Cinemikel said:







What made Octopath overcome the (dumb) debate of value because it came off to some people as a lower budget pixel game vs other games that underperformed because the public rejected something as "overpriced"? A lot of people say Sushi Striker was overpriced, but not really for the visuals. More because it seems the general market do not wish to pay $50 for a puzzle game So I guess Octopath did pretty well in July, may not reflect harsh on NPD due to missing digital, but it seems to have sold pretty well decently fast for what the game is. Probably already made back its budget in development, marketing and then some! MatPiscatella What are your thoughts on Octopath Traveler? I know you cant go into detail because it's July, but I wanted to reflect on a market's perception of a game's value through graphics. A lot of debate came from whether or not people thought the game was worth $60 simply due to the visuals of a game. Has that actually occurred for any game, even if the game was considered overall good? Could you go into that discussion as a whole? I'm sure you can probably find a pattern between games that you believe was rejected by consumers due to being overpriced.What made Octopath overcome the (dumb) debate of value because it came off to some people as a lower budget pixel game vs other games that underperformed because the public rejected something as "overpriced"? A lot of people say Sushi Striker was overpriced, but not really for the visuals. More because it seems the general market do not wish to pay $50 for a puzzle game Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I'm obviously not Mat, but I have a few hunches about this.I think people tend to make too big a deal out of the relationship between production value (2D vs. realistic HD) and price tag. I don't think most people care. They're happy to buy games with pixel art if they expect the right level of quality out of those games. They're happy to pay full price if they think the game is compelling.That said, the amount of quality they expect often comes down to how these games are conceptualized, stylized, and marketed. Do they seem like low-rate projects pandering to a niche? Or do they seem like the kinds of beloved, best-selling 2D games we got 25+ years ago, which fell out of vogue with big publishers during the rise of 3D/HD graphics and cinematic storytelling? As we see with NES and SNES Classic, people en masse never really stopped loving NES and SNES games - it's more that publishers by and large moved on from those types of games. So games thatseem to dip into that untapped well are bound to do well, but that doesn't guarantee that every classic JRPG-style game will do well.While you can clearly see the DNA connecting Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler if you're familiar with both games, I think Octopath's incredible success comes down to those sorts of differences in perception. From the get go, people were drawing comparisons between Octopath and Final Fantasy VI - I don't remember seeing favorable comparisons on that level for Bravely Default.I also don't really think Sushi Striker sold poorly because it was a $50 puzzle game. I think it sold poorly because it was a game that most people didn't really end up wanting or caring about.