What The Heck? *Online Gaming Related*

[bluemonkey1]

I honestly cannot believe that you are moaning about the bargain price of 30 dollars. I regularly have to pay 3-4 times that to import these games from Japan.

[Luke]

[QUOTE=bluemonkey]

I honestly cannot believe that you are moaning about the bargain price of 30 dollars. I regularly have to pay 3-4 times that to import these games from Japan.

[/QUOTE]Because it's just a download, sir. Also, there's no bonus content. It's not localized, etc. I think it's just a bad move selling it for this price when clearly $15 on XBLA would be so much wiser.

[ActRaiser1]

[QUOTE=Luke][QUOTE=bluemonkey]

I honestly cannot believe that you are moaning about the bargain price of 30 dollars. I regularly have to pay 3-4 times that to import these games from Japan.

[/QUOTE]Because it's just a download, sir. Also, there's no bonus content. It's not localized, etc. I think it's just a bad move selling it for this price when clearly $15 on XBLA would be so much wiser.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but it's a full retail release with 1000 gamer points compared to the 200 gamer point limit on an Xbox Live Arcade title.

They would have to actually do additional work to strip away that code versus posting online as a normal game. 

We're all making too much of mole hill into a mountain.  If you think it's too expensive, don't buy it.  I'm not.  Why?  I have no interest in the game.  If you really want the retail disk, then go through the hassle of importing it.  My guess is it's not worth that much. 

[bluemonkey1]

[QUOTE=Luke][QUOTE=bluemonkey]

I honestly cannot believe that you are moaning about the bargain price of 30 dollars. I regularly have to pay 3-4 times that to import these games from Japan.

[/QUOTE]Because it's just a download, sir. Also, there's no bonus content. It's not localized, etc. I think it's just a bad move selling it for this price when clearly $15 on XBLA would be so much wiser.[/QUOTE]

I paid $90 to import the non-localised version of this for my machine.  Charging $15 on XBLA would be a disaster, know why? Because they tried that approach before.  In the UK they released the original DeathSmiles for bargain bin prices, despite being a 3 disc special edition.  Guess what happened...

...it didn't sell.

Retailers even marked it down to $5, guess what happened...

...it didn't sell.

Despite being the best shmup we've seen in YEARS.

The simple fact is that no amount of price reductions is going to make joe-public interested in this niche genre.  Instead all that happens is that the people who were willing to pay the higher price because they were fans of the genre end up paying less, not enough additional people buy the game to make up for the resulting shortfall and the publishers make a loss.  End result, no future releases for your region.  Period.

And as you can see, this is much cheaper and more convenient alternative to having to buy a Japanese 360 and import like the rest of us have to:

http://videogameimports.com/get_game.php?product=9228&side=1
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-br-49-en-70-3r7e.html
http://www.play-asia.com/Eschatos/paOS-13-71-br-49-en-70-44aa.html

 

[Luke]

[QUOTE=bluemonkey]Charging $15 on XBLA would be a disaster, know why? Because they tried that approach before.  In the UK they released the original DeathSmiles for bargain bin prices, despite being a 3 disc special edition.  Guess what happened...

...it didn't sell.[/quote]

But this isn't the UK.

And they did release the original Deathsmiles here in America as a limited edition release for $60 and it did pretty well despite being a somewhat obscure title. They probably would have done a lot better had they actually marketed the game and released it in retail stores other than Gamestop. 

[Julio III]

[QUOTE=Luke]Also, there's no bonus content.[/QUOTE]

You want to pay LESS for MORE content than someone who pays more for the disc release.

As I already stated, this process of releasing Japanese disc based games in the West as download only has already been going on for a long time with the PSP, DeathSmiles IIx is not the first...

And Luke, this is also an international forum, not a US-only one, so I'd refrain from comments like "this isn't the UK". I don't thin Deathsmiles would have sold much more in either region with more marketing. It has sold a lot more than similar titles in both regions.

What you should compare this to is Guwange, which was released in all regions on XBLA. How are the sales for that? And how are the sales for similar XBLA games from other companies like Strania and Trouble Witches Neo for example.

[Julio III]

I'd also like to add that people who are into this kind of game are normally willling to pay high prices for a console release of the game because its still good value compared to playing the arcade game for $1 a credit, providing you can even find it anywhere, or spending hundreds of dollars to buy a PCB for themselves.

[bluemonkey1]

[QUOTE=Julio III]I'd also like to add that people who are into this kind of game are normally willling to pay high prices for a console release of the game because its still good value compared to playing the arcade game for $1 a credit, providing you can even find it anywhere, or spending hundreds of dollars to buy a PCB for themselves.[/QUOTE]

Hit the nail right on the head.

[Leo1]

[QUOTE=Luke]And they did release the original Deathsmiles here in America as a limited edition release for $60 and it did pretty well despite being a somewhat obscure title. They probably would have done a lot better had they actually marketed the game and released it in retail stores other than Gamestop. [/QUOTE]

Stop saying that it did "pretty well". They never released any sales figures for North America so we can't very well judge it's success or lack of success. Plus, we don't even know things like what their break even point was, what return on their investment they were hoping for, etc. So even if we did know right down to the last copy how many were sold, we still can't really grade it's success unless it was an amazingly high figure.

Since they went this route for the sequel, about the only thing we can do is make an educated guess and assume that it didn't do "pretty well". If it had, they presumably would've followed through with something similar for the sequel instead of slashing the price in half and just slapping it on the Games on Demand server. There it will be out sight from many players while turning away some of the more dedicated shooter fans due to being a downloadable exclusive. So there must be a financial decision behind this. Someone wasn't making enough money somewhere.

Perhaps they even wanted to do a disc release and just couldn't get a retailer like GameStop to stock it, which can be the kiss of death for a niche release.

[Luke]

It was a very limited release, Leo. A rumoured 30,000 copies I once heard. So their projections were never that high in the first place.

But I bought it, the Critic bought it, I think some other readers on this site bought it, at least 17 people with reviews on Amazon bought it, TONS of people on other message boards in the US & the UK that I've been on bought it... trust me, it did "pretty well."

There are a lot of collectors out there, ya know.

But once again, the main point of my thread isn't even about the game... *notice "Deathsmiles" wasn't in the topic title?* IT'S THE PRICE OF THIS DOWNLOAD! I think $30 is way too much.

Maybe you agree. Maybe you disagree. But it's up for discussion regardless?