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No that seems like a real fear. Hopefully developers know how much to price their game at. I think if they are decent quality exclusives to the XBLA they can charge 1200 space bucks for them.

Holy Crap and I was really looking forward to this game! The price better be worth it before I go and buy the game! O and to Nidzumi the developer doesn't choose the price, micro$oft chooses the price based on the labor put into the content! Thats why some rockband track are outrageously expensive!

I can see that if devs know people are going to pay little more they will charge more. So some time next year I think some one is going to charge over 20 bucks. I can see them doing that.

$15 for certain games is fine. Braid, as you said, is a great example of what worked. Will this? I believe it will, but we can't be sure until it's out.

I sure hope that Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball is $10, or they'll never see my points.

thank GOD its not 1800.

Day one

they're hitting all the price points in august...we're being tested....Bionic Commando - 800pts, Castle Crashers - 1200pts.  Whichever sells more, will be the price for 'premiere' xbla games moving forward

I have no problem paying $15 for quality original XBLA games, but I don't want to start paying $15 for mediocre arcade ports.

I think ultimately it will come down to consumers spending habits for this kind of stuff. Like you said $15 for a game isn't unreasonable provided it is a quality game. The consumers certainly wield direct power over the development and release of these and all titles by way of their money and what they decide to buy. Buying shitty games only makes more shitty games.

Honestly, Castle Crashers looks fun as hell and probably worth the money. I'm not sure anyone outside of industry folks and other serious devotees would care  about buying an XBLA game partly because it supports indie-style development and/or propagates the further development of good games. ScarfaceThug78 probably just wants to get his game on that's all, nomsayin?

Really though, the dealbreaker for this kind of stuff has always been the demo and trail versions. For $15 bucks though I don't necessarily think quality should be the only motivating factor. Once these companies start jacking up the price I'd like to see some actual meat to these games, something in the neighborhood of 10-15 hours of gameplay for single player stuff and maybe more. Obviously for multiplayer heavy releases it comes down to replayability , stat tracking, leaderboards and all that good stuff.

In the end, sure there is a huge opportunity for a lot $15 crap to hit the marketplace but it seems these downloadable games are becoming more and more legitimate and no longer just cellphone style puzzle games and bad ports of retro games. The more visible and popular these fully fleshed out marketplace games become, the more pressure there will (hopefully) be on developers to make good stuff to put out there.

I'm not sure what the pricing environment is like on XBLA, but I think it might be a good topic to actually address pricing directly.  Since you've probably run through more XBLA games than most of us, Jeff, what did you feel was worth 15, what was below, what would you pay more for? 

I get what you're saying.  10 seems like OK, shallow game.  5 is a curiosity.  15 is pushing into good, and 20 is like a re-released, full-on game at budget pricing.

But that's just me. 

Hopefully the game quality speaks for the price.

I don't buy many XBLA games.  As it is very FEW games seem to be a good value at current prices, let alone even higher prices.

Microsoft will take every dollar they can get away with.  Remember a couple years ago when new games cost $49.99?  Yeah, what happened to that price structure?  I'll tell you what:  We gave in.  As long as people will buy it, they'll keep moving the prices up.  Microsoft has nothing to lose.

So, what I think we are really seeing here is the evolution of Live Arcade.  Initially, XBLA games were explicitly "casual" focused, marketed as games you would play for less time, or in a less serious manner than the games you bought at a physical store.  Well, short though it may be, there is certainly nothing casual about Braid.  Castle Crashers, in the very near past, would likely have come out as a boxed product.  We are moving closer to (at least the option of) digital distribution for everything, and these games, at these prices, are another step in that direction.

I'm perfectly fine paying $15 for Castle Crashers. As for Braid, I would be happy paying $60.

If the games live up to the price of 1200 points I don't mind paying it.  I don't want a crappy Sudoku game or a golf game priced at 1200 when it isn't even worth 800. Developers pricing rubbish content at that price are asking for failure.  Extensive, quality, fun games, maybe their worth 1200 but I don't want to see the 800 price point abandoned altogether.  Castle crashers at 1200 will probably be worth it, a crappy, buggy Atari remake should remain cheap as hell, 400 is pushing it for Warlords.

$15 isn't bad at least it wasn't the rumored $22.50

Dan Paladin?!  This guys name is a perfect match with this game?   Dam i wish my last name was Paladin.  I would walk around with a hammer and smite the bad ppl... 


O 15$ is fine for Castle Crashers.  Heck Alien Homanid was 40 for the gamecube.