AMY Producers Give Gamers A Chance To Choose PSN Price

AMY

So very cool.

Yesterday, the release dates and prices were revealed for VectorCell's ambitious new downloadable title, AMY.

But it didn't take long for gamers to notice that something seemed amiss with the pricing: while the Xbox Live Arcade version was going to cost 800 Microsoft Points (the equivalent of $10), the same title will cost $12.99 on the PlayStation Network. Granted, the latter version releases a day early but that's only due to common update schedules for each service, and doesn't exactly justify the price difference.

In response, VectorCell and Lexis Numerique have decided to give the community a say in the game's pricing. Lexis Numerique CEO Jose Sanchis sent over a letter explaining the reasoning behind the current pricing, and a way gamers can change it if they so choose. Essentially, they're giving us the chance to dictate the price of AMY in the US. After explaining that they believe the title to be very innovative and well worth the cost of admission (it boasts 8-10 hours of gameplay, after all), Sanchis went on to explain.

Check it out:

"We decided to have a new approach to digital distribution by proposing heavy content at a very reasonable price because we believe price is a key issue, especially during hard economic times. Indeed, we believe AMY could have been sold a little bit higher. However, the issue we have to deal with is that a price in MS points doesn't have the same value in all countries. Indeed, because of fluctuations between the dollar and the euro, 800 MS points are currently worth $10 in the US but €10 in Europe, which is about $12.8.

As we have the same price in MS Points in all countries, there will be a difference of pricing whatever decision we make between countries and/or platforms. The pricing scheme we announced enables everyone to buy the game at a reasonable price with great value for the money, with an even greater deal for the XBLA gamers who indeed have it cheaper.

This level of price is a tremendous effort and risk for independent teams like VectorCell and Lexis Numérique, all the more as we invested probably much more money in AMY than many console games available in digital distribution. But because we didn't explain the situation, we understand the reaction of certain US PSN gamers who don't understand why they should pay a little bit more than their friends who play on XBLA.

We even decided to go further. Now that the community has the elements to understand why we proposed this price scheme, we want to involve as many players as possible to tell us what to do with the price in the US: do we keep the current situation (800 MS Points for the XBLA version and $12.99 for the PSN version) or do we cut the price and margin for the PSN version (800 MS Points for the XBLA version and $9.99 for the PSN version)."

We thought gamers should see most of the letter, because it really is a great gesture. And to vote on the subject at hand, visit the Facebook poll and let your voice be heard. I hate to ask, but do you really see companies like Activision doing this...?

VectorCell and Lexis Numerique will do whatever the majority of the community says; voting ends on Monday, January 9 at 12:00 PST so get your vote in there. There's only one downside: if the majority does ask them to drop the PSN price, we may be facing a delay of at least one week "because of logistic constraints with the PlayStation Store."

Related Game(s): AMY

Tags: amy, vectorcell, amy price, amy price poll

1/6/2012 8:33:47 PM Ben Dutka

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