Duck Tales REMAKE coming to XBLA, PS3, Wii U

[Rob2600]

$15 downloads are a bit out of my comfort zone so I don't blame him. I'm still waiting on a Rare XBLA compilation disc for instance just because I really don't want to pay $15 each for their Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, and Perfect Dark HD ports.

I'm much more willing to pay for a download when it's $5 or less. Anything more than $10 and I think long and hard about paying for a download.

We've gotten to the point where "hardcore" gamers feel like $15 is too expensive for a game.

[Leo_A]

We haven't reached the point where "hardcore" gamers feel like $15 is economical for the lease of a downloadable game.

Fixed it for you.

[Bojay1997]

We've gotten to the point where "hardcore" gamers feel like $15 is too expensive for a game.

It's not just hardcore gamers. Lots of people feel that way. It depends on how good the game is. The world has changed in the past 5-7 years and there is a lot of great gaming, movie, television, music and other forms of entertainment available for very little money. Having said that, if the publishers and developers deliver a great game, $15 may be reasonable.

[The 1 2 P]

$15 downloads are a bit out of my comfort zone so I don't blame him. I'm still waiting on a Rare XBLA compilation disc for instance just because I really don't want to pay $15 each for their Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, and Perfect Dark HD ports.

I'm much more willing to pay for a download when it's $5 or less. Anything more than $10 and I think long and hard about paying for a download.

I agree with you. The majority of my XBLA games have been purchased for $5 or less. $10-$20 download titles aren't impulse buys for me so I also have to think about rather I really want them or not. That said, I wouldn't expect a Rare XBLA compilation disc. It would be nice but it's probably not on their list of priorities. But all three have been part of half price sales in the past and will probably be part of some other sale in the future.

[Leo_A]

Really? I would think that those three games would make for a heck of a XBLA compilation disc. And they're probably not lighting the XBLA sale charts on fire at this point which is an incentive to try to take advantage of them at retail when standalone digital sales start to slow in order to sell to people like myself, those that are completely anti digital or have a 360 that isn't online, those that want a hard copy, or just bargain hunters.

I suppose that Rare has finally found their terribly overpriced niche with Kinect shovelware (I'd hate to know what MS paid for them in view of what they've gotten out of it over these past two generations). But the three best products that carry the Rare name from this generation have been these three ports from their N64 library that they didn't even personally port over to the Xbox 360. Rather, a company called 4J Studios handled the conversions.

Hope they get a retail release. Anyways, back to DuckTales.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Didn't wait in line to play it myself, but those who did at PAX said it played excellent. A separate button for pogo being a welcome change was the common theme amongst those who tried it out.

I watched it being played a few times and it looked great up close/in action.

This game is surrounded in nostalgia, so I fully expect a ton of people being indignant about it based solely on their personal feelings/memories about the original.

Personally I think it's great that Capcom picked this property to remaster. It's one of their most iconic games from the NES era.

I most likely buy it when it drops.

[Rob2600]

Fixed it for you.

As I've said before:

People are fine with paying $12 to see a movie in a theater, which provides them with two hours of fleeting enjoyment...but those same people get all uppity about paying $15 for a digital video game that will provide them with many hours of enjoyment for as long as their console continues to function.

Makes perfect sense.

[Leo_A]

The cost to go to a movie theater should cost a lot more than a remake of a 25 year old NES game.

Multiple parties are involved that are out for a profit with much more at stake financially than here (The theater owner, the movie distribution company, etc.), you're paying for the production cost of the movie (Which is typically many millions of dollars... something which in the videogame world usually calls for a $60 pricetag rather than $15), paying your share of the upkeep of that building, lease or mortgage cost, the wages for the service employees manning it during your stay, paying for the experience, etc.

If I was paying $15 to go to a movie and the cost involved were the same for the parties involved as a game download I was considering that I could get more than two hours out of, I'd agree that there's no logic for that line of thought. But beyond being two entertainment options at a similar price (Although around here, tickets are about half of the cost of this game), they're not comparable I'd say. I think most people realize that the cost to go to a theater is far greater than it is for a $15 XBLA download so they adjust what they consider a reasonable price accordingly to reflect the differences. And the experience is also not the same since many moviegoers will tell you that the experience goes beyond just enjoying the film itself. And I suspect for many gamer's, they tend to be buying downloads more frequently than they'd go to the theater leaving more reason to carefully consider their purchases since they're happening more frequently.

Even just at $5 a pop, your investment can get up to a surprising amount in a short amount of time if you're frequently making impulse buys on these download services. I think I've been to the theater once in about the past four years by comparison. It's something to keep in mind both for your wallet and if you're a classic gamer that cares about the day when the Xbox 360 isn't a commercially active platform.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

The cost to go to a movie theater should cost a lot more than a remake of a 25 year old NES game.

Multiple parties are involved that are out for a profit with much more at stake financially than here (The theater owner, the movie distribution company, etc.), you're paying for the production cost of the movie (Which is typically many millions of dollars... something which in the videogame world usually calls for a $60 pricetag rather than $15), paying your share of the upkeep of that building, lease or mortgage cost, the wages for the service employees manning it during your stay, paying for the experience (Which often isn't much of a experience with modern theaters that go for multiple screens that sometimes aren't much larger than what many homes now have; I've been in one before where one room had 12 seats and it was a crying shame since it was once a beautiful 1920's era movie theater not long ago with a huge screen yet now is chopped apart into about 8 or 9 rooms), etc.

If I was paying $15 to go to a movie and the cost involved were the same for the parties involved as a game download I was considering that I could get more than two hours out of, I'd agree that there's no logic for that line of thought. But beyond being two entertainment options at a similar price (Although around here, tickets are about half of the cost of this game), they're not comparable I'd say. I think most people realize that the cost to go to a theater is far greater than it is for a $15 XBLA download so they adjust what they consider a reasonable price accordingly to reflect the differences. And the experience is also not the same since many moviegoers will tell you that the experience goes beyond just enjoying the film itself. And I suspect for many gamers that they tend to be buying downloads more frequently than they'd go to the theater so there's more reason to carefully consider your purchases.

Even just at $5 a pop, your investment can get up to a surprising amount in a short amount of time if you're frequently making impluse buys. I think I've been to the theater once in about the past four years by comparison. It's something to keep in mind both for your wallet and if you're a classic gamer that cares about the day when the Xbox 360 isn't a commercially active platform.

Not to derail or side-track, but I managed a major chain theater for almost 10 years.

At $15 I assume Rob is citing the bare cost of the ticket - and if he is, here's the breakdown of where that money goes.

Almost 100% of ticket sales go back to studios.

While it was an incentive in a bygone era, in this modern day of movie theatre operation films do not remain in theatres long enough to create the type of scaled rental/return profit that they used to in the 1980s where a film could run for close to a year. Second-run theatres probably do okay on making some money off of tickets, but any operation that's playing first-run films isn't making any large profit off of tickets.

The things you mention like property upkeep and employee wages are funded almost entirely by concessions. The markup on popcorn seed alone is so astronomical it would make your head spin.

[Rob2600]

Not to derail or side-track, but I managed a major chain theater for almost 10 years.

At $15 I assume Rob is citing the bare cost of the ticket - and if he is, here's the breakdown of where that money goes.

Almost 100% of ticket sales go back to studios.

My point was some people scoff at spending $15 on a well-produced video game and insist on waiting until the price goes down to $5. And they complain that there isn't a physical product they can keep for the rest of their lives.

But I bet they have no problem spending $12 on a movie ticket that gets them 2 hours of fleeting entertainment and no physical product to take home. Or spending $20 on dinner at a restaurant and again, no physical product to take home.

I just don't get the double standard when it comes to digital video games, especially ones that only cost $15.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

My point was some people scoff at spending $15 on a well-produced video game and insist on waiting until the price goes down to $5. And they complain that there isn't a physical product they can keep for the rest of their lives.

But I bet they have no problem spending $12 on a movie ticket that gets them 2 hours of fleeting entertainment and no physical product to take home. Or spending $20 on dinner at a restaurant and again, no physical product to take home.

I just don't get the double standard when it comes to digital video games, especially ones that only cost $15.

See my response in your other thread. I think that more succinctly addresses your point ... but you were there when I said it all on the podcast.

[Rob2600]

See my response in your other thread. I think that more succinctly addresses your point ... but you were there when I said it all on the podcast.

Yeah, ever since you brought it up the night we recorded the DP podcast, I've been thinking about it a lot. Thanks for planting the seed

[Leo_A]

Not to derail or side-track, but I managed a major chain theater for almost 10 years.

At $15 I assume Rob is citing the bare cost of the ticket - and if he is, here's the breakdown of where that money goes.

Luckily, tickets are about half that up here (Edit: Looks like for the local chain that runs several of them that general admission for an adult is $8 and for matinees is $6 according to their website).

They've crept up and I'm not entirely sure what the latest price was. but I'd say that they were about $5.50 when I was a regular a decade ago (Despite hating modern Hollywood and mostly sticking to the Golden Age myself when watching movies at home, the theater is a nice outing to spend some time with friends). I think it was about $7 or $7.50 when I saw the Titanic rerelease which was the last time I've gone (And with a bogus charge of several dollars tacked on top of it for a nonrefundable deposit on the cheap 3D glasses). And I assume that was during the 100th anniversary of the sinking last spring so it's fairly recent.

The things you mention like property upkeep and employee wages are funded almost entirely by concessions. The markup on popcorn seed alone is so astronomical it would make your head spin.

It's pretty widely known that the real money with movie theaters is in the concessions. The boxes of candy for instance that around here cost something like 3 or 4 dollars (And probably more in the land of $15 movie tickets... rural movie theaters in upstate NY wouldn't be in business long at those prices). Those can be had in all the dollar stores around here in the very same boxes for a dollar a box. And I'm sure the dollar store is still making a decent profit off of them.

That said, I didn't know that it was quite that bad with ticket prices. I wonder then with the prices for tickets around here if they're even making anything off the ticket sale itself or if they're actually subsidizing it a bit in the hope to make it back and then some with concession sales.

But unless the cost to a big city movie theater for access to the latest movie is more than it is for a rural theater to show the same movie (And some around here lack digital projectors so the cost is even greater I believe since studios want to kill off the distribution of film), there has to be a decent bit of profit at $15. If city theaters are essentially not making anything off the sale of a ticket after the studio got their portion of the ticket price, there's no way that rural theaters could survive subsidizing tickets with concession sales with tickets half the cost seen at urban locations. There has to be a few dollars profit at $15 I would think.

Otherwise all my local theaters would cease to exist.

[Gameguy]

But I bet they have no problem spending $12 on a movie ticket that gets them 2 hours of fleeting entertainment and no physical product to take home. Or spending $20 on dinner at a restaurant and again, no physical product to take home.

You get to take a physical product home, it's just that most people flush it by that point.

I just don't get the double standard when it comes to digital video games, especially ones that only cost $15.

It's a remake, I've played plenty of remakes that were available for free. Look up Maniac Mansion Deluxe as an example. Sure it's not an official product, but I basically expect remakes of old games to be of similar quality and most are fan produced for free.

I haven't gone to a movie theater in ages, I don't think it's worth spending that much to see a film once. So yeah, $5 is around my limit for movies too. Heck, usually I limit it to $3 for a DVD unless it's something rare. I wouldn't pay anything at all for a movie if it was digital download only.

[ZP3]

Good thing I picked up the original at Goodwill for $2 a few weeks ago XD.

[VG_Maniac]

Here's a good interview with the game's producer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dmC_L91M_k

He gives a lot of information on the game. The money bin level seen in the trailer will act as an intro level, like in Mega Man X...and after you beat it you will go to the hub where you can select the different levels. The last level will also be completely new, instead of just being Transylvania again like in the NES original. He also gives a good description of how the Moon stage will play out in this version.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

There has to be a few dollars profit at $15 I would think.

Otherwise all my local theaters would cease to exist.

There's some profit, but believe me it's not much. Not enough to run the day to day theatre operation.

Movie theatres, at least major chains like AMC and Regal exist to maximize concessions. Trust me on this one, I've been through the wringer in that world and I was thrilled when the opportunity came up early in my time there to be a Presentation Manager (run the projection operation) instead of having to stress about concessions sales every night of the week.

[Greg2600]

The price is fine, I just don't expect there will be much interest.

[The 1 2 P]

The price is fine, I just don't expect there will be much interest.

If it's one thing this thread has proven it's that there is ALOT of interest in this game. I'm sure most of us will purchase it over time at various price points. I'm personally looking forward to it just because I never got to play the original for longer than a few minutes.

[LiquidPolicenaut]

So it looks like this is being released on the PSN, WiiU and PC on Aug 13 and not until Sep 11 for the XBLA. What I liked hearing even more is that a retail version is being released for the PS3 on Aug 20th for $19.99 plus it comes with a Ducktales collector's pin.