Next week marks the release of Capcom’s 2D Bionic Commando remake, Bionic Commando Rearmed. Rearmed adds bigger boss battles, two player co-op, and several multiplayer modes to the classic “use a retractable grappling arm instead of just jumping over those crates” experience. In addition to these exciting new features, the PC version will have exclusive access to a price point that’s five dollars higher. … Wait a minute, what’s the deal with that?!
“It has nothing to do with Piracy concerns. It has to do with different business terms/expectations in that sector and more importantly, generally prevailing pricing of PC digital games versus their console counterparts. The typical downloadable price for digital-only games on PC is actually $19.99,” Capcom’s Christian Svensson explained to Shacknews when questioned about the price hike.
“Another consideration is that our distribution costs as a percentage are, on average, slightly higher on PC than console,” Svensson added. “In several cases we have another party (beyond just the distribution portals) taking an extra bite, driving down our share of the revenue. For example, affiliate sites of our portal partners take a well earned slice of revenue for every sale, then the portal gets its cut, then we get ours. Three mouths to feed.”
The additional costs inherent in online distribution do give Capcom something of a valid excuse for the price increase, and I suppose $5 won’t exactly break the bank, especially when you consider that disk-based games cost less on the PC. Still, if Microsoft had its way this discrepancy wouldn’t exist: everyone would be paying $15!
