“Xbox Live Arcade games are under-priced”

“I want to go on the record and say I feel like most downloadable games are under-priced,” Nathan Fouts, who heads dev studio Mommy’s Best Games, told MTV Multiplayer.

“As a collector, I can relate to people who enjoy buying a game and having the game box, and manual. However, paying only 800 Microsoft Points for a game as nice as Bionic Commando: Rearmed or 1200 Microsoft Points for a game as big as Castle Crashers seems ridiculous to me.”

Fouts saw his latest title, Weapon of Choice, recently arrive on the Community Games channel on Xbox Live at 400 Microsoft Points – a price he felt was too low.

“Weapon of Choice is for sale at 400 points. We feel this is a bargain, but the right approach for a new platform with an unknown developer. Community Games is an untested platform, so how will the average player react?

"Is our game long enough to warrant an 800 point price tag? Will gamers compare Community Games to Xbox Live Arcade and not pay as much because there are no leaderboards or Achievements available? At what price is it an impulse-buy versus a thought-out purchase?”

“I think the most frustrating part in pricing has been the quantized price points. Microsoft does not allow for user-defined price points like 799 points or even 100 point increments like 500, 600, 700, etc.

"For a bigger game like Weapon of Choice, only having two options, one of which is double the first option, makes the decision difficult. I felt like we could have priced the game at 600 points and received no backlash from consumers as they compare our game to other downloadables.”