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Lumines Live! Creator Defends Content Downloads
Eurogamer reports that Lumines Live! creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi is defending the extra content downloads required to play the entire game on the 360. From the article: "Mizuguchi told IGN that one reason for the download/pricing strategy was technical ('We have to include everything in 50MB') but that the other reason was the desire to let people customise Lumines. 'We want people to look at Lumines and, depending on the artist, or the season, or the music, we want to give them different reasons to consider buying the game,' he explained." Relatedly, the Live service hit 4 Million users, Microsoft has announced. "Microsoft reckons it's on track for six million users by June 2007. 'We openly welcome other console platforms to join us in [the online] space,' [they say], a bit mockingly."
The problem is not that the game is downloadable. The problem is not the price -- it is actually fairly reasonable for a puzzle game. No, the problem is the semantics used. The game is listed as "Unlock the Full Game", not "Unlock Mission Mode and a Few Trial Modes". This sets the expectation that the player will have access to ALL of those locked modes that you see in the trial version of the game, not a handful. Furthermore, the developer's assertion that he is allowing the player to "download and customize the game" is pure hogwash. If he is, where is the granualarity? There is, at present, the "Full Game" (really just a "base game"), a future skin pack, and an additional pack of mode unlocks. That's hardly "customization". Since Microsoft pushed the microtransaction model so hard, why isn't this company taking advantage of it and offering individual skin download or genre packs for a small discount? The fact is that this is a simple example of publisher greed and comes very close to a bait-and-switch method of dealing with gamers. Microsoft needs to step into this as a consumer advocate and offer a refund in MS Points (and a corresponding revocation of the ability to play the game) to anyone who feels shorted by this situation.