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Braid premium theme available on Xbox 360, creator remarks on theme prices
8:00 PM on 01.11.2009, Jim Sterling 28 comments

Braid premium theme available on Xbox 360, creator remarks on theme prices photo
     Microsoft

If you're anything like me, you'll love console themes, but can't stand the fact that Microsoft charges stupid amounts of moon money for the privilege of downloading. Jonathan Blow would like you to know that, although he has a Braid theme available on the Xbox Live Marketplace, he's charging for it under duress.

"Unfortunately, we had to charge the standard Premium Theme price of 250 Microsoft Points (which is about $3.10 in American money)," confirms the indie developer. "We want to make it free, but Microsoft doesn’t like giving things out for free. But if you do buy it, you can be secure in the knowledge that you own one of the few Premium Themes that is not an advertisement-- there is no text in the Braid theme anywhere. (Seriously, Microsoft, what is with the Subway: Eat Fresh Theme?)"

I've got to love Blow's subversive swipes, especially considering what an arsehole Microsoft likes to be about indie developers and XBLA games. Honestly, it's difficult justifying paying for a theme at the best of times, but ever since I got my PS3 and had access to some real themes that are more than just glorified wallpapers, for free, I find Microsoft's "premium" offers to be a complete joke. 

That said ... I do really like Braid ...


Next page: More Xbox 360 stories




randombullseye's Avatar
randombullseye at 01/11/2009 20:11
Being a part of the community by commenting on a front page article.
Shane86's Avatar
Shane86 at 01/11/2009 20:24
Never bought a theme or gamerpic, never will. Only fools will buy this, foolish fools with expendable income.
egads's Avatar
egads at 01/11/2009 20:25
Do the Braid developers make any money from us buying the theme, or is it all going into Microsoft's pocket? If it is the former, then I don't mind buying it at all.
Zombutler's Avatar
Zombutler at 01/11/2009 20:25
random you can also be a part of the community by commenting on my blog that I put up a couple hours ago about this theme ;)
brainderailment's Avatar
brainderailment at 01/11/2009 20:27
I haven't downloaded any themes since the NXE. I'm not sure what "no text" means. Glad I don't really give a crap what's behind my retarded avatar.
Knives's Avatar
Knives at 01/11/2009 20:28
I'm still waiting for braid to come on PC
Noah's Avatar
Noah at 01/11/2009 20:30
I don't even like paying 1200 for the game....should be 800 like everything else.
Ashley Davis's Avatar
Ashley Davis at 01/11/2009 20:30
@egads: From what I understand, the developers do get a cut. How much of a cut though, I don't know..
Ryee's Avatar
Ryee at 01/11/2009 20:34
AAAAAHAHAHAHAHA Bulseye! That was awesome.
garison's Avatar
garison at 01/11/2009 20:40
Prolly get this.
Tron's Avatar
Tron at 01/11/2009 20:41
hey, i enjoy my subway theme.
everybodyruns's Avatar
everybodyruns at 01/11/2009 21:44
If MSoft wants to make a cool console and "Experience" that people will like, they're gonna have to give some shit out for free. Free themes would be a small sacrifice for much gratitude.
Enduro's Avatar
Enduro at 01/11/2009 22:50
Well the real issue here -- and it's about time someone actually points out the elephant in the room -- is that many of the XBLA games cost $10 or, in Braid's case, $15. MS is saying that a hi-res jpeg is equal to 20%-33% of the value of the game.

I think why Blow is ticked about this is because I know he spent way more than 5x as much time/effort into making the game than he did putting that jpeg together.

Or even take it to retail games. A retail games costs $60. The theme costs $3. Does it really only cost 20x as much money and time to make, say, Fallout 3 or Gears 2 as it does a jpeg?

It's not that I think everything should be free, but to charge up to 33% of a game's price (for 800 point XBLA games) for a lousy jpeg is just, well, it's just plain stupid.
dgschrei's Avatar
dgschrei at 01/12/2009 00:00
My Xbox still runs the free Christmas - Oh sorry- Holiday Theme(Christmas goddamit)which kind of shows that I really don't care. I might swich back to the night one eventually but I would have to be really bored.

Shure it would be better if MS just gave that crap away for free and it is laugable that both Microsoft charges for it and that people are dumb enough to buy it.

But the only thing I use the Dashboard for is to get to the content that I want and not to look how pretty it is. They should rather fix the damn issue that the marketplace now always loads your entire download history befor displaying the conten, which slows the damn thing down to a crawl.
Johnny Justice's Avatar
Johnny Justice at 01/12/2009 00:21
It's a shame that, no matter what theme you get, you'll always have avatars that don't fit it.
mistic's Avatar
mistic at 01/12/2009 01:07
I Love braid, but I hate the "pay-for-themes-ssytem"... I only used to have the free ones anyway, but since they've become such advertisement-fests, I've just stopped using those themes...

I've got about 50 themes for my PS3, all free and most of them extremely goodlooking :-)
Necros's Avatar
Necros at 01/12/2009 01:08
I bought the Banjo-Kazooie theme and never looked back. I don't care about the cost, it was just too awesome.
JustLikeBuck's Avatar
JustLikeBuck at 01/12/2009 03:35
Braid is one of the few 360 games I'd love to play (inc Dead Rising), however he has said he'd do a PS3 version if SONY wanted.

So WTF SONY?!!? PAY THE MAN!
ParaParaKing's Avatar
ParaParaKing at 01/12/2009 03:48
Two things:
Sony also started with Premium Themes not very long ago and that having to pay for something like that is stupid.
Also you can make your own themes on PS3 and load them via USB stick.
Slique's Avatar
Slique at 01/12/2009 04:34
@egads: JB said on his blog that the developer's cut is exactly the same to what it would be for a game, but just naturally on a smaller scale (1/5th to be precise).

So yeah, it's not all going to Microsoft.
dprime's Avatar
dprime at 01/12/2009 04:48
Shane86: I'm pretty sure you need expendable income to play video games in the first place.

Jim, they're not charing for the Subway theme, are they? That's hilarious.
PrinceofCannedPeaches's Avatar
PrinceofCannedPeaches at 01/12/2009 07:06
What they charge for [i]seems to ostensibly be by implication[i] the infrastructure it takes to distribute the content. But think about it. You're precharged for the privilege of coming onto their network, so you can be charged again for the privilege of, I don't know, replacing all of your Dashboard thingummys with LOLcats or some ridiculous shit like that.

And the problem here - though I respect Mssr. J. Blow - is that Activision already tried this with the CoD4 DLC, and it was made very public that they were forced to charge, so now any developer of superfluous widgets can say that they wanted to release for free but big bad Microsoft said they couldn't. All the good rep, all the money, none of the generosity.
wardrox's Avatar
wardrox at 01/12/2009 09:10
PS3 loving Braid fanboy.

I wish it was free. No way I'm paying for it sadly. Now, if it was furniture for my Home...
kariomart's Avatar
kariomart at 01/12/2009 10:32
I am downloading that subway theme as soon as i get home tonight.
Kent's Avatar
Kent at 01/12/2009 18:57
EAT FRESH!!
LOLface's Avatar
LOLface at 01/13/2009 11:14
I bought the Battlestar Galactica theme, and I'm pretty glad I did. It looks amazing. I'm happy with my purchase.
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