I’m afraid it’s time for me to get on my soap box like a midget in a cupboard full of Fairy Liquid containers and tell you all about the issue I’m facing regarding the increasing cost of downloadable content. If you can cast your minds as far back as 2009 then you may have noticed that roughly only a quarter of the full games released on XBLA cost the premium of 1200 Microsoft Points. To retail at this equivalent of (essentially) £12 – a game had to have a real mark of quality, often tied to successful franchises or the love child of some extremely talented indie developers. As soon as 2010 arrived, that quarter quickly became a third and is still on it’s way up to this day. With over half the titles released this year hitting the 1200 MSP mark – I remember Chris Charla, portfolio director of XBLA, and the days when he spoke out at why he believes that the ever increasing quality of Live Arcade products warrant the premium inflation price tag.
“On some app markets there’s been a race to zero. We’ve seen a little bit of the opposite happening and it has been really gratifying to see that people are willing to pay a premium price for digital content.”
Now I’m not the type of person to voice opinions willy-nilly, but this is a statement I wholeheartedly disagree with. To me, people are willing to pay a premium for digitial content because some people (and I mean predominantly 14 year old testosterone filled children) are willing to pay anything for more content to extend their pleasure of regurgitated shooters like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. This begs the question, why oh why are extra map packs also rated at this premium? I recently purchased Castle Crashers for 800 MS Points, along with Worms for 400, Fortress Craft for 240 and Beyond Good and Evil for 1200. All far superior games than the few repetitive, generic map packs that have been predominantly enticing shooter fans for the past few years, like a relentless prostitute that also pays out in M&M’s.
Charla points out that while median prices have risen, so has the quality of titles. Perhaps that’s true – but it’s hardly groundbreaking to make that statement when it’s purely based off judgements and scores from the popular website Metacritic:
“The average Metascore for XBLA titles has risen by 12 points since 2008. The number of XBLA titles priced at 1200 MSP has climbed by 41% in that time – though the higher price-point was only introduced halfway through 2008, and a fairer comparison might be the 21% by which the number has risen since 2009. It’s all a sign that XBLA is being taken increasingly seriously. Some developers don’t realize the expectations people have of the service – they say “We want to do a boxed-quality game on Live Arcade” and I’m like “What does that mean?” I can point at a bunch of 38 and 42 and 56 Metacritic-scoring boxed games, so it actually kind of pisses me off.”
Charla concluded by saying that the market would dictate the future for Live Arcade lovers, but still continued to show enthusiasm for microtransaction-driven titles such as Pinball FX2 and Doritos Crash Course.
What do you all think? At the risk of sounding like a nerdy Jessie J here, are XBLA games really worth the price tag?
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