Xbox Live Arcade is graced by one of its rare good looking games today, as time-screwing platformerBraidhas finally made its appearance, causing Rev Anthony-types to cream their jeans in sordid delight. Microsoft, of course, is well aware that people actuallywantthis game, and have rewarded fans for their excitement and interest by nickle-and-diming them for 1200 points. Lead designer Jonathan Blowexplains that thiswasn’t his idea, but he’s comfortable with the vampiric decision:
My feeling was that Microsoft would price the game at 1200 no matter what I said; however, I never pushed them to that point. Late last week, Microsoft and I had a conversation where we talked about a bunch of issues and I agreed on the 1200 point price.
There are good reasons why I picked 1200 instead of 800 (I thought about writing them up today, but I’m not sure it’s really appropriate; I might, though, tonight. We’ll see how I feel about it later.)
The Reader’s Digest version is, I would have been perfectly happy with a launch price of 800 points. At 1200 points I am less happy, but I am okay with it.
With The Behemoth also stating that the final pricing decision rests with Microsoft, are we seeing a new trend that Microsoft will continue throughout its self-styled “summer” of XBLA? The reason why this sickens me is the fact that it’s clearly cynical exploitation on the part of Microsoft, and I think it’s rather despicable to charge extra cash simply because you know that, foronce, your fanbase actually gives a crap about your games service. Very shoddy behavior, as far as I’m concerned.
[Thanks, power-glove!]
