Nintendo's unrealistic pricing for old-school platformers et al.

[milkyjoe]

happydolphin said:

RolStoppable said:

happydolphin said:

I understand, but when 2D games were not selling much in generations prior, and when now they found a massive boost chiefly thanks to the family appeal of the Wii, and when mobile and DD games are showing competing value, it's something to keep an eye out for.

You do realize that 2D games were not selling much, because for the most part they did not exist? They saw a massive boost, because they were being made again.

I just checked Crystal Shards and, in comparison to Epic Yarn, it sold decently.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat sold really badly though.

Metroid Fusion sold ok.

Super Princess Peach sold ok, less than 1m.

Yoshi's story did pretty well at 3m.

Paper Mario 64 sold 1.38m.

Dr. Mario 64 sold bad.

It's all hit and miss honestly.

When you're opening with DK Jungle Beat, then you know there aren't many games from that era to choose from.

I love Donkey Kong Country. I waited 14 years for a sequel after the third SNES game. I suffered through DK64. I would not touch DK Jungle Beat with a bargepole. Bongos to play a platformer? No. Just, no. How's that for value?

What is value by the way? How would you define it? I have my own definition. I've played the vast majority of the games in your OP. The most recent game I played would be NSMB U, which took me over 20 hours of play to fully complete (meaning 5 profile stars, not just the quickest run through possible). As I claimed the fifth and final star for my profile, I did not feel robbed.

I also played Rayman Origins last year. It took me a similar amount of time to do everything in that game as well (collecting all the medals, stone teeth, etc). I didn't find it to be as good as a Nintendo offering, but I did not feel robbed.

Sticking with non-Nintendo efforts, I've played both LittleBigPlanet games. There's millions of levels available to play, be they the main story levels or user created efforts. Most of them are utter shit, but there's enough decent efforts out there to not feel robbed.

Now, on to the downloadable games. I played Limbo and did everything there was to do in a single, short 2.5 hour gaming session. I felt robbed.

Braid took me a little longer, but it was still over and done with in one evening. I felt robbed.

Trine was the most satisfying downloadable game by far, but it didn't launch at the same price as the others. It was a $40 game when it first released on PC, and was $20 at launch on PSN a while later. It may be $10 now, but that's a poor reflection of how it used to be priced.

I don't really think it's wise bringing up mobile platformers, given that the only ones that are adequately functional with a touchscreen are auto-runners, which do half of the work for you.