amanohyo: I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. The companies releasing these games are largely based around the arcade market. They don’t competitively price console releases, because they honestly don’t care about expanding that market. It’s just a way to please some hardcore fans, and earn them a little extra cash. There aren’t enough consumers there to make it worthwhile for those companies to go hardcore marketing/price cutting in order to get every last person to buy their game.

Good single player modes and casual multiplayer modes tend to draw lots of players to a game, and in turn many of them get into the hardcore competitive modes. It’s hard to keep a genre afloat when all it offers is hardcore play, since the mass market is generally too intimidated to jump right into the deep end.

Don’t get me wrong, the high-level competitive scene is important, but if those are the only people interested in buying and playing your games, your marketshare is going to shrink… unless high-level matches in your game become a popular spectator sport… and you live in South Korea… and the name of your game ends in “-craft.”

I know Sirlin believes that the gameplay of HDR is compelling enough as it is, but in the end, it’s not a game that is going to expand the market much. There’s a ton of potential in this genre, but until companies start taking some risks and not focusing ALL their attention on servicing the needs of “arcade gamers,” these games will continue to appeal only to a narrow cross section of people.

I happen to be in that segment, so I’m overjoyed that HDR is being made, but watching all that potential being squandered for over a decade is really painful.

It’s not a rip-off… it’s exactly what consumers asked them to do, given the choice between practicing the game at an arcade, at a dollar a credit or w/e, vs. having a version to play at home. For most of those consumers, a perfect arcade port is far more important than additions like downloadable updates, and price isn’t a barrier (since a home version is inevitably cheaper than playing in an arcade once you’ve invested enough time).