Guys.


STFUAJPG.

Castle Crashers was going to be the first Arcade game I own. Going at $24 I'll have to pass though given that $20 is going better towards a more expensive game.

Heck, at $24 you can buy full games for a little more on ebay.

As long as Bememoth get their share of that it's fine. And if they don't, I'll buy it with a look of disgust on my face.

Right, as an XBLA developer - and a co-developer with Behemoth on a previous project - I need to make a couple of comments here.

Firstly I don't know if that 1800 price point is correct - 1600 is the highest price so far so I wouldn't be surprised to see CC at that.

Secondly the costs of development of a game like Castle Crashers are pretty significant and Behemoth (et al) do it on a crappy budget to say the least. The last thing you can accuse any indie of is "money grabbing". It's actually more difficult and more expensive for an indie than a regular publisher (some of the reasons I can't go into here).

Thirdly, $20 is a fair price (assuming 1600 points) for a good title which keeps people entertained.

Two problems however - $20 for US players equates to rather more elsewhere yet the developer only actually gets the US dollar rate. So if MS ask us to pay more in e.g. the UK, that isn't Behemoth or Jon Blow's fault and nor do they profit from it. In some cases the price is higher because of local sales taxes, but that may not be the whole story.

The fact that it is a digital product obviously makes it a little harder to deal with too, although opinions may change with time.

Finally, a lower price will mean more players but it doesn't mean more revenue - that depends upon the numbers involved. Behemoth and JB have to make enough money to do the next one - indies can't bootstrap every year, they have to make a living and won't be getting rich. Indies don't have investors or AAA games to fund them through what is an extremely expensive process.

I'll probably post something about this on my newretro.org blog for those interested but I just felt I needed to give another point of view. Please don't shoot me for it!

In the end, buy it based on it being worth the money for the time you'll spend on it. If it ain't for you, it ain't for you, but I have to defend accusations of money grabbing developers because it isn't true. FYI Price point, in the end, is probably MS' choice but it usually calculated in conjunction with the developer.

I'll be totally honest... I've never really thought about getting CC, because I don't like the art style or the play of these previous newgrounds games. But, in all honesty, isn't CC a flash version of Final Fight?, or Streets of Rage, or TMNT? How could the cost of the game be so high, when people are creating flash versions of similar games for free on newgrounds?

This game should be 800 points max.

Sigh.

I even wanted to play these games, and I'm not usually into the whole XBLA thing. Too bad it's going to cost me $30+ Canadian because M$ doesn't want to admit that the US and Canadian dollar are more or less par. For the moment, do not want. I'll just be sitting over here with my pile of used games I got for the same price.

free touch - if you want me to explain in detail why it's expensive I'll be happy to do it over a private message rather than bore people here, but yes, it genuinely is expensive. Perhaps a blog post or something is in order...

If the game was created on PC only it'd be expensive enough, but the fact that it's on console makes it significantly more so (for a whole variety of reasons). Console development incurs significant additional costs.

Compared to most on-line Flash games, you're probably looking at anything from 20-50x or more in costs, not just 2 or 3x as much.

I expect the game to be 1600 points for the West, and I expect you'll find 1200 and 1600 to be the new standard price points (generally matching PC download price points incidentally).

What. The. Fuck.

You know, if you let them rape us once, they'll just rape us harder next time, and harder after that, and so on. All you people who say "STFUAJPG" really don't get it, do you?

Regardless of how "complete" of an "experience" these two games are, there should be a standard for downloadable arcade game pricing. As far as I'm concerned, $20 for anything on XBLA or PSN is really pushing credibility. No, $15 is pushing it, $20 is a little bit over the edge. Bottom line, downloadable content (in any form, on any medium) should not cost much. I fucking hate that they might be making people like me decide between saying, "No, you may not rape me," and "Yes, I support these good indie games."

Braid for 1200? Maybe. CC for 1800? I'll just play Dad 'n Me thanks.

sillytuna: 1600 points is the standard for pc download price points? Umm, if I look at Steam for example and check the casual and indie sections (Sorry but I'm not going to entertain the idea that development costs are the same as with the bigger retail games there), most games are $9.99 (800 points).

Personally, rather than messaging people, I would genuinely like to read your opinions on why those price points should become the norm, given the number of both new and totally reworked games available for half the price in a blog post or something. It seems that the majority of us evidently have a skewed view when it comes to dev costs.

If the reason for the cost is console development, why not develop for the PC? Seems that would provide better bang for your buck and allow a price that is more favourable to potential (and now lost) customers. Giving themselves the dubious honour of most expensive game on LIVE seems to be a pretty bad way of bringing their games to a wider audience.

Besides, why didn't they release on PC when there's such a huge audience aware of them through Newgrounds?

They're Microsoft. This isn't surprising.

i sadly will still fork over the cash for castle crashers.

If they're over 10 bucks, I'm not paying for them. Bionic Commando: Rearmed is 10 bucks. If they can release that for 10, these guys can release their games for 10

They'll drop in price eventually, and I'll buy them then.

I wouldn't pay more than $16 for this. I want this game, but not that bad.

MS needs to look at their demo for this game. College-age and a little older? The stereotypes are correct, we're fairly poor. I don't even pay full price for theatre movies anymore.

I just don't have the cash to blow on entertainment when a book will entertain me longer for half the price.

guys saying they'd pay 60 bucks for it are really exaggerating. like with any great game, at first your love for it is huges. How many people here loved Super Mario Galaxy the first time they played it? How many still love itthat much?

I'll pay it, but I'm not gonna be happy about it.

BREAKING: Shacknews reporting the pricing as an error.

Awww crap. Try this

I would over $9000 for Castle Crashers it's so good!!!!! You can slash and cast spells and jump it's so sweet.