What makes a game valuable? Sorry if you’re just rolling out of bed from a Saturday night hangover, and I’m dropping a major question on you, but where does value come from when we’re talking about videogames? It’s a question cropping up more and more as DLC and non-retail releases start becoming more and more popular. How does one decide when a game is actually worth $60 dollars? We only paid $50 for Super Mario Galaxy and that was worth more than most $60 games.
This long and pondering intro is to make you think a bit about the question before you respond to Microsoft’s justification for charging $60 for a game they originally claimed was viewed as almost An expansion: Halo: ODST. Originally both Brian Jerrard and Joe Staten of Bungie said the game was not going to be full retail, with Jerrard literally spewing the words “We do not view this as a $60 title.”
E3 rolls around though and suddenly we’re paying $60 bucks for a game that two lead Bungie guys said wasn’t going to be worth that. Why? A Microsoft rep answers all. “At the time of those statements, the overall scope of Halo 3: ODST was not yet finalized, and since then the project has grown increasingly more ambitious. We believe this standalone experience is much more than just an expansion. Halo 3: ODST provides a new campaign from the point of view of an entirely new character. Combine that with three new multiplayer maps, the entirely new cooperative mode called Firefight, and the complete Halo 3 multiplayer collection on a standalone disc, we feel this is a good value and tremendous addition to the Halo franchise.”
So how do you place value on a game, and within that value system does ODST live up to $60 or did Microsoft screw the pooch on this one by telling everyone it wasn’t a $60 game right off the bat.
