I love you, Colette. You succubused the words right out of my brain.

I think it's stupid that people are up in arms about the prices. I would have gladly pay $22.50 for Castle Crashers and I haven't even played it yet. There's a fuckload of content in that game, More so then alot of 60 buck games on the market. Most people were bitching about the fact that if they're going to pay that much, They want a case and a booklet. I don't want a case and book.

I hate keeping shit around. I converted my entire CD collection into mp3 (40 gigs later) and sold off the physical copies. I haven't regretted this one bit. I'd get everything on the HD of my Xbox or PS3 if I could. I'm a lazy fucker. I hate getting up and changing discs when I want to play different games or listen to different bands.

This all being said, I'm glad it's not $22.50. But even if it was, I'd have paid it. Hell, I'd have bought it for my brother and friend so we could all get in on the action.

For something so amazing as Castle Crashers, I really want it on disc media

I agree with Naia. It's highly likely.

At any rate, I see King3vbo's point -- I do understand the desire to own a physical copy. I feel that way about a lot of CDs, and I know that physical CDs probably won't even exist in ten years. I think the OPTION to buy the physical copy should be there -- for the same price.

The the thing is, I don't have a problem paying $20 for CC. I have a problem paying $20 for CC, along with $40 of other awesome games that will probably get lost in all the CC shuffle because not everyone (especially people who don't have a job, a.k.a under the age of 16) can afford to get them all.

"I'm glad the prices aren't right, but consider what you are getting out of these types of games before you start launching the hate mail. "

Couldn't have said it any better myself, and I also agree with King. I like having my discs.

Some of us were just worried about an expensive precedent being set and the excitement of gamers being exploited for extra cash. I'd hardly call it waaaah'ing. I dare say, if it was any other game than Castle Crashers that had been rumored to be so expensive, a fair few more would have agreed with such a stance.

Alright im going to go watch some Castle Crashers gameplay footage, cause i dont get it. $50 For real???

Also, bear in mind that 1800 is not a mere $22.50 to British people either.

@frozenbabylon

Dude, I hope you never have a hard drive crash. Or back it all up to DVDr only to find you bought a bad brand.

Hell, I lost over a hundred gigs of media once because the windows disk cleanup utility decided to do a little extra cleaning. Another time I lost nearly 50 discs worth of DVDr backups when they went bad 3 months after burning because Kodak's quality control is apparently ass.

Give me hard copies or give me nothing. I will not buy digital downloads.

@Sharpless -- I quite disagree, and from an objective point, having nothing to do with what I am willing to pay: many of the games coming out in this format ARE complete. Sure, Penny Arcade Adventures is not, and you get into that knowing you have to spend a lot to play. If you say $15 is the standard price that should be charged, does that make it the standard? Or merely YOUR standard?

I think defining a passable price for these games is very much subjective to people's personal feelings about pricing. I shuddered when I paid $70 for BioShock, but I still bought it. Some people didn't flinch. If you can find a way to name a standard for downloadable games that isn't based on someone's idea of what they SHOULD be, I will totally listen to that argument, but before that comes into play, there is no factual definition of what's "too expensive" -- merely people's personal opinions.

Apparently, according to some, Braid on Partnernet is in fact 800 pts.

Don't ask about CC, it is not up yet.

I would have grudgingly paid it, but I'm certainly glad the price is going to be lower. Like Jim said, it sets a bad precedent IMO.

@Sharpless -- Ok. I agree. Now find a way to define a universally acceptable standard. Let me know when you've got that hammered out. ;)

@Sharpless - sorry mate, but you're wrong when you say "But it's a smaller game, let's say. If it wasn't, it would be in stores. It's an arcade game, hence its being DLC."

That simply isn't true. It's on digital DESPITE options to do it on retail for one very good reason - it's the best way for Behemoth to sell the game and allows them to avoid a publisher.

Games like this - by which I mean original IP without a big marketing budget - generally struggle at retail and suffer from many issues - price reduction, distribution issues, publisher issues, to name but three. Most games at retail lose money, often a lot of it.

I don't want to speak out of turn but I can promise you that Behemoth's experiences with Alien Hominid retail taught them that (they had no alternative at the time).

I hope yuo don't mind me pointing this out - as a game player you probably don't realise the business differences. Retail is a bad, bad place to be for an indie (and not just indies, but anyone without a brand and $$$ which is why shelves are stuffed full of sequels and licenses - most of the rest of the stuff loses money).

It's my money, and I'll cry if I want to.

I'd be more inclined to buy the game if it was $22.50 in the store. Then you'd get a case, and an instruction booklet, and the abillity to give it to someone else when you are done with it. Instead, you'll get a game, that you will play for a week, and then have it stuck there, because you can't get refunds or pass the license on your shit.

Yeah I understand the problem with not having a box but I'm not sure how to get around that. From my side I know that retail is a complete killer, so I'll lose the box in order to make interesting games thanks.

If you're going to compare GTA to other games then every game is going to be about $1 which is daft. GTA was hugely expensive to make but it was also predicted to make huge sales (and did).

The price you pay has to do two things:

1) Reflect value for money. Just because a game is huge or cost loads to make or has a Spiderman license does not make it value for money. It's about the game quality.

2) It has to compensate whoever funded it, usually a publisher, and the various parties involved in making it.

I find it very strange that people still think that - in the age of download music/tv/film - a download game is any less worthy than a retail game. I'd say that those of you who do believe this, and there obviously are a few, are in the minority.

I don't think anything I say will change your mind so we'll just agree to disagree I guess. As a game developer I know that I can't do titles like this at retail and I also know that I need to charge X amount in order to make a living (and trust me, us indies won't be getting rich). I have to go with what I know.

Now you are talking crazy talk. People that buy physical products are in the minority? Then why are dvd and game sales through the roof? The only reason albums fail is because no one wants an entire shit album if they can buy the one song they like for $.99. Once again... if they start charging $5 a song, people wouldn't get the individual songs either, because the price is too high for something that you can't have. And, to be honest, mp3's sort of transcends boundary's, because you can take that song, and move it to another device if you choose to do it. Same way to a point, with movies. Or if you are just downloading the movie to rent, its a lesser cost. TV shows cost $1.99 most times, which is still reasonable. If they start charging $10-$12 dollars more for that particular show, while the others are still $1.99, people would bitch also.

@Colette
$15 for Castle Crashers, $10 for Braid. There, standard solved. And you know it's good, because I'm always right. ;D

@sillytuna
I'm sorry, but I fail to see why pricing standards should change, just because XBLA is Behemoth's most viable release platform. Look at Xbox Originals. What is it for a downloadable version of a last-gen, retail Xbox game? $15, I believe? If MS wants to add a service for downloading full retail-style games, then fine. But releasing something under the banner of XBLA strongly implies that a game is not a full-on, 10-hour (plus), fully-featured retail game. It implies that the game is, well, an arcade game. I lack the vocabulary to properly articulate what I think and feel about this, but compare the details of Gears of War to Alien Hominid's. It's a terrible comparison, but Gears is clearly not an arcade game, where Alien Hominid clearly is, regardless of whether it previously saw a physical release or not.

@sillytuna

i hate to break it to ya, but there is a HUGE difference between most DLC games and most retail games. Except for the PSN, where games like Tekken 5, Warhawk, SOCOM, and GT5 are showing up (and those end up being higher priced than most DLC games), DLC are always significantly smaller than retail games. Penny Arcade Adventures, the Strong Bad Game for Attractive People, and other DLC RPG games cannot begin to compare with retail games such as more or less any Square game, Bioshock, the elder scrolls, etc.

all the puzzle games that are coming out on the PSN (the various pixeljunk games, echocrome, elephunk, etc.) and all of the side-scrolling/double-analog-stick shooters on both systems (geometry wars, nucleus, bionic commando rearmed, etc.) cannot compare to any retail shooters that come out (uncharted, MGS4, GTAIV, Halo 3). A very obvious example of the difference between the two would be something like Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (the full retail game), and the newly announced quest for booty, which is only going to offer 4-6 hours of gameplay (as opposed to the 20+ the original offered). no matter how good castle crashers is, do you really think it'll offer you the same amount of content as too human or mass effect? i really don't think so. and no matter how cool the art style of castle crashers might be, 2D graphics are simply nowhere near as time intensive and demanding as full realistic 3D sprites are. if you can find me one DLC content on any system that offers more content than retail games (discounting wii/ds/ps2 games aimed at kids/non-hardcore-gaemers), i will be surprised. of course i don't mean games like geometry wars that might have a much longer lasting appeal than retail games, but DLC games that offer more content... my top 2 games that i am looking forward two right now are pixeljunk eden (coming out tomorrow!!!) and littlebigplanet (which i'm assumign is going to be DLC, or at least partially DLC), and i will probably play them more than i do most retail games, but that doesn't mean that they have more content or are bigger games...

pixel junk eden is an incredibly simple concept. point a stick in a direction and press any of the face buttons. the graphics are a very simple but elegant 2D. a team like insomniac could have probably created the game in a month or so. i will probably end up playing it with friends more than i did ratchet and clank... does that mean the game should sell for the $60? absolutely not. i wouldn't buy it, and neither would very many other people...

anyway, this whole post has turned into an essay, so i'm just going to leave it at that...

"Standards" are enforced when games are purchased at what the market will bear...in other words, whatever us gamers are willing to spend. If M$ or whichever publisher wants to raise the price on high-demand games because gamers will buy it, and gamers do buy it, it's only our fault.

Digital distribution is the wave of the future, like it or not, and as high-speed broadband becomes more commonplace, so will this method of delivery. I agree with sillytuna on this matter, although I actually do care about the box/artwork/instruction manual since I'm a designer, and I care about that sort of stuff (I digress though, since most game packaging is fucking god-awful). The brick and mortar retail presence for digital media is becoming a redundant non-necessity; how the publishers will embrace this truth has yet to be seen however. It happened with music and it will happen with this.

Well, I hate to break the news to you, but Donnie Darko is a far superior movie to the Dark Knight. /topic

The flash version of Castle Crashers I played was not $22 of fun.

Really, I think the ONLY thing different about the release pricing of an XBLA game and a retail game, is generally speaking, retail prices are immediately affected by the quality of the game. If the game tanks, you can see a game drop in price within a week, or month tops. Yet, regardless of quality on an XBLA title, the price remains the same. Occasionally you'll see a temporary price drop, but they are generally due to some promotion than due to lack of demand for the title.