Has App Store mentality led to cheaper click wheel iPod games?

One of the unfortunate side effects of the iTunes App Store is that it’s spoiling the chirrens. If a game costs anything more than…free…the product comments area will be full of people whining and sniveling about how the app is overpriced. It got so bad that Apple had to limit the number of people who review an app to those who have actually, you know, used it. But if you’re not afraid or embarrassed to click on that “iPod Games” link in the iTunes store, do so now to read some customer reviews. I’ll wager that the majority of the comments are complaints that $4.99 is too much to pay for a game. I know times are bad right now, but come on! $4.99? You’re hard pressed to get a meal at McDonald’s for $4.99 these days.

And yet, it’s happened. While poking around through the iPod games, I noticed that two recent releases—Chinese Checkers and Reversi—are both priced at $0.99. They both list Apple, Inc. as the developer, so I suppose it makes sense that they could come in so much lower than games developed by EA Mobile, Square Enix and Hudson. Customer reviews of these games are obviously favorable, but it has lead to more mobs gathering at the gates of the other games.

For example, following are lead reviews of the top-placed $4.99 games at the time of this writing:

Cake Mania 3 – I have never played this game, but its nice to see more games. Good job. Now you just need to lower the prices. Click yes if you agree. Thanks!

Trivial Pursuit – THANK YOU ITUNES FOR NEW GAMES (NOW LOWER THE $) CLICK YES IF YOU AGREE

Crystal Defenders – I’ve only been playing this game for a couple of hours but so far I don’t really think it is worth $5. I mean it is very fun but not $5 worth of fun. Press yes if you think that itunes should lower the price to like $3

That last one is my favorite. Exactly how fun does a game have to be to worth $5? Apparently, “very fun” isn’t enough. But listen, kid, if you’ve played a game for a couple of hours, guess what? It’s worth $5! How much are you paying for a two hour movie? How much are you paying for a game rental that you can’t keep? And seriously, lowering the price from $5 to $3 is going to make that much of a difference to you? What’ll you do with that $2 you saved…wait until you’re paid next week’s allowance so you’ll have enough for another $4.99 iPod game?

That’s not to say all of these iPod games are worth $5, but know what? If a game’s not worth $5, it’s not going to be worth $2 or $3. If you can honestly tell me you’ve uttered the phrase, “Well, there’s $2 I wish I had back,” then you’ve certainly been hit harder by this economy than I have…and I’ve been trying to sell a house for a year-and-a-half.

What people aren’t realizing is that developers need to make money off these games. Hard to believe, yes, but companies need to make money off the games they’ve developed in order to spend money on developing new games. So, if they’re charging $2.99 or less, that’ll just result in less profit, which will result in fewer games. Some may argue that lowering the price by $2.00 will lead to more sales, but I’ll bet not enough to compensate for the lower profit margin (if that would even turn a profit). After all, it’s not as if iPod gamers can just pick up and take their business elsewhere.

Or can they, now, thanks to Apple? Hopefully, gamers contemplating Lode Runner won’t instead buy Reversi just because it’s $4.00 cheaper. If that happens, and Apple’s games drive down the price of other, more robust iPod games, that’ll mean an end to high-end titles such as Crystal Defenders, Lode Runner and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. Is that everyone wants when they demand free software?

The App Store pricing system is a broken mess. The iPod Games pricing system is not. What do you say we fix the one that’s broken rather than break the one that’s fixed?

Click yes if you agree.

• See also Will the iPhone kill iPod Click Wheel gaming?