Radiangames – one of the most prominent XBLIG developers – made an unexpected announcement this week. All radiangames titles are currently available for about $1 US or the equivalent 80 :MSPoints: – come June 28th the price will become $5/400 :MSPoints: each.
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What’s bringing on this 400% price hike? Basically, I think Luke wants to prove a point that his games will sell at the $5 price range – but what will the actual sales numbers become? Allegedly he’s getting 1500 sales per month right now, and I suspect there will be a significant drop after this increase.
“I don’t plan on lowering them again (ever).” said Luke. This leads me to believe he’s happy with whatever amount of cash he’s made in his time developing for XBLIG. Why do I feel that way? Simply put – whether this is a controversial test, or he’s just trying to get another big boost of sales before June 28th – I feel like he’s truly biting the hand that feeds.
On a personal note, I own four of the radiangames titles (and 70+ other XBLIG titles) including the truly awesome Crossfire 2. Will I be purchasing the remaining three titles? No. Just in spite of this increase, I’m not going to spend any of the 9,000+ points I have stocked on my account. I can purchase some great indie titles for $1, and for whatever reason I pretty much refuse to purchase any XBLIG title at $5 with one exception – Beat Hazard.
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Ballistic, one of the Radiangames titles, is basically a knock-off of Geometry Wars. On http://radiangames.com/, Luke states “The biggest Ballistic fans: hardcore Geometry Wars players. I’m pretty sure they’ve played GW to death and wanted something new, and some of them probably would have paid $5 to play Ballistic.” – To those people I say: Play Beat Hazard. It’s unmatched and could easily be sold as a 1200 :MSPoints: XBLA title if they release Beat Hazard Ultra on Xbox LIVE Arcade.
Radiangames does have some great titles although Crossfire 2 is the best of the bunch, and the rest don’t really seem to have me going back to play them multiple times. I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy any of their games before the increase, and you should definitely check out the demos at the very least.
For those of you who want to try out some of these games, I’m going to provide the links. But, keep it in the back of your mind that supporting this move can inspire other XBLIG developers, and possibly even XBLA publishers, to consider raising prices on content. It may not happen in this current gaming generation – but we’d like to think this is avoidable in the future.
As promised, here are the links to each title from RadianGames – check them out before they become overpriced!
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