Is anybody planning to get this? It's download only on Wii U, which makes it an eShop game, although it's a full retail release ($60.00) on 360 and PS3.

I don't know anything about it, but it stands out in the slow trickle of releases we're getting right now, so I might be compelled to buy it, depending on the price. I wouldn't be getting it if they're trying to make it a $60.00 download.

It's a full game.

Why isn't it worth full price?

Downloads should cost less than retail games. The whole cost of manufacturing the box, disc, and manual, along with selling the copies to retailers and sharing the profits is completely taken out. That $60.00 becomes nearly all profit, depending on how much Nintendo charges them to put it on the eShop. But whatever the fee is, it is NOTHING compared to the costs of putting it in retail stores.

While I don't disagree, If this game is even half as good as Ken's Rage 1, I'd still pay full price. That said, TK has been pretty good about lowering the price a little on their Digital-Only games, so I wouldn't worry too much.

So the company that produced the game shouldn't get more of the profit that would normally go to people that had nothing to with developing the game?

If you buy a CD directly from a band you really like you wouldn't feel okay about paying full retail knowing that in fact most of the same price you were paying was going into their pockets? I don't understand that at all.

I'm happier paying full SRP for a download game knowing that more of that price is going to the companies that develop and publish the game than I would paying a discounted price for packaged media from an online retailer knowing that much less of the money is going to those same parties. Guess it's just a different perspective on things...

I'm sorry, but you are completely wrong.

The cost of manufacturing and then distributing a retail game is a portion of the cost of the retail game, yes, but it pales in comparison to the cost of making and then marketing a game.

The amount of profit a game maker gets from a typical retail game is in the single figures. That is, from $1-$9. That's when it's sold at full price. Bring discounts and factor in the impact of second hand sales, and it's even less than that. That's why so many game developers go out of business - it is really freaking expensive to make games and people still whine at the price of them.

So along comes digital distribution, which allows game makers to remove the $10 or $15 or whatever per game from the cost of making a retail game. Suddenly, by charging the retail price for a digital download, a company is able to make $11 - $20 per sale of a game. This is a healthy margin and it means that in the long run the developer is more profitable, able to invest in riskier (and more creative/ interesting) games, and generally not go bankrupt. In the long run gamers benefit from paying the developers for their work (funny how that works.)

But no. Gamers seem to think that rather than actually, finally, make a fair profit, gamers think that developers and publishers should continue to bankrupt themselves.

But does the Wii U version have any extra goodies? No, so if I get it, then PS3 version it will be. Although, I'm honestly trying to figure out what all the fuss over this game is about.

I honestly don't even know why people think it should cost less when you are paying for the game. That's what you are doing. You don't buy it for the packaging. If developers get more money then that's great since starting with the 3DS and Wii U I am going download only.

Look, go ahead and make your point, but come on. Do you really have to use loaded language as well as put words in his mouth? You shouldn't have to do that to make a solid point. He probably didn't know the costs of making a digital copy of a game. No need to attack him or other gamers.

True_Hero Makes a fine point, @Bankai. That's that's the main reason why 99% of what you say doesn't get through to people and just devolves into petty arguments.

Bankai likes to start fights with others. I noticed that after a long series of post in the " Nintendo making us pay AGAIN for virtual console titles we have already purchased years ago **** WARNING: I'M UPSET **** " Topic

@DefHalen - Ok, but let's not start any other fights here. We also don't want to talk bad about other users.

Sorry

@DefHalan - No problem. I just didn't want this to get ugly.
Now, pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is this game about?

It's a very common attitude. Go and have a look at the news stories on this site about eShop pricing. Or, even better, go and check out N4G or neoGAF. Or Twitter. Or 4chan. Or anywhere with lots of gamers, really. As I said. It's a common attitude.

And that's why I said "gamers" and not "you," in my comment. I wasn't putting words in his mouth because I wasn't even talking to him. I was speaking to the general attitude.

It's a licensed Warriors game.

Fists of the North Star is an incredibly popular Manga from Japan. It's quite adult, but it's filled with interesting characters and some great action.

These games bring the two together - in other words, taking the Fists of the North Star characters and plot lines, and sticking them into Dynasty Warriors-style gameplay.

Hm, sounds fascinating, but not my style of game. Thanks for the info, though.

No worries - it's not a game for everyone, that's for sure.

My point remains. The reason the standard for games has become $60.00 is 100% because of the costs of putting them in retail stores. It needs to be that high for them to even make any bit of a profit. The costs of large N64 games got up to $80.00 new because of the cost of manufacturing the cartridge.

When we get into a realm of download-only, we cut out those costs. There's a reason there are all these cell phone games now for Free/$1,and that's because anyone can develop their little game and put it on the App Store. I don't know why you deny the logic here. Angry Birds is a lame game that sold millions at $1, and it made them billions. It's insane . Notch, the creator of Minecraft, is a huge multi millionaire now because he was able to just put his game up and sell it for 10 euros (20 upon full release)

So don't give me this nonsense about them finally making a fair profit when it's download only. It's a bunch of malarky. You are literally getting LESS THINGS, so it makes sense that it would cost less. I'm not suggesting that a $60.00 game is sold for $1.00, but if it were instead $30.00, they would likely sell a lot more, and it would still be largely profitable for them.

And once again, you're wrong.

Minecraft cost next to nothing to make. It was a dude with a good idea and a lot of time on his hands and hit it big.

Angry Birds cost next to nothing to develop. It ended up making a fortune because Rovio has been able to spin it into a franchise.

Neither situation is even remotely close to the traditional development process. Neither game's game development cost even came close to the likes of Ken's Rage. You can't compare them.

You also can't compare N64 games because, again, entirely different scenario. Developing HD games is an order of magnitude more expensive than making N64 games were. Development teams are bigger, console game engines are more costly to license. If developers needed to stick them on cartridges you would be likely spending $100 + on them now.

Why the heck should developers continue to operate on dangerously low margins for your benefit? As far as I'm concerned I would rather you not play a game than a couple of hundred developers lose their jobs.

Digital downloads gave developers the opportunity to finally earn some margin on their investments.

Oh and finally, some maths.

Let's say a game was sold at $60, and cost $3 million to make.

To simply break even the developer would need to sell 50,000 copies.

Let's say the same game was sold at $30

To simply break even the developer would need to sell 100,000 copies.

All very straightforward, right? Well, the basic reality of the market is that halving the price does not double the audience. Games have a finite potential market, and while you can exceed expectations by aggressive pricing, you will rarely convince people that had no interest in a game to pick it up based on price.

So let's say the default audience for a game that cost $3 million to make (a very low-budget project by a major publisher. Ken's Rage is probably not far off) in an ideal world is 60,000. on a console that has two million in the market. These are reasonable numbers to assume.

By pricing the game at $60, Tecmo Koei loses 1/10th of the potential people - the tenth that simply feel that it's "too expensive" for what it offers. It's quite a large number, to lose 10 per cent of your customers.

It means 6,000 less customers. Tecmo Koei now has 54,000 customers, and so makes revenue of $3,240,000. A profit of $240,000. Not bad for a niche title.

But what if Tecmo Koei priced the game at $30? Let's be generous and say that half the price increases the audience by 20 per cent, as fence sitters take a risk. A full 1/5 extra audience is amazing.

That means 12,000 extra customers, for a total of 72,000. It means revenue of $2,160,000. A LOSS of over $800,000.

None of these numbers are outside of the realms of business reality, though they're hypothetical numbers.

The basic lesson here is that it is far better to lose 1/10th of your audience by pricing a product on the "higher end" of the market, than gain an extra 20 per cent of fans that are simply by going cheap.