I'm going to talk about the game again. If you're tired of hearing about it you can watch this video of me drawing today's comic:
So the game has been out for a few days now and I can share a couple numbers with you. It turns out that we had the third best launch ever as far as units sold in the 3 day launch window. The actual list looks like this. Keep in mind that this is just for the 360.
#1 RezHD, 25k units
#2 Ikaruga, 22.5k units
#3 PAA Episode 1, 16.5k units
#4 N+, 13k units
Given that our price point was double the other games on that list I'm pretty fucking happy. We fully expected some people to complain about the $20 price tag but we honestly felt like our game was worth it. Pricing something like this is tricky. Obviously you have to look at the length of time it will take someone to complete the game but you also need to factor in the quality of the experience. I know I personally would have paid $60 for Portal and that game was only a few hours. On the other hand I paid $60 for Heavenly Sword which was about five hours and I felt ripped off. Our game takes the average person between 6 and 8 hours to play through and some people have mailed me to say it took them nearly twice that. In the end we felt like we had made an experience that was worth twenty bucks. We put the demo out there so that people can at least try it and decide for themselves if they agree with us or not. I know there's been a lot of discussion about the price, I hope this answers some of those questions.
A couple more reviews came out for the game and they just seem to be getting better and better. We got an 8.5 out of 10 and an editor's choice award from TeamXbox. Towards the end of the review they say:
"A solid story, side-splitting humor, and quality game play all add up to create an experience that's one of the best titles to date on XBLA."
We also got a 4.5 out of 5 from GamePro. It's really awesome to see the high scores coming out. Even cooler than the reviews though has been all the great mail I've been getting. I really appreciate you all taking the time to mail me with your thoughts both good and bad. The great thing about the episodic nature of the game is that we can take a lot of the feedback we're getting and incorporate it into future episodes. I've also been getting a lot of questions about the making of the game. I was trying to think of a good way to answer as many of the questions as I could and I figured PATV might be a good way to do it.
So today at 1pm pacific I'll start a live stream. I'll go through some of the concept art I did for the game and show the story boards for the cut scenes. Obviously there will be a lot of spoilers so consider yourselves warned. I'll be talking about the process and answering questions from the chat room as best I can. Tycho will also be here in the room so I'll pass along any questions you have for him as well. Tycho has actually been working on a bunch of cool back story stuff. He'll be posting some info about things like the old academy and the Brahe family soon. If you'd like to participate you'll need to register over on the Ustream site. Then hit the PATV site at 1PM this afternoon. If that is not working for you try the Ustream site for the show. Don't forget that's pacific time. Hope to see you there.
-Gabe out
