Quote Originally Posted by Rob2600 View Post
$60 for download-only games would be a rip-off. That's why I like WiiWare. There's a very good selection of $10 and $15 games. It's a great price point and the library features many high-quality, well-produced titles. I'm sure the same goes for Xbox Live and PSN.

Even for a complex, full-length, AAA game like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Super Mario Galaxy, I think $35 would be the most I'd spend on a download-only version. Think about it: the publisher isn't paying to have discs, cases, and covers manufactured and shrink-wrapped. The publisher isn't paying shipping costs, either. The game is just files on a remote server. With those expenses gone, why would I still be expected to pay $50 to $60 per game? I imagine publishers would pass along at least some of the savings to us, their customers.


Back to WiiWare though: This is the direction in which I want the game industry to go. For $60, I can buy World of Goo, LostWinds, Mega Man 9, and one of the Strong Bad games...or for $60, I could buy Metal Gear Solid 4. I realize for some people, spending $60 and getting one deep, complex game like MGS 4 is the better value. That's fine. For me though, spending $60 and getting four fun, simple, highly-rated pick-up-and-play games is the better value. I don't have time for long, involved games anymore and am glad quicker, simpler, arcade-style games are making a comeback...and for a much lower price, too!
I think you have fundamentally overestimated the cost of replication, packaging and shipping. For most games produced in quantities over 20,000 units, it only costs about $3.00 each to get the discs pressed, the inserts and instructions printed and inserted, the cases sealed and the units shipped to distributors. At larger quantities, this can drop to below $2.00. The cost in games is not the physical media anymore (although this was a valid issue in the previous generations where cartridges and even DVD-Roms were more expensive to produce), it's in the development and marketing. Aside from the fact that Wiiware style games don't appeal to a lot of older and more experienced gamers, they also don't generate the same kind of return that an A-list title can. When games do almost $200 million in first day sales like Halo 3 did, that's serious money, even if development and marketing was over $100 million. Even assuming a Wiiware game sells a million units, at $10 a pop, once you subtract out development and licensing, what's the profit like $3 million? I know that sounds like a lot, but even a small studio is very expensive to run and very few download titles ever sell in the millions. The business model for Wiiware only works for small studios and only works for those lucky few that design a really addictive little game. I personally like that Wiiware and Xbox Live and PSN are available for games of this type, but I don't think the majority of gamers prefer games of that type to real A-list titles.