April 22nd 2009 6:00 am PT

Finally and even better, the game is 800 mp and NOT the 1200 as previously stated! Sweet deal and good move!

Yay! I’ll buy it at this price Now to just wait until my xbox is setup

Very nicely done!

I had planned on passing on this game, simply due to the 1200 MSP price point -

Sure, it was only $5, but that’s a whole extra cheap game. That should’ve been a whole UNO RUSH….but maybe I’ll forgive MS for at least giving me this

This will likely be a purchase from me once I get some MSP

I knew that they would surprise us with a 800 price tag : ) keep it this way M$

Going to try the demo right now

I bought it right away, thought M$ had made a mistake hahahaha

automatic download of arcade demo’s,

Where is the option to turn it on? I remember hearing about it but never turned it on because I had a small hard drive and now I got a 120 gb and want to turn it on but I can not find it.

Never mind, just found out it was removed with the last update.

That sucks, you think it would have been kept because it makes gamers try all the demo’s. Which would up the chance on a buy in my opinion.

Just like Peggle I had no urge to try the demo but one night I was board and tried it and got hook bought it and play it just about every day online.

aha, So it ISN’T 1200 MSP! Great news! For all that this game packs, I’m sure it’s all worth it! A fantastic way to end the Days of Arcade promo! Enjoyed it all while it lasted!

Happy to see that Third’s an Microsoft have returned to the 800MSP path, for great games.

Keep It Up !!!!

800 points is a crowd pleaser. Keep it up.

Oh wow, may have to pick this one up because of the price, keep up this kind of pricing and you’ll sell way more sales, I’m sure of it.

I saw it at 800 and thought it was a mistake, bought it straight away. I was probably going to skip it at 1200 so good move whoever it was decided.

Interesting move by MS…….

The good ol’ bait and switch, not the first time I have seen them use it.

However, 800MSP is the correct price point, and I shall CERTAINLY try the demo, and if I like it, I will get it.

If it was 1200MSP, I wouldn’t have even bothered with the demo.

Memories of the mid-80′s… just me and my Apple IIc…

More 800 point games = more buys from me and I’m sure many others. Nice one.

800 points? Really? I’m impressed. Happily bought it. Another childhood addiction returns!

Wow what a pleasant surprise! This was already a bargain insta-buy and would have debuted at #1 on the Arcade list even at 1200 points with everything that’s packed into it, so this makes it even more awesome at 800! I’m sure at this price, with the nostalgic anticipation for it and the great reviews so far, this should be a mainstay in the Arcade list for a long time.
Speaking of nostalgia, I remember many fun hours playing and making levels in the original Broderbund version in stunning monochrome (http://sial.org/blog/images/lode-runner-lvl23.gif) on the Apple IIs in the school PC lab whenever I could get away with it. Our math teacher was even addicted too and would share his levels to challenge us diehards. So when I heard that this remake was coming, I was psyched to say the least. Thanks for bringing back the memories, Microsoft, Tozai and Southend!

OMG!!! I can´t believe it This is the greatest new I could get from XBLA!! It´ll be instant buy once I get home. Really thanks for those listening up there, I think sales of latest XBLA games have something to do with this.

it still says 1200 MSP on xbox.com lol

superb price, buy it quickly!

I’ve been looking forward to this day for 2 years ever since this game was announced. This morning before work I fired up my Xbox and saw I was at 782 points. Went to purchase 500p and it gave me an error, told me to try later. Even tried on xbox.com. Second time in a few months this has happened with purchasing points. Needless to say I wasn’t happy. Hopefully this will be resolved by the time I get home tonight.

ha, they post it as 1200 and then release it as 800 make it look like a bargain…

Yep it’s broken for me too. Hopefully people at Microsoft are awake to fix it

Good to see the price change from 1200 to 800, it seems people are taking notice of the poor sales for higher priced games. I tried the demo but the game isnt for me unfortunately, just not my type of game, plus I only have 800 points which is reserved for the Fallout 3 DLC next month.

Never thought I’d buy this game but it has got me hooked .

I kind of feel like Major Nelson tricked us into believing it was 1200 MS points because during the cast, he said 1200 MS points really quickly!

Will be giving this hard consideration now and more than likely buying. Was not going to even consider it at 1200 points.

The 800 MS Points price is definitely a great way to end things for this promotion. The price should please many.

tried the demo and this is the worst game I’ve ever played. I’d rather play feeding frenzy a million times over and slit my wrists than play this sht again.

Nice. At 800pts, I’ll give the demo a try. Any If they’d gone the 1200 route I wouldn’t even have given this a glance.

I guess the Flock developers would like to change the price as well. But Flock suffers from 1200 points and simply not being a fun game. At 800 points I would’ve probably bought without hesitation like I did now with Lode Runner. Didn’t even check out the demo, so if it sucks …

I have very fond memories playing Lode Runner on the Apple IIe like 25 years ago. When I saw the price was $15, I thought it wouldn’t be worth going down memory lane. Now that it is back to $10, I pulled the trigger.

Wasn’t going to buy it at 1200 points, but at 800, it’s a buy. Agreed with above about Flock. I liked it, but not at 1200 points and passed on it. It’s hard to consider many games over $10.

Love it! One of the best game to appear on XBLA in weeks.

I love Lode Runner and was about to pass on it. I’m glad they changed it to 800, it’s now a buy for me!

@ Sneeches: I can understand if puzzle games aren’t your thing, but to call this the worst game you’ve ever played is just plain ignorant, especially considering some of the awful crap in your game list.

Wow good call on making it 800 points, will buy this when my console gets returned to me today from the repair center. Looking forward to playing it.

@IconicSoulJA i was thinking the same thing

@Macph1sto – Some of the crap in my list? you crack me up, asshole!!!

Hmm…. I still have to buy OutRun Online Arcade, but the sharing of puzzlesin Lode Runner intrigues me, even though this game might make me pull out all of my hair. Ikaruga calls me… Options, options, options.

Bought it straight away without playing the demo. Great Game. Addicting. And for this pricetag a must have.

I remember playing Lode Runner as a kid, and now I can get it for my Xbox! I have been looking forward to this release for months, and now that it’s finally here I couldn’t be more happy. 800 points is the perfect price for this game and I will buy it without even playing the demo (although I have seen gameplay videos on the web). If it were 1200 I might not be so quick to purchase.

I’ve said enough negative here lately, so I will make sure that when the time comes I will say something positive too. That time is now. 800 is the right price for this, the previously advertised 1200 was ridiculous. Well done for correcting it. The feedback is all right here in the comments to this blog, just keep reading it and you won’t go far wrong. Remember business maxim #1 : The customer is always right.

Sweet, I may buy it just to support the $10 price tag for new content.

Bought it! Wouldn’t have even considered it at 1200 points, Braid is the only game worthy of that price point. Good move guys. If you want to make Flock 800 as well, I will buy that too.

Assuming the game doesn’t suck, this is a must-buy for me. I wouldn’t have even downloaded the demo if the price had been 1200.

You can get Flock at Amazon for $10.

…tried to download and got RED RINGZ WTF!?!?

Not much I can add to the comments already posted , seems like a good game at a good price . I must be one of the few that have never ever played lode runner before (surprising since I’ve been playing games since around 1977 !!! ) so I’m looking forward to firing this up tonight.

Kudos on the $10 point. It’s now a maybe as opposed to a direct NO with the $15. I’ll try the demo and see where it takes me Thanks for the updated price MS.

LOL, they realized the error, it’s back to 1200 points. Glad I got it this morning at 800.

If you got it at 800 points, you’re lucky. It looks like there was a pricing error that is being corrected.

How is that going to be fair. Anyway I was going to buy, but not anymore.

@ExtremeGamer
Enjoy it even more. Catch up with you possibly next round.

Thanks Major and Microsoft for the Discounted Pricing for us early buyers! Glad I got it. Saved me 400 Points

I really feel bad for the people who made this game. I bet this snafu loses them a ton of sales. This is also going to make the XBLA look pretty dang bad.

Well I won’t be buying it then. I refuse to pay $15 for this game. Guess I should have queued up the full game instead of the demo.

@The Boom Camel

Microsoft will have to compensate for the loss due to error on Microsoft’s part. The devs will be fine although if you are referring to future sales. Yes, it doesn’t look good, but $15 for it wasn’t looking good to begin with. I wasn’t getting it for that inflated price.

@IconicSoulJA

Yeah, I meant future sales.

Oh how nice, was about to buy the game but since you changed the price that will NEVER happen I just refuse to buy 1200 point games and that’s it, hopefully by doing so you realize that you should go back to the 400-800 points prices, guess I should have bought it straight away but had to wait for my bro to try it with me and the price was changed, so no buy for me OR my brother, good job on loosing 2 possible buyers!

Whoops. I was pleasantly surprised by the demo, went to buy it since I knew it was 800 and it had gone up to 1200.

I don’t have that many points in my account. Even if I did, no sale.

It’s funny that a small percent say “I won’t Buy at this PRICE point” I would bet, that for each one of you there are 2-4 people who will! Granted I was happy to get it for 800MS points but I was ready for 1200, I have many incarnations of this game it’s one that I always come back to.

Will be enjoying more play time when I get home from work.

Lolololololol

800 points was a buy
1200 points is a no thank you

My excitement was short lived.

What a load of crap. So because of MS some people got it at 800 ms points while everyone else has to pay a extra 5 bucks. Not touching this game.

In fact I suggest everyone file complaints with the Better Business Bureau. They advertised 800ms on both the in game MP and MS website. Classic bait and switch and false advertising. Error or not is in the companies obligation to honor the price. I purchased 800 specifically for this game. Then after I buy points and the game is listed as 800 MS I still have to do a another transaction to purchase even more MS points above and beyond what I would even need.

No dice MS. Shady as hell and I’m just tired of the greed.

lol FAIL. good now I don’t even have to waste my time with the demo. suck it MS!

Come on Shamrock. It was shown to be 1200mp just about everywhere. The 800 was a mistake.

Hmm. I was super excited at 800 but am less excited at 1200 — too bad I didn’t have time to try the demo before I left for work this morning. I guess I’ll try the demo but it may be back to Bully for me tonight instead of Lode Runner.

Well, the developers just lost a sale from me. There’s no way I’m going to buy it, now that it’s 1200 points.

Damn this sucks, I went so far as to buy points from amazon (who screwed me by taking forever to deliver the code, but are giving a 5$ live coupon with points purchases today), then when I go back to purchase the game, it’s now 1200 points. This sucks in the worst way.

Major this is very uncool, and to make things worse one of my xbox’s red ringed again this week.

So I guess I won’t be using my newly acquired points to buy this game. Maybe I’ll go buy some music instead. Sorry Lode Runner developers, the bad taste in my mouth with the price change will prevent me from purchasing your game on principal alone.

Thanks. You just saved me $10. I was gonna pick this up after work at 800 despite the fact I’ve got plenty of games to still get around to playing. I probably wouldn’t have gotten my money’s worth out of this anyway. No way I’ll bite at 1200.

Also, pretty sad Microsoft when you release one game a week and screw the pricing up. (the flagship game of your “arcade days” promotion no less) Good thing idiocy isn’t contagious.

So, I log on today and see this for 800. Intrigued, I decided to give it a whirl, as at a 1200 price point I wasn’t going to even entertain it.
Having tried the demo and found it alright but not a must-have, I went on to play a few more games while I deliberated on my purchase.
I could have afforded it, with my balance of 3800 points, and my intention was to settle down with the game and come to a decision a little later.
Having come back and noticed that the price has actually increased now, I decided that you can shove your game.
Heck, this was overpriced BEFORE.
Good day.

BS! Right when I get my console back from the repair center the price goes up to 1200. Won’t purchase now, since I had my hopes up for 800 points, and I only have 1750 points, the idea was to have enough for Outrun and Lode Runner, so I can’t even buy this now anyhow. Whatever, more time to play the free Left 4 Dead content.

No!!! I was gonna buy some points next week for this it’s the first time I’ve played a lode runner game and I love it but now the price is 1200 MSP I will leave it I don’t pay over 800 for any arcade game

1200 MS points, ahhaha this is a joke!!!! I thought this game was bad at 800 and now its up to 1200, automatic no buy for me!!!!

wow. advertise 800 points, play the demo. go to pay and find it’s now 1200 points.
that’s the dictionary definition of “bait and switch”

KEEP YOUR GAME M$, THIS is how you lose a SALE

when i saw the price this morning for 800, i said im going to buy it. BUT GUESS WHAT, Live was having issues accepting money and wouldnt let me get the points. and now its raised to 1200.

HAVE FUN Having another FLOP 1200 game. 2 of my friends were gonna buy it too, Not gonna happen after they realize “suddenly” the game i told them to get is more than the points they have in their accounts.

Well, tried the demo, it was alright. I’d likely have bought it at 800pts. But, since its back up to 1200, %*#$ you Microsoft. I’ll just purchase a game on the PSN instead.

I was going to buy this for 800 as well. I missed my chance because I was waiting for my new Sony KDL-40XB7 to arrive this morning. I wanted to try the demo before I made the purchase. So instead of saving $5 I ended up saving $15.

Cool, I’m glad I jumped on this when it was still 800, but I was ready to get it at 1200 anyway. Seriously I don’t know why you guys are whining about it being 1200, because it’s still a bargain at that price. It’s certainly not like Flock or any of the other overpriced games lately at over 800. Hardly anyone complained about Castle Crashers coming out at 1200, and Lode Runner has a LOT more content than that game does. Oh well, there’s already plenty of Lode Runner fans like myself who are getting this and we already know why this game is so fun, so if you’re turning it down just on price alone, you’re really missing out on a classic puzzle game that’s well worth the $15.

Keeping it at 800 would have been the best course of action, everybody would have been happy and they’d probably have sold more.

I would have bought it for 800, but 1200 makes me think I can spread dollars in a different way.

That is a shame too, as the developers almost had a hit on their hands.

Lost this sale.

I`m lucky. I bought it at 800 and it is a real great game.
Just look at the comments here MS. Pricechange means that you just have to sell 2 instead of 3 units to get the same money. BUT DO YOU REALLY think that 66 percent of the users who wanted to buy it, are willing to buy it now???????? Open your eyes. Don`t be that stupid or fire the persons who are making such stupid decisions.

anyone that didn’t want to pay the $15 for FLOCK!, you can get it for only $10 on amazon.com today.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0021L8MFG/ref=nosim/cheapassgam08-20

Pfft, didn’t want Flock anyway. Load of boring rubbish.

And another sale bites the dust… 1200msp is becoming FAR too common for my liking.

Well done.

I can’t believe you didn’t just keep the price at 800 pts after everyone was so happy. What is MS thinking with this one?? Bad PR.

Ahhh, I saw it at 800 points this morning.

I was actually playing Valkyria Chronicles on PS3 (great game BTW), and I knew Lode Runner would be going up at 5AM. So anyways, when I go to download the trial (as I always do), I see the 800 points. I heard on the Giant Bombcast that it was supposed to be 1200 points, and they were griping about it. I thought to myself ‘ha, they didn’t know what they were talking about’. Still I hastened to try the demo to decide because I wondered if something just like this might occur. I liked the demo and bought the game, and now I’m especially glad I was swift about it.

Dangle the carrot, then when they’re reaching for it, kick ‘em in the nuts.

The awesome factor would increase 100x with an edited-in “LOL J/K” at the end. Just sayin’.

I wanted to buy this at $10, and I would be ok with it at even $15, but if I want a game with thriving online, I don’t want to buy this game at this permanent price.

It should be kinda obvious judging by these comments that if the game was 800 points it would sell better, there’s like 30 people that would have bought it for 800 points but not 1200, and i’m sure there’s alot more than just those out there who thinks the same. Not sure when MS did the decision to raise the pricing but since then I’we lost my faith in the Xbox Live Arcade, I rarely buy games from it anymore, just lost another buy on this one, the old pricing of 400 and 800 point games was WAY better, the absolute max I would be willing to pay for a game is 1000 points and it would have to be great and have replayability, hope MS takes notes of they’re mistakes and lower the prices of the Arcade games.

MS are just getting worse and worse as the weeks go by.God i would love to see they guy who makes up these ridiculous and pathetic prices!!!

Major, seriously?

Did anyone pay attention to the tweets during the Xbox Live meeting the other week. Two main themes came out of it, more parity across te xbox live regions, and that XBLA prices were FAR TOO HIGH!

1200 points for this is unacceptable really. I hope the price is put back down. The limits on the arcade for price should never have been lifted.

I’ll try the demo, before I decide. The best game in this Arcade promotion was Outrun Online Arcade, unless, Lode Runner is better.

I have spent a LOT of MS points, lately. I really like some of the games I’ve been trying out. C’mon, guys. This is a great service. I understand a little outrage over the pricing mistake and change, but that’s just how it is.

I have never played Lode Runner… So it’s hard for me to comment. Looks uninteresting, but I’ve been proven wrong before, come demo time.

I don’t want to see the 1200 and 1600 price points entirely banished, because it encourages publishers to spend a little more money making a game. We got Braid, Castle Crashers, Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, etc at this price point and I couldn’t complain.

So we’ll see. 800 points is an impulse buy for me, on XBL. I imagine that’s the same with many others. We’ll see how sales go. Personally, I’d think highly of the price being revised back to 800 points.

Wow. Just wow. I downloaded and played the demo at lunch today and hestiated a bit on the purchase because even at 800 I wasn’t quite sure. Fun, but not as fun as it was back in the 1980s. Now that it’s up to 1200, there’s not a chance I’ll be buying it. Way to do the bait-and-switch routine Microsoft. Even if it was a mistake, the fact that some people were considering it for 800 and now aren’t, makes you think there would have been a LOT more sales at 800. At the very least, MS should have said, due to the error, that you can get it for a limited time for 800 points (like through the end of the week or something).

Oh well, saved me and lots of others some money by raising the price. So I guess, thanks!! And here we all were praising MS for lowering the price…guess we were giving you too much credit for doing something right!

Lol, 1200 points, are you kidding me?

Funny thing is when I saw the 800 price I thought that after Galactrix limped into the charts at a measly five and then dropped to ten after a week, after Flock failed to even fucking CHART, while Dishwasher’s sales remain high and tops the charts two weeks running, and OutRunOA enters in the top spot, while the original UNO clings to the charts like a limpet while UNO Rush vanishes, that maybe… just maybe… Microsoft had finally seen sense and hastily re-priced this game at something more user-friendly, somewhere it might actually SELL.
—
Oh how naive I feel right now, clearly Microsoft has learned nothing at all from sales (or lack thereof) and fan interaction, and this penny-pinching DICKMOVE shows the Xbox Live team up for what they really are.

Maybe this was a trial baloon to see how quick sales will fall when you screw your customers over.

I used to buy XBL games like they were going out of style, I now rarely buy anything from Xbox Live, seems their lead in the console war has gone to their head, b/c they have forgotten that 90% of their fanbase is pissed off!

No sale for me now! Should of kept it at 800ms points…would of been fair that way.

Considering that I buy nearly all of my retail games for $15 or less used, I will not be spending that much on an arcade game when there are so many other choices for $10 or $5.

I signed up on this site just to comment on this. I seriously don’t understand the mentality behind alot of decisions in so far as pricing is concerned with Microsoft related products and games. Even the editors of video gaming sites have wrote articles questioning the pricing on prepherals, i.e. the price of the biggest 360 harddrive. It costs more than a real hard drive for a PC that has more space on it.

Then we have the pricing model of the arcade games. What justifys raising the standard from 400-800 points to 800-1600. The pricing on this stuff is starting to approach the price of full PC games, which are all ready cheaper than their 360 counter parts. Why pay 10-20 dollars extra for a game when you can play it on your PC for less? Gamerscore?

It’s kind of disturbing that in the midst of a country wide financial crisis in which the cost of houses are dropping, that the cost of video games steadily inscreases. People are selling houses for less than half they paid for them, the government is throwing tax dollars at corporations to try and avoid another depression, but the prices for video games keeps rising. lol

Am I the only one that thinks that this is just freaking absurd? I really wish that gamers as a whole would wake up and ban together to boycot the increased prices for sub par games, not to mention the whole trendy fiasco where developers release unfinished games for full market value and then turn around and sell the rest of the game back to us for even more money.

Look at the music industry. It’s horrible now. Corporate mentality killed it, choked it out like some creeping vine. Well, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to the video game industry. Stop nickel and diming us to death. We’ve supported you guys for a long time. We deserve better treatment as long term customers and fans.

I’ll never purchase a game from amazon.com again. I just ordered flock for 10 bucks at amazon. received my code, typed it in on my 360 and I got an error code of: 80153022.

Then I tried typing it in at Xbox.com and received an error message there as well. So now im 10 bucks short with no game to play

I’ll never do this again. Amazon+XBLA=FAIL!!!

I agree completely with the above post. I bought this game at 800 because I knew it was coming out and happen to check this site and buy it earlier than most. 800 is A FAIR PRICE. 1200 is somewhat expensive for what we are getting which is a remake of a game that has existed since the late 80s. I would be furious at Microsoft for raising the price of a game that I really wanted (this one for example) after it had already been out for 10 hours. Microsoft should have realized their mistake and posted about it before the price has been raised back to it’s “correct price” and told the users when the price would be corrected. Instead they correct it as soon as they found out and some users had already bought 800 points for this. Now they are stuck with 800 points which may be worthless to them.

I WAS going to buy it at 800 i tried the demo and it was alright not to great but OK for 800mspoints, i was ready to buy but then the Price rise up to 1200 what a joke, Microsoft is committing fraud for false publicity.

I was also one of the lucky ones that purchased this game this morning for a reasonable price. I wasn’t going to touch it because I thought it was going to be 1200. I had some renewed respect for Microsoft in general when I saw that the game was priced at 800 this morning. lol My renewed respect was very short lived. It’s just like the whole fiasco with Valves DLC for Team Fortress 2.

Just tried the demo, congrats the game dev, Major, that’s good work! A bit expensive, but very good.

800 Points – correct price, high sales.
1200 Points – outrageous price for this game, low sales.

Major, MS, Redmond, etc: When will you, or your publishers on XBLA realize that the community will NOT buy 1200 Points games that should be 800 in enough quantity? You will really set up some guidelines for XBLA prices. I will NOT buy this game for 1200 Points, no way. 1200 Points is the price of an Xbox Original game, it is a premium price that mustn’t be the average. 800 should be the average. Understand this or XBLA sales will collapse, let alone improve over time.

Oh, and another note, the price hasn’t been corrected, it has been ****ed up.

Hopefully this will work out something like this. 100 people bought it for 800 poitns for the 7 or 8 hours that it was priced at 800 points. 5 people buy it for 1200 points over the next week.

Come on people let’s show them why this kind of bait-and-switch pricing strategy doesn’t fly with gamers.

I’m glad I got it for 800 because it would NEVER pay 1200 for it.

What the hell is going on with the XBLA pricing structure?
We have ports of last generation games like OutRun, Rez, Ikaruga & Soul Calibur for 800 points. We have 8-bit remakes like Pac-Man C.E., Prince of Persia & Bionic Commando for 800 points. Since when was an 8-bit remake, especially one as old as Lode Runner, worth 1200 points?

I’m convinced all sanity at the Xbox department went out of the window with Death Tank, 1200 points for a remake of an 8-bit style BONUS GAME from the Saturn port of Duke Nukem 3D. Well done with that one Microsoft especially with Duke Nukem 3D already being on XBLA for 800 points.

i love the comments on this page, they start off with high praise on the pricing then about 3 pages in reality kicks in and everyone does a 180.

classic stuff haha.

and yeah, this game was maybe worth it at 800 points, 1200 is a joke. No Thank You. I’ll wait for Sonic The Hedgehog 3 to come out.

I think MS should bit the bullet and left the price at 800 points . It just shows how incompetent they all are .
I see this offer this morning , oh well i missed out , my fault i guess .

Is five dollars really THAT much of a difference? So it’s OK to release Braid for 1200 points, but not Lode Runner? I listened to Major’s podcast about Lode Runner, and that game has a ton of content. It has severl different singleplayer game modes. It has co-op over Live. It has multiplayer. You can create your own levels and share them with the world. Sounds like alot to do, and people still complain about it being 5 dollars higher than they would like it to be.
If you can’t spend the extra five bucks for this game, then I guess you can’t afford any burgers, beers or even Xbox Live itself.
I would like to quote “Master Chief”: “l0l, ur p00r.”

I think I’ll keep my 1200 Microsoft Points and wait until Banjo-Tooie comes out. Its suppose to come out next week.

True edit: “This was correctly priced at 800 points. That has since been fucked up.” Sorry, but knowing that this was available for others for 800 points…and I would have to pay 1200 means I won’t even bother downloading the trial. I’m almost glad that these “Days of The Arcade” are over. This hasn’t been a good promotion.

Saw this was 800 points, downloaded the demo and was going to buy it later this evening. Now I’m not going to touch it with a barge pole.

Look outside the window – there’s a recession going on and the response of publishers on XBLA is to increase prices by 50% or more(and I’m not talking specifically about Lode Runner here.

Kudos to Sega and OutRun last week – I bought that as it was a good deal for the price. What publishers on XBLA don’t seem generally to consider is that a digital download has inherently less value than a retail product. Most of the games I buy at retail I trade in or sell on ebay; I can do what the hell I want with it as I own it. Not true with XBLA games with their dodgy DRM.

Thankfully I can vote with my wallet on this one.

Oops, didn’t see the edit there. But still, I’m waiting for Banjo-Tooie.

I love how this was 5 stars in the beginning and was happy about the price being 800, even though I didn’t know if I wanted it or not. Now I come back here again to see this ^#*! plummet down to 1 1/2 star because Microsoft and the developers decided to be #*!$% with pushing the price to 1200. Screw you guys for these ridiculous pricings on XBLA titles that you could’ve made money on. This crap is not worth 1200 at all. Castle Crashers, definitely worth 1200, because it has REPLAY VALUE. Not this POS remake of an old ass game. Take this game and shove it where the sun don’t shine, and be sure to twist it around a few times, un-lubricated.

Thanks KristofferLygre, it’s good to see someone with some sense here that understands the value of this game for all the content it offers. Seriously people, save all the annoying whining about price for a game that’s actually overpriced!

It really doesn’t have to do with the price versus the content. If this was released initially for 1200, there might have been a few complaints, but nothing out of the ordinary considering the sheer amount of content.

It’s the whole ‘bait-and-switch’ thing that has made this a PR disaster, and has doomed this to be another example of greed on MS’s point.

So a whole bunch of people got this for 800 points, and now it’s been upped back to 1200. How is that fair?

Sounds like a cheap way to get sales numbers up since it will flatline at the 1200 point.

@Exu
Just my thoughts… I was sure they learned something about sales, but…

I´m glad I bought it at 800 points. I would have bought it for 1200, but not after this. Next time a XBLA game shows for a low price, I´ll get it right away. It´s ironic, because most people that would gladly pay 1200 points are the ones that already downloaded the game at 800 points, so I don´t know how many people will get it from here…

@MACPH1ST0: Only people whining about whining are allowed to speak here, is that it?

Its kind of funny how much positive feedback and praise they would of kept receiving if they kept the price at 800 msp. They could of really had something here.

But yah Lode Runner is a great game, I would of loved to pick it up for 800 msp this morning, and would have if my xbox wasn’t in a UPS truck from McAllen TX. I played the trial an hour or so ago, and it is a great remake. But I only planned on having 800 msp for it, and don’t feel like adding more points cause I’m broke and I spent my other 800 msp on Outrun Online because 1) It’s a great game and 2) To support the proper pricing structure.

So if MS decides to lower the price back down to 800 msp than game on.

Major,

You need to speak to some guys who can get Microsoft to make a proper statement to people about this. This is going to annoy a lot of people.

I am really becoming quite disheartened by all that is xbox these days. My xbox has now broken don for the 6th time, 5 times previously it was the RROD and now it is the e74 error. I am now just outside the 3 year period, but I will not be paying to get it repaired, I will make sure that it is done without charge. Out of the4 xbox consoles in my house we have probably had almost 20 dealings with the support over failures. But the bad stuff keps coming, the xbox is a great console (despite this), but someone really needs to get their at togethet at MS.

Sometimes I wish we could just move onto a new generation of xbox and be done with this.

Don’t buy it for 1200, its not worth it. I was lucky enough to snag it for 800 which was a perfectly decent price for the game. 1200 is a joke, move along.

@ Doh Ray Egon: No whining necessary, just stating the facts.

Seriously, look at the comments. When it was 800 points, they are nothing but praise. Then the price goes back up and it’s almost all negative.

PR should take a hint from this.

And if not this, then you can also look at the most recent list of Top Arcade games (by units sold). Of the 10, how many are 1200 points or higher? 2.

It’s basic economics. Hike the price, fewer buy, less money made. Settle on a fair price, more sold, optimal profit.

@MACPH1ST0: Nope, sorry…those are called opinions.

Ehhh, 800 pts or 1200 pts, all I really want is the level editor, no disrespect to this awesome, mind-numbing game. Play the trial, be happy or just let it be. Is 1200 pts expensive for what you’re getting, nope. The replay value and online play is awesome and seems almost unlimited.

Now as the pricing error, THAT is somewhat bad, but not terrible. May SAID it was 1200 pts, right? The site said it was 1200 pts, right? So why all the whining? Catch the deals and pricing mistakes when they are hot. Not sure how a pricing link goes untested before going live. Not to sound geeky, but there ARE things called ‘test servers’.

Can I get that ‘Online Pricing Manager’ job now? I’d make sure the pricing is completed on every Sunday at 3 p.m. EST – no ifs ands or buts. I’d “git r done”.

Let’s flip reverse this, yo. Say a game came out for 1200 points, and this turned out to be an error which was promptly amended.
Microsoft would be inundated with enraged users demanding a 400 point rebate. And you know what? They would get it.
So, why aren’t you taking an extra 400 points from those who purchased this at the “wrong” (right) price?
—
Actually, this sort of happened already. People bought Undertow (fools) and then you gave it away for free, refunding those who had bought it. Of course when you gave away Carcassonne I didn’t get SHIT.

@Warrengonline Why is it that people aren’t allowed to “whine” here? But you are allowed to constantly say how you feel about things in your self-indulgent mini blog posts you call comments?

Doh Ray Egon: Yes it is a fact that this game has a lot more content and replay value than most 800-point games, so it’s not overpriced. All the complaining about the price won’t change that.

Ok. I was waiting for this game with baited breath and when I saw it for 800 points I snatched it right up (fair disclosure I was ready to pay 1200). Let me put it to you this way. If you saw this on the shelf at the store for $15 would you buy it? I think so. So just because the developer worked it so that the file size was small enough to download they should have to discount it? I agree that there is some stuff that should have been 400 points out of the gate – frogger, paper boy, beer tapper – tons of original games that came out with arcade. I think MS has hurt themselves by having an expectation of $10 for each game and there are probably some coming down the pipe that I would have bought for $10 but will pass for $15 or $20. I do wish that MS would discount games over time. But this is a good game and worth the price. Heck, we are all paying $10 for a couple of maps for other games or for features that should have been in the original (RE5).

@MACPH1ST0 That ISN’T a fact. To YOU…it might have more replay value. And to YOU…the content might be worth it, but others may not feel the same way. And your complaining about others complaining won’t stop them from doing it. So what you view as pointless whining…is exactly what you are doing.

Wow Microsoft. Go F off, seriously. The 360 is becoming such a damn joke. No wonder I spend 90% of my gaming time on PS3 now. Their system doesn’t break every other month. They charge REAL MONEY for the games and not these retarded, insulting space bucks. THEY DON’T PULL BS ON THEIR PRICES and they run a LOT MORE sales than Microsoft does.

This game is AMAZING. Had I seen this on the shelf somewhere for $15.00 I would have bought it without a second thought. Sure I don’t have an actual Disc or manual but its ONLY 15 bucks. Think of all the crap games for 59.99… 15 bucks seems like a steal for what your getting.

This kind of mistake, if it even was one, is just plain unprofessional. It shows a lack of care and consideration that turns me off to XBLA as a developer.

Is there no quality assurance involved with Xbox live publishing? What is the malfunction here?

Look at all of the negative energy being pinned on Lode Runner because of a Microsoft error. Where is Microsoft’s damage control? I’d be furious if I worked for Tozai!

Major Nelson–’If you got it at 800 points, you’re lucky. It looks like there was a pricing error that is being corrected.’ –Yeah there lucky alright… they didn’t get ripped off for paying 1200 points for this 8 bit port.

Oh look, Macph1sto is on a XBLA board toeing the line for MS again. Seriously, quit trolling the damn game boards. I can go to every XBLA release for months back and see you whining about people whining. Which is pathetic, because at least the people upset have a reason to whine. You, on the other hand, look like a troll. People have complaints, they are going to voice them. GET.OVER.IT.

The price change thing was a big, big screw up. I bought LR because I love the series, but I will admit, I have no problem with the people who are balking at purchasing because of the bait-and-switch BS. Another thing, while I think the game is pretty cool and has a lot of content to justify the price, those who are considering getting it and/or getting the demo should know that unfortunately this game isn’t as “classic” as the developers are trying to make it sound. They made 3 significant changes to the Lode Runner gameplay that make the game dramatically harder than classic Lode Runner. First, the enemies move MUCH faster than they ever did in the original. Second, enemies emerge from spawning doors within the levels themselves rather than falling in from the top which, again, makes the game harder. Third, you no longer win a level by simply grabbing the last piece of gold, you now have to make it to an exit, which means if you die getting to the exit, you have to restart the whole level again.
While I love LR, these changes are going to utterly alien the casual gamer base who are going to find themselves unable to even get past the first set of levels due to the difficulty. Longtime LR players will be more comfortable, but I think this was a poor development decision. On the other hand, the puzzle levels are almost worth the entry alone and the level editor is pretty cool for hardcore LR freaks (the original way back when had it’s own editor too).

Boo hoo, my life was perfect when I saw Lode Runner at 800 points, but since it’s changed to 1200 I have started thinking of suicide and have had to see a psychologist. My life is ruined, thanks a lot M$!!

@StanleyPain grabbing the last piece of gold never won the level. You had to get to the top of the screen to exit.

…Why do we let Silver members post?

@Exu Why do we let idiots (like yourself) post?

Silver members are as much members as Gold Members. Just because Microsoft blatantly scapegoat them to make Gold Membership seem like something special does not mean that members must follow.

As for this price change, I feel that Microsoft should have just left it at 800 MS points and just aid the dev back the difference for each purchase. Again, this is Microsoft’s fault and I bet it would be cheaper that way than to get sued by the developer or get written up at the Better Business Bureau and have the developer stop making games for Arcade.

I got the game for 800MS points but the game truly is not worth anything higher. I am even questioning if 800 MS points is worth it. I am only justifying the purchase now because it went back to 1200 MS points. Either which way, I recommend you guys NOT buy it for this inflated price.

If anything, I have a feeling we will be hearing from MS about this sometime in the future. I bet it might even be the next Undertow?? Na I doubt it.

“Keep fighting the good fight.” – Three Dog

@ Doh Ray Egon: How many 800-point games can you name that have as much content and features as this game? Most of the people on here who have actually gotten the full version have agreed that it’s worth 1200, because they’ve seen everything that’s in it. I understand if someone just isn’t into puzzle games, but that doesn’t make this overpriced.
@ Us3d ta b3: Me, toeing the line for MS? HA that’s too funny for words. I have no problem calling out MS on games that are actually overpriced, like Flock for instance. Yes, the price mix-up was a stupid mistake and I see why people are upset about that, but simply whining over the price of the game without even knowing what it has to offer is hardly “a reason to whine”. So yeah, whatever.

Wow, major screw up by someone at MS. I agree with others, more games should be 800 pts, especially considering you can get a full disc game for $20-30 (which you can trade/sell). I played the trial of Lode Runner and its pretty fun. I will wait until its 800 pts again before buying it though.

@Casserole: GRRRRR, people who have different opinions than me should stay silent and only speak when they are happy or when I agree with them.

@MACPH1ST0: Sorry, but pulling statistics out of the air isn’t going to help anything. You don’t actually know the ratio of people who do and do not think it’s worth it’s price. You just made that up…unless you can show me real evidence of opinions of EVERYONE who bought it. And even then…what someone considers something to be worth is OPINION.

wow i knew they made a “mistake” what a lode of bs

@NBA Kirkland You’re right, my mistake. BUT, if you recall, when you got the last gold piece in the original, all empty spaces on the screen turned into ladders making it much easier to reach the top. At least, I remember it doing that in the C64 version. Regardless, I still think this XBLA version has a bit of a too-steep difficulty curve.

I refuse to buy this game at 1200 points, ESPECIALLY after an insulting screwup like this. How stupid do you think we are Microsoft? Some get it for 800 and the rest for 1200?? What a joke.

I refuse to buy this game at 1200 points, ESPECIALLY after an insulting screwup like this. How stupid do you think we are Microsoft? Some get it for 800 and the rest for 1200?? What a joke.

1200 no thanks

I haven’t bought an arcade game a while now due to these rediculous prices. Yes, $15 is too much for these titles.

@ Doh Ray Egon: I noticed you conveniently ignored my first question I asked. My or anyone’s opinion has nothing to do with the amount of content in the game. Love it or hate it, the game still has more content and replayability than your average 800-point game on here. Not to mention, if you got this same game on the PSP or DS, you’d be paying at least twice as much for it.

@IconicWhatever – lol
—
Irrelevance aside, I’ve sent off an email to Tozai asking for their opinion. I doubt I’ll get a response but it’d be an interesting input. Bet they’re fucking furious.
The way I see it all Microsoft have succeeded in doing here is alienating a sizable portion of their userbase and no doubt making links with Tozai very VERY tetchy right now.
Don’t be surprised if Lode Runner’s sales take a negative impact due to this with people who may have bought it not, out of principle.
A short rush of sales at 800 followed by a trickle at 1200 won’t sustain the game, where a long stream of sales at 800 might have done.
If Tozai have any sense now they should just bite the bullet and demand the 800 price be reinstated, with the few who bend over getting their 400 refunded as a “kind gesture”.
—
PS. Please, never EVER do an “of Arcade” promotion again. It doesn’t work.
—
PPS. Can we get the formatting for the Enter key fixed? I hate looking like a wall-of-texting prick, hence the — on some lines.

All right everyone who makes games, learn a lesson from these comments. My guess is that they would have gotten double the sales with a 800 msp price point maybe more. But at 1200 msp, nope. I know they lost 800 msp right here. Pathetic. Thanks for saving me the impulse buy guys.

It’s bad enough that the 400 point games have become extinct. I mean I can get TMNT for 400 but Duke Nukem 3D costs 800?! You better throw in some enhanced visuals for that price. Now we have stuff like this where it should actually be 800 points but it’s 1200 points. Then it releases for 800 points but Microsoft decides that’s not enough of your money and raises it to 1200. I guess that’s the $box 360 for ya.

@MACPH1ST0: I didn’t “conveniently” ignore anything. YOU didn’t pay attention to what I have already said. Just because a game has loads of additional content doesn’t mean squat if you don’t have any interest in that additional content. To someone who just cares about one mode won’t feel that it would be worth the price. And to them it IS overpriced. Whereas someone who DOES care about the extra content may feel it’s worth it. It is opinion…deal with it.

800pts yes 1200 no

So someone pointed out that if we saw this at a store on a shelf we’d pay 15. Yeah maybe but then we’d have a case, disc, manual and could resale it whenever we wanted. Or maybe give it to a friend or some family.

Then someone said that there’s plenty of crap games for 60 out there so this is a deal. Yeah those game go on sale constantly and if they don’t sell well they drop to nothing quickly.

With this digital content they never get that point. They still charge 10 bucks for Call of Duty 2 content when there’s been 3 games in the same series since. All content should be half price after a year at most to renew interest in the game. Then after 2 years or so just put it up for free. The developers made this stuff and no ones going to buy it that really wanted it after the intitial first months so give it away to maybe sell a few copies of a game to new people.

It’s little things like this that sway my decision when I am talking to customers at work. Because of this, it’s another reason I will refer customers to stay away from the 360. All the little things… high priced accessories, hardware reliability, Microsoft customer “Service”, overpriced XBLA titles, etc.

I don’t see what the problem is…if you look at any of a very large number of archived posts, since the beginning of the Arcade “promotion” the price has always been speculated to either be 1600 or maybe 1200. Then, this past week, the 1200 price point firmed up, and there weren’t very many people upset about it, as the game is a much improved version of a classic, with a TON of content. Yes, there was a mistake, and if you got to take advantage of it, good for you. The ONLY place the game was listed as 800 was here, and on the payment page, as even xbox.com’s page for the game listed it at 1200 this morning.

There are plenty of times that this happens…Timeshift map pack was “free”, then 800pts, Texas Hold Em was free for a week, and lot’s of content gets priced wrong (you have to remember that it goes live very early in the morning, and then the employees are on Pacific time, so there is a nice time gap between when something goes up, and when someone actually does something about it). I am just glad that MS is good enough to refund the difference when the mistake is the other way, and let us have the “discount” when it works out like this. How hard would it really be for them to revoke your “license” for the game until you paid the other 400 pts??? Most Marketplace “veterans” know to check early, every day, and when you see something free or suspiciously cheap, BUY IT!

Now you know…and knowing is half the battle!!

I wish I could turn my copy into a transferable license and sell it to someone for 800 points because I hate this game.

hahahaha

@Pronboy:
>Look outside the window – there’s a recession going on and the response of publishers on XBLA is to increase prices by 50% or more(and I’m not talking specifically about Lode Runner here.

Prices are going up BECAUSE OF the recession. Sales at 800 points were going down, Microsoft wants to keep their revenue steady so with fewer buyers they have to increase the prices. Basic economy rules at work. Another thing is that the US government prints billions of dollars to cope with the recession. All that money leads to inflation aka higher prices.

>Kudos to Sega and OutRun last week – I bought that as it was a good deal for the price.

Which is actually quite funny because it’s just the port of a 5 year old game with minor enhancements. If you want the old pricing scheme back 400 points would be the fair value for OutRun. There obviously went more time and work into Lode Runner, so if you think OutRun is fair at 800 you should have no problem with Lode Runner at 1200, the game is worth it, the content is there.

As for the rest: Publishers only laugh at statements like “digital downloads are worth less because you can’t trade in games”. They hate used games. The whole purpose of small game downloads like the XBLA or DLC for Rock Band etc. is to build the ground for the things to come. Now is the time where we get used to digital downloads and in a couple of years we’re all willing to pay $60 for a full game download.

@Doh Ray Egon:
Whether you want all of the content is irrelevant since the discussion is about how much content is there.
Whether you want the all the content or not is up to the individual and should be used when deciding whether to purchase the game or not, but it’s still there, whether you want it or not.

Wow, should have read through that again. I said “whether you want” way too many times…

The right thing that should have happened is for Microsoft to let people know that it was a price mistake and allow everyone say 1 day to download at 800 points and announce that the price would go back to 1200 on the given date. Disaster would have been avoided and respect would have been gained. Now it just looks bad and the simple blow over from Major isn’t helping, its pretty pathetic. I purchased the game @ 800 points and its a great game. Would not have purchased it at 1200 though.

&BerVa iNc
How is the right thing allowing more people to take advantage of a mistake?
If you accidentally dropped $5 on the ground and someone else pocketed it, should you be forced to drop more money on the ground for anyone else who wants $5?
-
As was said somewhere in this mess, when Microsoft have incorrectly priced something above the correct price, they refunded the extra money for anyone who bought it, even though they were under no obligation to do so. When they have underpriced something like in this instance, they wear the loss themselves. You have to give them credit for that.

Just who the hell is in charge of the marketplace?, anyone?, or is it just run by a bunch of monkeys hitting buttons willy nilly?.

Seriously, we PAY for this shoddy service, in the last few months there have been balls up galore, it would be bad enough for a free service, but for a PREMIUM service, this kind of rubbish shouldn’t fly.

Someone needs to take the marketplace people by the scruff of the neck and shake them buggers into shape, because clearly they are not doing a very good job of it.

Wonder how many sales MS has lost because of this mistake.

People love “deals” and “bargains”, should have made it 1600 at start then reduced it to 1200.

Funny how Major has completely disappeared after this pricing fiasco.

The only thing that’s worth 1200 points is something as BIG as Grand Theft Auto 4′s “The Lost and Damned”. I dare someone to argue this point.

I have registered only to post this. Yesterday, when I came here and saw it was 800mp I said “Ok, I’ll buy it and other Arcades I have pending”. I have about 50 Arcades, but wanted to buy Outrun, Dishwasher and Lode Runner. So I bought a 4200mp card. When I came home, I saw the news: Lore Runner changed to 1200mp. Now I know some people bought it at 800mp, I WONT buy it for 1200mp. So I bought Outrun and Dishwasher an saved my points for future game. Maybe if the game were 1200mp from the beggining I would have bought it, but now I will not. So If you drop the game to 800mp, conunt with my buy, if the game keeps at 1200mp I don’t want it (and I’m not the only one).

I am quite shocked by this move from Microsoft.

As someone who works for a publisher I would fully expect Microsoft to reimburse the original sales @ 800MSP.

But I dont think the devs have the clought

what a rip off, rubbish game, rubbish price.

MACPH1ST0 – what are you a ms fanboy ?

I’ve never played the original lode runner but i’m the process of downloading the trial to make my own mind up – if I think its worth 1200 points – i’ll buy it – if not I won’t simple as that

I don’t see why the majority of people are saying just because of the 1200 points price they don’t want it

when it first got released I bought bankshot billiards 2 for 1200 points – I thought it was 400 points too much but its a fun game and I play it enough to warrant the price

what if braid was originally put up on the marketplace for 800 points and got changed up to 1200? would everyone refuse to download it because it got increased?

If people are compaining without even playing the game and sayin its too much then that I don’t understand

however I totally understand MS need to do something – perhaps put the price to 800 points for like a week so people who are hard up can download it for the cheaper price – then back to the 1200 points

and before anyone asks me no – I am not a MS fanboy – i’m just posting my opinions

@ Doh Ray Egon: Karachi King gets it, why can’t you? This has nothing to do with anyone’s opinion about the game. It’s about the fact that this game has more content and features than ANY 800-point game out there. By your logic, someone who doesn’t like Halo 3 is fine in saying “Halo 3 sucks, it should only be $20!” Just because you don’t like a game doesn’t mean its content has no value. It doesn’t take a “ms fanboy” to figure that out.

I definitely got lucky and bought this for 800MP before they changed it back. It’s worth that price, but 1200MP is definitely pushing it. Considering what all the game has to offer, it’s truly a nice package.

I honestly don’t think I would have paid the full price after having played a decent amount of it. It just has a bore to it after like 30 minutes. Not like other engaging Arcade games like Marble Blast Ultra, N+, Castle Crashers, etc. Castle Crashers actually merits its price, and Marble Blast Ultra is a STEAL right now at 400MP.

Lode Runner is definitely classic, but some times it’s just better leaving the classics where they belong… in the past.

TRANSLATION: “Before we decided to start skimming people 1200MSP on a regular basis, Lode Runner was set to be 800MSP. It seems someone forgot to change the number.”

TRANSLATION 2: “This was meant to come out ages ago, which is why not only was it still priced 800MSP, but it’s labelled in-game as being the 25th anniversary of the game when it’s actually the 26th.”

800MSP yes
1200MSP no way
Really bad ending of the Arcade Days.

elektrixxx good catch about 26th anniversary =))

@StanleyPain Not all empty spaces changed to ladders. Just some. It was different for each level. Sometimes a lot of spaces would turn to ladders. I think that is what you are remembering.

A shocking end to a shocking promotion.

—–

Started with the well overpriced “Hasbro/EA Family Cash-In” which forced Microsoft to change the way they report Top 10 games. Nice going, still bowing to EA pressure after all these years.

—–

Only half the games were announced on the Monday here, as promised by yourself.
Too busy twittering no doubt.

—–

European marketplace put up all the dates on the “Days of Arcade” dashboard feature, which were promptly removed and the dates then changed to ”surprise people”. Yeah switching two titles around kept everyone guessing…… really it did.

—–

I even saw ads for the promotion on major gamesites (GameFAQs for one) that didn’t even work. They simply took me to the ”looking for something on xbox.com?” page. Money well spent there Microsoft!

—–

And to round it all off, this debacle over Lode Runner which shows that the people in charge of marketplace content, strategy AND pricing couldn’t organise a burger party at McDonalds. Major Nelson edits the post with a glib comment about lucky people getting it cheap, then spends all day………twittering about random crap and doesn’t offer a single explanation about this mess. The sooner people realise that Microsoft run this blog, not some “fan-friendly in-touch with-gamers person called Larry” the better. Best community site for 360 by far was the Gamerscore Blog, which Microsoft shut down. It had real people that actually responded to gamers’ criticism and comments.

—–

At least OutRun delivered or this would’ve been the worst ”promotion” I’ve ever had to witness. UNO RUSH was overpriced at 800 for what it offered over the 400point original, Flock was awful and also well overpriced at 1200, unsurprisingly they both rightly disappeared from the Top 10 just as quickly as they arrived – as did Death Tank at 1200 funnily enough. Conincidence? I think not. OutRun has outsold all 3 of those already, proving the point that lower price = more sales but higher price = far less sales which in turn means far less profit in the end. Go SUMO !!

I can’t wait to hear the next podcast and hear Major “gee golly gosh” right over this one like he does everything else. Hopefully he’ll interview the lead developer of Totem Ball 2 as well and try to tell everyone how much he’s looking forward to it and how great it looks.

@MrMFloyd
What exactly do you expect Major Nelson (or anyone, for that matter) to add to the explanation?
“There was a mistake with the pricing, and it has been fixed.” What other information could you possibly want?

I registered just to post on this debacle. I realise you’re not directly in charge of the Live Marketplace MN, but I would suggest you send out an email to whoever is (or their boss) and tell them to get this sorted out.

I wonder how many sales will have been lost due to this mistake, I’m guessing purchases trailed right off after the price was upped to 1200 points.

At $10 I might have tried this, at $15 I didn’t even bother to download the demo.

Thankfully i downloaded at 800 points but this situation is not making MS look very clever. Having played the game last night is def not worth 1200 points!

i was going to buy this game for 800.
1200? probably not.

there’s a few other games i’d get first.

the true test will be the upcoming genesis games like Sonic 3,Altered beast and Comix Zone.
under $10 on the Wii and whole stack of them on a xbox360 disc for $30.

why do we have to have prices of games in multiples of $5?
why not a 1000 point game? 500 point?

we pay more for “casual” games then the other services online and consoles so why do we have to pay to play online?

Ugh, never will spend 1200M$P for arcade title. 800 points is extra price for this sort of games, but 1200/1600 – not.
Will wait for some ”deal of the week” later this year.

@MACPH1ST0: You keep saying that it has more features than any other 800 point game and you are wrong. N+ has all the features that Lode Runner has and has always been 800 points.
It’s shills like you that enable companys and corporations to take advantage of consumers. That’s fine though, this kind of mentality has lead us to our current financial situation and in time it will get worse, until one day people will be forced to act differently.

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

@Doh Ray Egon ie
Um, let’s see, there is a level editor,you can SHARE custom made levels, there IS online co-op, and the levels are pure brain mashers until frustratingly-enjoyable-once-you-figure-them-out. I do not know that you are not in the know of that. 800 pts or 1200 pts, that’s enough content where you can REPLAY it over and over and NEVER play the same level twice in a long time. Think of it is ‘XBLA’s Little Big Planet with extra Beef’. I think I’m going to go ahead and buy it since I just got my LAST achievement in Carcasonne (deleted for more space), beaten The Maw (I know, I know, I’m late) and I can pass up OutRun and come back to it.

Oh and response to: Why is it that people aren’t allowed to “whine” here?
Response: “To give freely of one’s self is not to take away one’s dignity.” I whine sometimes, but, if this were say a sports game, I could careless as I’m not a sportsfan. Lode Runner is oldschool and those who have not experienced it have this new ‘fully loaded’ edition to try. $15 is not much as this game will keep on giving long after the achievements are completed.

so i can get Battlefield 1943 on XBLA with 24 player matches for the same price as this game?

this pricing structure is crazy.

So let me sum this up in my opinion of reading all these posts $10 = 800 points = Happy Gamers $15 = 1200 points = Unhappy Gamers who are too cheap to spend an extra $5 bucks. I would wager that if this title had come out on disc instead of being a xbla game for around $20 – $40 bucks everyone would have gone out to their local game emporium and bought it. But because it’s an XBLA game everyone has this sense of entitlement to the cheap A price of $10.

@ Jack Wraith: I thought someone might mention N+ and it does not have all the features Lode Runner has. It does not have the 3D graphics Lode Runner has and Microsoft neutered the level editor for that game because they were afraid of objectionable content being made in it. Somehow Tozai and Southend were able to get around that by making a yes/no pop-up disclaimer about objectionable content before going into the level editor. And how does it make me a “shill” just because I can see the true value of this game? Yes, there’s obviously a recession going on now, but to expect EVERY SINGLE GAME to be 800 points or less because of it is unrealistic. With the file restriction on Arcade games lifted and them becoming bigger and more complex to develop, there are going to be some Arcade games that are worth more than 800 points, and this obviously is one of them.

My desire to buy this game has now ALSO been corrected! Cheers.

Seriously, how can anyone buy this at 1200 now knowing people bought it for 800?

Amazingly stupid move, even for my favorite company.

to MACPH1ST0 and egamer25 – glad to see some people are actually looking at this situation properly and thinking about it sensibly – like I said in a previous comment – if braid was accidently put up at 800 points and increased to 1200 would that stop people from buying it??

Killer Scuzzy J
I am just glad that MS is good enough to refund the difference when the mistake is the other way, and let us have the “discount” when it works out like this. How hard would it really be for them to revoke your “license” for the game until you paid the other 400 pts???
Not very easily, because that would be against the law and Microsoft could have easily been sued.

What a mess.
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Honestly, what the hell are the people at Microsoft thinking? Are they intentionally trying to piss off their customers and developers? Properly pricing the game from the get go is one thing. Sticking with the “pricing error” for a couple of days to smooth out the ripples is another thing. But changing the price hours later without virtually no damage control in place is just assinine.
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It’s one thing to flat out ignore the customers that are pissed off about this. Because Microsoft has proven time and again that it really doesn’t give a shit about us. But if I were the developer, I’d be furious. Because this mess, and the devil-may-care approach Microsoft taken with it, will ultimately affect how many copies of this game will sell more than anything. And if the community here is any indication of how the gaming community in general feels, well… I won’t even expect this game to crack the top 10.
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On the subject of whether or not this games deserves it’s price point. No, I personally don’t think that it does. For all the features and replay some of you claim that it has, there are a ton of other games on the marketplace with just as many. Priced 400 points less. Justify the extra however you want. But you all know damn well that if that game had been released a year ago, it would’ve been 800 points.

I like many others here was outraged to play the trial yesterday and enjoy it before waiting to buy and then finding the price to have risen. I also noticed that not many websites seem to be reporting this story so i emailing OXM UK and they have now posted the story http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=9761
I can’t believe that after a whole day neither Microsoft or Major Nelson have apologised to us, the consumers, who have been gravely missinformed, with many people buying points in order to purchase a 800 point game only to find the price had rised.
Microsoft makes the mistake = Microsoft apologises/makes amends!

Also when talking about how much content an arcade game has you cannot include multiplayer over Live, becuase no one playes arcade games over live. The only arcade game I can play online with is Age of Booty, and only if I wait 15 minutes in the lobby.

@MACPH1ST0 Yes it DOES mean that actually. If someone doesn’t care about that content…it’s worthless to them and therefore it HAS NO VALUE. I am not arguing the case that there isn’t something actually there, I am arguing it’s worth from the idea that different people have different concepts of what something is worth to THEM. My point is value is subjective from person to person. What you think is worth 1200…someone might feel it’s worth 800. Your opinion that 1200 is a good price doesn’t make it a universal fact that it is worth that much.

@w00dm4n
You do know about Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection? I’m not whining or scorning and just asking,
“Why buy Sonic 3,Altered Beast and Comix Zone separately as XBLA Games?”. For the Achievements?
http://www.sega.com/games/?g=577

I have it and enjoy all of the games you’ve mention plus more when I play.

Though I will agree with “Why are games are in 200, 400, 800, 1200 and 1600 denominations?”
I asked myself that a long time agao. Some how I have 30 pts left on my account currently,
what can I purchase for 30pts? Or boost it to 50 points?

Why don’t people play the game before complaining about the price? I played it didn’t like it, so i didn’t buy it. e.g. played Braid like it, payed 1200mp for it. same for Castle Crashers.

@deffjams09 [Online Multiplayer Arcade Games]
I’m going to have to beg the differ, Bomberman Live, Aegis Wing, The Dishwasher (I’ve played with four different random guys – all cool, having fun and kicking butt), Peggle, UMK3, Bankshot Billiards 2 (usually casual, but seriously skilled Non-Americans) and Puzzle Arcade (very little chitchat as each person assembles their own sections of puzzle) games you can start up and quickmatch and have a good time (minus a LOAD of filthy words being said for no obvious reason). I’m going to buy Lode Runner later ONLY because I CAN play it online, but my biggest draw is really the Level Editor. Online co-op and customization (of anything) are key things I like and expect in more games.

@ Warrengonline
Good luck with that. I bought Lode Runner and there are NO multiplayer games available. Unless you personally know someone that owns it, then you will have a tough time getting in a game.

@KumO

Who are Microsoft to reimburse? The developers? I am sure that MS will have to pay the extra 400 points to the developer for each copy that was bought at 1200.

@ Doh Ray Egon: Since when has video game pricing ever been done on a subjective basis? I’m talking about being realistic about it, and how the content of this game compares to 800-point games. Whether or not you like said content has NO factor in how the games are priced. Why do you think the standard price of retail games increased $10 with the current generation? Try thinking of this from the position of the developers and all the time and money they put into making games like this, and not just what you think they owe you. There are plenty of games that I would never buy, but I wouldn’t be foolish enough to think that they should be priced less just because I don’t like them.

well thanks MS for the pricing error a** f**ks i wanted to wait intill friday so i can get the game but now is at 1200MS points now im not going to thanks alot.now i know its not your fault Major but still unhappy with the whole thing.

@Doh Ray Egon: If people don’t care about all that content, they’ve got little reason to get Lode Runner no matter what the price is.

@deffjams09
Yeh, MAC said he’ll assist me in the co-op. Hey, the game is up to 4 player for battle, maybe you can join in for some of that action – I’ll drop you a line once I’m set up and ready. Check your xbox mail later.

Stop Trolling MACPH1ST0, to me this game its not worth 1200 simple because i played the demo and i thought 800mp was a fair price i was going to buy it at 800 but then it go up to 1200 and its not worthy at that price, look at Flock it had Level Editor & Map Sharing and it FAIL miserable, extra content its not really that important core gameplay its was is all about and core gameplay on this game its good for 800mp, so i think “Doh Ray Egon” has a very good and valid point while you just are trolling, im pretty sure you got the game while it was at 800mp so stop trolling because you didn’t paid 1200 and if you in fact paid 1200mp for this game then…. a lol at you.

@ Makavelo: This game is nothing like Flock. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but that has nothing to do with the price. All your petty little insults won’t change that.

This is pretty much the last straw in me ever buying anything off the arcade again. What a contemptible act MS…shame on you.

I’ve had enough of your bait-the-switch tactics MS!!!
I saw this game was 800 points and I was excited to try it out.
Then I found out it was 1200 and it was as if someone had ripped my heart out. You can’t toy with people’s emotions like that MS! You just can’t do it!

I really hope this game sells terribly. I ususally don’t say that about a game, but I think some shady tactics went on to boost early sales.

I am wondering how many people come on and post that they are not going to buy it to look tough and join “The OUTRAGE” but secretly go ahead and buy it! I am a little shocked that Major hasn’t commented more on this…

So are people who used 1200 points going to get a 400 point refund?

Nevermind. Misread it. >_<

I couldn’t even take advantage because my 360 is at a repair center in Texas if you know what I mean.

I have to admit I’m disappointed. Not just because of the price tag (although I agree that $15 is too expensive compared to many of the awesome $10 games on the service), but because Lode Runner just isn’t as fun as I remembered it being. The package is nice (extra levels, new graphics, online, level editing & sharing), but the game itself is kind of meh. After playing N+ (which in many ways feels like the spiritual successor to Lode Runner), I just can’t go back.

Totally agree RainbowDespair.
It is like R-type it seems to be not as much as i remember but the 1200pts is the icing on the cake.

Played the demo.

This game isn’t worth $15. Hell, there are other games praising “user-based content” that are worth much more of your time *Little Big Planet for the PS3 is an example as far as any sort of game goes* and points. I don’t see where the trollers are coming from other than to debate about “Well Braid would still sell if it was 1200 points! Lololololool!!!”.

Maybe because Braid is more than a typical 2D sidescroller game and therefore its value is higher because of that? This “Lode Runner” seems nothing more than a fancy 3D upgrade to some old game people don’t really care about in the first place. Played the demo, hated the gameplay and how repetitive it all got very quickly. I’m usually NOT one to say that about old classics because I grew up on them.

I’m just….I’m sorry Major I do NOT SEE how this game justifies a $15/1200 points pricetag.

I’ll say it again; the only thing so far I’ve seen that’s worth every single point/buck for download is Grand Theft Auto 4′s “The Lost and Damned”. Definitely.

This whole situation is a real shame. I was way into xbla when it was still all about small old arcade games for 400 or 800 points. This is absolutely insane. I mean, what are you going to charge for something like castle crashers this year? 2800 points??
Selling average games like Flock! for 1200 points is just wrong.

And don´t get me started about this whole bait-n-switch thing you guys at Microsoft seem to have going. Yes, mistakes can happen, but you guys screw up a lot of stuff over at Marketplace (Fallout DLC for example)

Bionic Commando was a better remake than this and that was 800 points, back in the good days when only certain exceptions were 1200 points, braid, castle crashers etc! Haha i also just got an email from microsoft about upcoming stuff and recent releases and it claims that Banjo Tooie is Out Now! WTF is going on with all these mistakes at Microsoft!!!

1200 WTF?
I will not even bother trying the demo.

I wish to retract the praise from my earlier comment. Also, @Exu ; Try posting less. Silver members are just as valid as Gold members. Further, some of us were Gold members up until very recently. I stated that unless things improved I would not renew my Gold membership, and when things did not improve I made good on my promise. I am putting my money exactly where my mouth is. How about you do something similar, instead of just moaning?

Yeah, meant to apologise about the Silver thing now that some Silvers have come out of the woodwork that are NOT imbeciles. I’ll have to ignore your advice though.

“Yeah, meant to apologise about the Silver thing now that some Silvers have come out of the woodwork that are NOT imbeciles. I’ll have to ignore your advice though.”
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This is a pretty ridiculous comment. Since when does a person’s membership level on Xbox Live determine their intelligence level??? Idiot.

Yeah it seems like XBLA has lost its focus. Where are the old classics at 400pts?

Man the co-op on this game truly rocks!!! It is to awesome, frustrating at first and you HAVE to talk, just like in Gears of War 2 Horde when getting into position and making those jumps in Crackdown when using your partner’s head as a platform. Too bad you can’t get a taste of it in the demo. The co-op alone is worth 800 points to me. The Map Editor, I’m happy and sad to say, they have given the designer a bit too much tools (awesome), but now I can see levels from other games showing up – ie, first level of Mario Bros, Braid and more side scrolling. The Level Editor takes a little time to get use to (remember button X changes the item you want to use on level 0 – remember that) and that you work on levels (forefront, back, background, etc).

I look forward to playing more of this game, it is really neat. Those who are passing it up now, you’ll get the point ‘later’ after everyone else. Better later than never at all.

Meh what a joke putting up a game for 800 and then “correcting” it like 9h later. Sorry, if it was a mistake this would have happened way sooner. I had the demo in my download queue (after a movie) but when I saw the new price-tag I chanceled that one.

What I pay for is what I get… at least it should be that way. When there’s a new game with new mechanics and stuff that needs quite some designing/programming I’m willing to pay 1200MSP. But surely NOT for a game where the idea is there and the programmers don’t need to think about anything that should/is happening in the game.

IMHO Microsoft should’ve just not put it up as a mistake but say something like “It will be 800 till Saturday” or something. Would’ve saved them quite a mess.

Majornelson’s Podcast timecode: 1:00:57 to 1:01:00, what was that all about? ~L~

@ThePumpkinSomething – “This is a pretty ridiculous comment. Since when does a person’s membership level on Xbox Live determine their intelligence level??? Idiot.”

Not saying that at all. Anonymous posting stopped because many Anons were stupid. When that ended, in a few instances Silvers became the new Anons for a time. If anything I’m glad to see that end.
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So, the price still hasn’t been CORRECTLY corrected. Damned shame, if this had remained at 800 I may have ended up on the other side of the fence. Now, I and others have surely been put off for good. Not even a Deal of the Week in a few months is gonna save this one lest it goes to 600 or below.

Bah! Was thinking about it at 800…. 1200… definitely not. What are these guys thinking? Wouldn’t want to price anything right, now would they?

If this were a phyisical copy I could see $15, but for a download, $10 was just about right.

Get it straight MS and whoever sets the price. This idiotic pricing structure is ruining the good thing you had going.

The 360 and its cheerleader Major Nelson are such an embarrassment in so many ways it’s not even funny.

Yeah, pretty lame. 1200 is the new standard I guess. At least they sell PSN Network cards in my area now, guess my gaming dollars will go there for a while.

Only TOP quality games are worth 1200 points.

Sale=Lost. 1200 point games are NO BUYS.

Hopefully this pushes Tozai to release it on PSN where they charge real money and not these insulting space bucks that M$ and Major Nelson love so dearly.

Hopefully this pushes Tozai to release it on PSN where they charge real money and not these insulting space bucks that M$ and Major Nelson love so dearly.

Loved the demo! I remember playing this on my Apple ][. And this one stays faithful to the original. I will be picking it up at 1200 points, paid more than that for the Apple version.

WOW! I take back everything I said about this game. I played it with the Devs today and loved the Co-op mode! This game was worth every cent. They were bummed about the price drop and felt like people were blaming them. They wished it were handled differently in terms of pricing.

Anyway, the game is worth the money. I feel Microsoft should fix this!

I feel sorry for the game developers . I was just about to buy this then noticed the price had jumped up – no way I can stomach parting with the points now . The days of arcade has pretty much been a shambles ! It begins with the more than boxed game retail price of Family game night and ends with this some can get it for 800 , others have to pay 1200 scam ! What a shower Microsoft are . This wasn’t a last minute mistake either because MN had announced the 800 points cost on his podcast 3 days previously !
Another lost sale , deleting the demo from my hard drive NOW !

I went to buy this the other day then saw the price was 1200MSP!. That’s a no deal for me, 800 would have been a sale but 1200 for any Arcade game is simply more than I’m willing to pay. I ended up buying Lumines with the points instead.

Free from the shackles of gold at last! XBL arcade pricing has gotten completely out of hand. PSN has been producing some wonderful original arcade titles recently, that put the majority of offerings on Xbox Live to shame. And best of all they have been reasonably priced, and better yet there are regularly quickfire sales on the Playstation Store with many games discounted in price both new and old titles alike, (that aren’t subscriber specific, ala the pathetic gold only 120 points off crap were expected to stomach). Not to mention its great being able to share games with upto 5 friends over PSN. Talk about amazing value for money!

Lol that sounds like im advertising the PS3, believe me I’m not, I’ve been the 360′s most ardent supporter, but this nickle and diming and constant screwing over of europe has forced me into a more neutral stance. I mean if Steam can do deals for full price games like the orange box + the lost coast for $9.99/£5.69, and still make a profit, then something is clearly amiss with Microsoft’s pricing structure.

So yeah thats me through with Xbox Live Gold now as of today’s newly found Silver status. Sure am going to miss Call Of Duty, and clan matches over live. And no im not one of those people who can’t afford to purchase a sub, and that whine on just for the sake of it. Simply don’t like the arrogance I’m seeing shown towards customers inparticularly UK/european based folk, especially on a product I’ve seen returned 5 times. It’s just not worth it anymore… So whose with me? Probably no-one lol, but even I can see the cracks appearing in the most loyal of 360 fans