Prepare to pay full retail (and then some)

Pic courteously from Destructoid

I was genuinely excited for Hasbro Family Game Night. You can call me a casual dumbass for saying that, but the idea of playing board games with others is an ideal I support. Hell, I even bought a travel version of Sorry! just so I can play with others without having to get the full version. And, the idea of playing Sorry! and several other games (including Battleship and Scrabble) online with others via Xbox Live made me consider getting the game. That is, until the pricing was shown to the public.

The Xbox Live Arcade version of FGN is free, but it comes with no board games. If you want those, they will set you back at 800 M$P (or $10 in US currency) per game. And, only a select few - Battleship, Connect 4, Scrabble, and Yahtzee - are only available with the others (Sorry!, Sorry! Sliders, and Boggle) coming soon. Honestly, I think that's bull-cacca. Even though I spent $9 for SFIV costume packs and blew money on 360 themes and gamerpics, I'm not willing to spend excess cash for these titles (even though they may be technically cheaper than the real McCoys).

And then, I remembered something. I remember seeing this game listed for the Wii and PS2. And, when I went to the official web site, lo and behold, those versions existed. Guess how much they cost? $40 and $20 respectively, and both come with 6 games, the lone excemption being Scrabble. Guess how much it will cost to get all seven on XBLA? 5600 Microsoft Points, or in better terms, 70 bones. 70. United. States. Dollars. Horse Armor is technically better than this price-gouging bullshit.

While curse words fill my head (and probably yours, too), here's something I just discovered along with the price. This is technically a la carte gaming, in which you pay for only the things you care about instead of having to deal with the whole shebang and get crap you won't play ever. I remember hearing and reading about how the FCC has been hammering on the cable and satellite companies to allow the existence of a la carte services, giving the consumers to pay for only the channels they want and supposedly save some cash. This proposal technically led some companies like DirecTV and Dish Network to create cheaper "Family" Packages to allow consumers to get safe-for-the-kiddie networks ranging from kids networks (Disney Channel), kid/adult hybrid channels (Cartoon Network/Adult Swim and Nickelodeon) and general-interest/infotainment channels like Discovery that won't corrupt a child's "fragile little mind" (like the Dirty Jobs host artifically inseminating a cow by shoving bovine semen up a cow's vagina). The problem is that if the channels you want cost more than paying for the Total Choice package that contains the channels you want plus more at a cheaper price, it's just economically smarter to just go ahead and get the Total Choice package and fiddle around with the settings so you can only see the channels you care about.

Technically, I only care about a few games (Sorry! Sliders, Scrabble, Battleship, and maybe Yahtzee). But, there will be a few Xbox 360 users who are going to get all the games. And they are going to get burned big time when they pay $30 or $50 dollars more than the Wii and PS2 versions for the privelage to say, "Hey look! I got the same game as you, but I can play online and have Scrabble included as well!" The creators (EA) and Microsoft need to do what Rock Band (ironically a product that EA distributes) and others do: Offer the board games together at a discounted price. Like, say, the initial 4 for $30 and the next three for $20. Sure, that tallys up to be $10 more than the Wii version, but a logistical counter-argument will be the ability to play online and Scrabble. And, it's still cheaper than 70 effin' dollars.