Shig said:
That's a colossally huge "if" that almost never comes to fruition in standard economics.
I think its quite obvious and clear that more people are hesitant about buying Braid, than ever before for ANY XBLA title. Sure, using the forum as evidence is shaky, but I garner that forum posters do represent a good chunk of XBLA users, as MS has done a poor job of promoting it to the average user.
You tell me to read what Blow wrote and then you selectively choose which of his writings fit your argument. Read the part where he discusses how Space Giraffe probably lost money despite being priced at the bare minimum.
I think that's something we can all dismiss, considering how SG fared in its reviews (it was a love it or hate it game), whereas Braid is universally acclaimed.
This universal acclaim has been fundamental in selling the game despite its high (in perception) price.
There is not some magical infinite pool of consumers to draw from that grows exponentially based on price, there are people interested in paying for a certain type of game and then there are ones that are simply not interested at any price.
There's clearly a 3rd category, people who are interested in the game but do not want to spend that amount on it. There are some questions that high prices raise, such as the game's longevity, whether it has online multiplayer, and whether the game is fun enough to warrant paying a high price.
I fear that this 3rd category is quite large.
What I think should also be considered is that people look at anything higher than a $10 game as an investment. And that's what causes the fence-sitters to be fence-sitters. If they see the appeal in a game that was $5, these people wouldn't hesitate to check the game out. If it was a bad purchase, then it's only $5 lost.
"People that are in the market for quirky downloadable puzzle-platformers for XBLA" is a small niche and most people that fit into it are informed about Braid, what it offers for the price, and consider it a fair value proposition. There are still fence-sitters within those ranks, yes, but the notion that they would be prompted to jump to action over a $5 difference and immediately offset the profit disparity is a fairly unlikely bet, they would be a slow burn at best. The possibility of a price drop to cater to that end and renew interest more effectively is probably the better option as far as lengthening the long tail goes.
I think your reasoning is perfectly sound. And I agree about setting up the price so that it could hit a pricedrop to increase slagging sales is a good thing. I think where we disagree on is in regards to the fence sitters. Personally I think the number of fence sitters is rather large, and if it weren't for the unanimous critical praise the game was getting, it would have been much, much larger. Had this game faced Space Giraffe-esque reviews (ie. some loved it, some absolutely hated it), it would take a lot to convince someone to spend 1200 pts on it.
This is one game where I think there is a lot of appeal to the game, but when factoring in the short length, and the "high" (again, its about perception) cost, you're going to have more fence sitters than any other XBLA game (well, we'll see if Castle Crashers hits 1600 or 2000 MS pts).
