Braid

[egparadigm]

Have NEVER understood why people moan so much about MS points!

I'll give you the reason I hate them: they are entirely designed to get people to spend more on less. There is no way for me to buy Braid on its own. I essence it's the same as bundling - if I want Braid, I have to buy 1500 or 2100 points, leaving me with 300 or 900 points to spend on useless junk I don't want.

Luckily for us Apple's iTunes store was open long before Zune came into being; at least we were saved from such things with online music purchases.

FWIW I think I would be willing to spend £10.50 on Braid, not so keen on £14.

[Brats]

I don't believe most people begrudge paying 1200 points for quality arcade games that have clearly had a lot of time and money invested in them, but when there's a suspicion the price was determined because of the hype and expectation surrounding the title - rather than an effort to offset development costs - then it's an issue.

Price is determined by demand and supply. The cost to produce something is completely irrelevant.

And you're looking at the cost to produce something in a very mechanical way (the orchestra would have cost this, the 2D graphics artists would have cost that). What about the cost of inventing the concept and devising the devious puzzles. Isn't that worth something?

Braid is a beautifully concise game with a huge amount of ingenious design in it. Just because it's short doesn't mean it didn't take a huge amount of time to produce. Look at Castle Crashers and how long that has taken to develop.

If we're ever going to get videogames accepted in the same terms as music, books and film, then we're going to have to stop thinking of them as a commodity like a bucket. It's this that makes entertainment and art different. It's why albums that cost pennies to record in someone's garage but bring new ideas can cost more than a slickly produced but vacuous record that cost millions to make.

With entertainment and art, it's all about the output, never about the input.

[Brats]

I'll give you the reason I hate them: they are entirely designed to get people to spend more on less. There is no way for me to buy Braid on its own. I essence it's the same as bundling - if I want Braid, I have to buy 1500 or 2100 points, leaving me with 300 or 900 points to spend on useless junk I don't want.

Luckily for us Apple's iTunes store was open long before Zune came into being; at least we were saved from such things with online music purchases.

FWIW I think I would be willing to spend ?10.50 on Braid, not so keen on ?14.

As has been said many times before, you can buy exactly 1,200 points from xbox.com.

[egparadigm]

I did look and I could only find it at 500 points x 3 = 1500 points. If you want to help me out by telling me where I can buy just 1200, it'd be appreciated. Still think it's a silly system though.

[Charlie]

Price is determined by demand and supply. The cost to produce something is completely irrelevant.

And you're looking at the cost to produce something in a very mechanical way (the orchestra would have cost this, the 2D graphics artists would have cost that). What about the cost of inventing the concept and devising the devious puzzles. Isn't that worth something?

Braid is a beautifully concise game with a huge amount of ingenious design in it. Just because it's short doesn't mean it didn't take a huge amount of time to produce. Look at Castle Crashers and how long that has taken to develop.

If we're ever going to get videogames accepted in the same terms as music, books and film, then we're going to have to stop thinking of them as a commodity like a bucket. It's this that makes entertainment and art different. It's why albums that cost pennies to record in someone's garage but bring new ideas can cost more than a slickly produced but vacuous record that cost millions to make.

With entertainment and art, it's all about the output, never about the input.

I don't think videogames will ever be acceped in the same terms as music, books and film, nor should they be, they are nowhere near as moving or evocative and will never touch peoples lives in the same way. But that's a whole nother discussion. I also don't think you should group art and entertainment together, but again, another discussion.

You believe those put off buying Braid because it costs 1200 points are cheakskates while I can't help thinking a fool and his money are easily parted. At the end of the day though, it's not worth trying to intellectualise, the bottom line is you think it's worth it and I don't.

[El Leone]

I think PA make a good point.

[egparadigm]

I suppose the real problem with XBL and other online console services is that the prices appear to be arbitrary. At least with retail releases, prices are well established and static (albeit highly inflated, IMO). If pricing was more consistent, there would be less fuss.

[Charlie]

Apparently even the game's developer, Jonathan Blow, wanted the game to sell at 800 points but Microsoft, being the greedy, despicable company it is, insisted on 1200 points.

[Brats]

Apparently even the game's developer, Jonathan Blow, wanted the game to sell at 800 points but Microsoft, being the greedy, despicable company it is, insisted on 1200 points.

That's not quite the whole story. Jonathan did orginally say he would have preferred 800 points, but when MS suggested 1,200 he put up no argument against it. From his own blog:

What I had to guard against is the Space Giraffe problem. Jeff Minter priced Space Giraffe (which is the best game on XBLA) at $5 because he wanted a lot of people to be able to afford it, and really wanted to give something to the fans at a low price. Well, that bit him in the ass because he only sold 19k copies; depending on how big his testing+localization advance was, maybe he has barely made any money from Space Giraffe at all, and just lost a lot of money (due to the time spent in development). I don?t know exactly. I?m pretty sure, though, he didn?t even make back his cost of living.

If I could ensure my ability to keep making games without publisher interference, and release Braid at $0, I would do that. But I had to guard against the Space Giraffe problem. Like Space Giraffe, Braid is a non-mainstream game, very different from the other things on XBLA, without much publicity. And Jeff Minter had a built-in audience from his previous games, waiting to play SG the minute it came out; Braid doesn?t even have that.

There is a significant possibility that Braid would have been the next Psychonauts or Beyond Good and Evil (critically acclaimed but nobody played it), even at $10. If that happens at $10 then I am in debt and have to get a job and can?t make games any more. If that happens at $15, maybe I can still make games. That is the difference.

[Paulos G]

There's also an interview with Jonathan Blow in a podcast linked to in the First Play thread:

Just put up Episode 1 of the SavyGamer podcast, which has an extensive interview with Jonathan Blow, the creator of Braid.

We talk about the design process, his working relationship with Microsoft, the Xbox Live platform, the pricing debate, and some pretty emotional stuff too.

Let me know what you think.

I think the interview starts about halfway through.

[Charlie]

Interesting. Opinion is certainly divided on the pricing - doesn't matter what site I've visited to read about Braid, the issue of it being 1200 points is always hotly in discussion - and is clearly turning people away. Equally interesting is if more than 33.3% of people decided not to buy the game solely because of the price, then it would have made more profit at 800 points. But I don't suppose we'll ever know what percentage of people the price turned away.

[toythatkills]

There's a lot of discussion about the price from people who haven't bought it, but interestingly, I've not found too many people that have paid for it and regret paying 1200 points.

[Paulos G]

Braid has apparently so far sold about 28.5K units. According to the link it's the second fastest selling Arcade game in its debut week (GW2 was fastest with 48.5K and Rez third with 25.5K). Very glad to see this and hope it keeps selling well so that it'll more than break-even.

Braid also has the highest ranking score of any XBLA title on Metacritic and Gamerankings.

[Charlie]

There's a lot of discussion about the price from people who haven't bought it, but interestingly, I've not found too many people that have paid for it and regret paying 1200 points.

That's simply because many of those who haven't bought it chose not to because of the price. As for regretting their purchase, I've come across loads of people expressing their dissatisfaction on discovering they paid 1200 points for a game that can be completed in 5 hours and has virtually no replay value.

[toythatkills]

I've replayed Braid more than any other game this year - and it can't be completed in five hours - trust me. There's more to see in this game than most games on XBLA, it's just not shoved in your face.