I had just read the news about 30 minutes ago that Turtles in Time Re-shelled will now be $10 instead of the original $15. While this is great news, it got me thinking about how we justify our purchases. Is $5 really THAT much money? Does cutting down the price of the game really make it worth it? I'm gonna be looking at some players' spending habits analyze this myself.

My brother is very picky about games. He refuses to play any FPSs claiming they're "all the same thing". He won't touch anything Wii. He told me it's not his thing. While I can understand this. But some things I noticed were kinda strange. He plays World of Warcraft on-and-off; he'll play for a few months, then hell stop for a few month etc. I showed him Geometry Wars on LIVE a while back, he liked it but said he didn't want it. He won't spend $5 on Geometry Wars but he'll shell out $15/month on WoW. His tastes are obviously different than mine, but somehow that just seems incredibly weird.

Another example I find even more strange. There is a game called N+ on Xbox LIVE arcade. It's essentially an Xbox version of a flash game you can get for free on your computer. N+ is an "enhanced" version (1080p, new levels etc.), but it's $10 where the flash version is completely free. And it's not like it bombed, it's under "Most popular" which means people are buying it. Which leads me to my first though. Why is there such a big stink about Turtles in Tim Re-shelled being $5 more than it should when People are buying N+ for $10 more than it's PC brethren? And I don't get me started on collector's editions ( I have a few myself), and retail hard copies vs. digital copies.

Anyway I'm just thinking aloud here. People will buy whatever they feel it's worth. If they think Turtles in Time is too expensive, they shouldn't buy it. If they want N+ enough to pay $10 then by God they'll do it. But is a $5 price difference really THAT big a deal? I just think it's weird how people justify prices.