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.
$5 is a big deal to me as pricing turtles in time at $15 sets a precedent for future titles.
The online retail space is still new and companies will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. If you accept a five dollar price hike it shows that you are happy with it and they will increase the price again.
We govern the direction of the market... we can make a stand and say this is worth 10dollars, this is not worth 15. If we're lucky it may got the way of the iphone (lots of cheap games, selling lots of copies) but then that's a different blogpost all together.
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$5 is a big deal to me as pricing turtles in time at $15 sets a precedent for future titles.
The online retail space is still new and companies will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. If you accept a five dollar price hike it shows that you are happy with it and they will increase the price again.
We govern the direction of the market... we can make a stand and say this is worth 10dollars, this is not worth 15. If we're lucky it may got the way of the iphone (lots of cheap games, selling lots of copies) but then that's a different blogpost all together.
N+ Also has multiplayer and a few graphical updates. Plus, I can just play it on my TV. Being a good game, I'm totally down with supporting that.
NIce thoughts.