you should be able to buy the tokens.

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    ProfessorEss

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    #2  Edited By ProfessorEss

    Ripoff or not, I'm assuming charging $1 for a game would not be worth anyone's time.

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    Tricks73r

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    #3  Edited By Tricks73r

    Honestly, I'm a little disappointed with the Game Room's execution entirely. Having not lived through the late 70s/early 80s, I'm not so inclined to pay $3 for games that really do nothing more than make me salivate for a few minutes before wanting to shut them off.  I mean, I played Ice Climbers when it was new, but Ice Climbers is...well, it's a game. Outlaw? Not so much. I could have more fun competing to make a flipbook of the animations faster than my friend.
     
    I appreciate the nostalgia factor for those who did suffer through this stuff; but I'm not sure that's the target audience of the console at all. I can't see why any of this exists, other than thrusting your retro prowess into your buddy's face. 
     
    Pretty good reason, now that I think about it; but where the hell's Pitfall and Frogger? The original Simpson's Arcade game that I can't find anywhere? Dig Dug? Joust; (I'm aware it just got taken down because of the Miday rights thing); where's frickin' Area 51. I want some Aerosmith action in my arcade!

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    Shaolin_Munkeh

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    #4  Edited By Shaolin_Munkeh

    Personally while I won't be buying any of the Intellivision stuff and a lot of the Atari 2600 stuff, I'm glad to see they're not just releasing the well known stuff and are really picking some random niche games. 
     
    I'm not sure quantifying a games worth by the leaderboards and medals it has makes any sense. A lot of the really old games don't have scoring systems, so you can't possibly expect them to have leaderboards. 

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    Sin4profit

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    #5  Edited By Sin4profit
    @Shaolin_Munkeh: but that's the point. these games really aren't worth more then $1 as they are as games alone and lacking medals and leaderboard support means they flat out lack features, no challenge support, no video replays, there's no online multiplayer support to begin with, so what's the point? why pay the same for so much less?
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    carolynp

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    #6  Edited By carolynp

    @Tricks73r: Listen, kiddo. Outlaw is definitely a game. Back in my day, that was intense multiplayer competition! And we liked it! We LOVED it! 
     
    Activision games such as Pitfall and River Raid (!!!) are coming soon.
     
    The audience for this stuff is definitely pretty niche. To me, $3.00 for a faithfully recreated Asteroids Deluxe cabinet that supports a feature that lets me create all kinds of challenges for my friends is reasonable. Most of the games don't hold up nearly as well as Asteroids in my opinion, but I probably wouldn't buy those at any price, so I'm not sure how much sense a lower price point would make. And it's definitely a bummer that the Konami cabinets are featureless. But for the games that still hold up well, I think $3.00 a pop is reasonable.

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    vaultdweller13

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    #7  Edited By vaultdweller13

    I was looking forward to the release of Game Room but on Wednesday when I opened it up I couldn't find anything I wanted to buy.  It's not that the games are bad, it's just that I couldn't bring myself to pay $3 for any of them.  Maybe if there was an option to pay say $10 for a bundle of games that's cheaper than buying the games included I'd do it.  Hopefully in the future they'll add some arcade games I actually care about such as X-Men that I can justify buying.
     
    Also, what do you think the chances are that they'll release Galaga or another classic game that's already on XBLA and give everyone who already bought them the finger by making them pay again?

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    Chokobo

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    #8  Edited By Chokobo

    God forbid they try to make money.

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    Shaolin_Munkeh

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    #9  Edited By Shaolin_Munkeh

    Seems a bit odd that you think the Konami games are not worth $3, to me they're the best value there even if Konami were too lazy to give Microsoft the cabinet art. They could easily have charged 400 points and stuck them on XBLA a while back. 
     
    I don't think the Intellivision games are worth $3, but then I have no interest in Intellivision games anyway so my opinion doesn't really matter anyway.

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    hanktherapper

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    #10  Edited By hanktherapper

    I think it would be better if they did packaged bundles for 400 points. I played most of this games as a kid and they were fun then, but now the  the games are shallow and some of the controls are horrible. Having said that, if they released some Commodore 64 games I would be there.

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    Sin4profit

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    #11  Edited By Sin4profit
    @Chokobo said:
    " God forbid they try to make money. "
    Do you realistically see people buying the Atari / Intelivision games each for $3? Like i've said before, i don't want to play those games emulated for free let alone buy them. It's simple business, if you don't give the people a reasonable price, they will not buy. People aren't that stupid, and the majority of people who have any interest in what Game Room is offering would more then likely know better.
     
    Easier to get 100 people to gamble $1 then it is to get 1 person to spent $100.
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    Chokobo

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    #12  Edited By Chokobo
    @Sin4profit said:
    " @Chokobo said:
    " God forbid they try to make money. "
    Do you realistically see people buying the Atari / Intelivision games each for $3? Like i've said before, i don't want to play those games emulated for free let alone buy them. It's simple business, if you don't give the people a reasonable price, they will not buy. People aren't that stupid, and the majority of people who have any interest in what Game Room is offering would more then likely know better.  Easier to get 100 people to gamble $1 then it is to get 1 person to spent $100. "
    But it's still pretty easy to get 33 people to buy something for $3. 
     
    Personally, I won't be buying any of the Atari/Intellivision games.  Doesn't mean there's not a market for it.  They probably have the least casual appeal of all the games that have been released seeing that the graphics are garbage.  Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if BATTLANTIS was the best selling game of all the launch titles (besides Jungler, obv.) simply because it has some of the best graphics. I do agree that they probably should charge less for the Atari/Intellivision games and price titles based on how much appeal it would have to a modern audience rather than price everything at $3, but as far as the legit arcade classics and a few niche oddities, $3 is by no means highway robbery.
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    veektarius

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    #13  Edited By veektarius
    @Chokobo: I think the point Sin is trying to make is, exactly what are people paying for when they buy a Game Room game?  Are they paying for the game, or are they paying for this retro, kind of novel way to challenge their friends?  It looks like that's where all the mechanics that actually cost money in Game Room have gone.  But if it is the case that people are buying games to play them against their friends, as I believe is how the Game Room business model is intended to work, why do they expect games that lack that feature to sell at the same price point? 
     
    As a consumer, however, I don't see how it's an issue.  If you want to play a game that Game Room provides but the service does not add anything desirable to the product, just play one of the ripoff versions available online for free.   
     
    As an aside I think three dollars for this stuff is stupid.  Like a previous poster, I would only consider paying three dollars for some of the late 80s early 90s arcade stuff like Turtles in Time, Moonwalker ... stuff that actually somewhat resembles what passes for a game today.  But I'm not in the target audience, I think.
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    SeriouslyNow

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    #14  Edited By SeriouslyNow
    @Chokobo said:
    " God forbid they try to make money. "
    God forbid someone tries to make a complaint.
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    Deathawk

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    #15  Edited By Deathawk

    It's all about the gameplay man, you're not paying for medals or cabinets your paying for the gameplay. If it wasn't for Gameroom you'd be payin double the price with less content.

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