Are Metroid Dread & Other 2D Games Worth $60?

with the announcement of metroid dread a big conversation's been going on about valuing games so should 2d games be 60 dollars should they be full price like a 3d game i'm done for nintendo live and i'm joined by the person who just shouted alex only hello yes my opinions are uh multi-layered no they're not we're joined by zeon too are your opinions multi-layered well i mean we already have the answer to uh to this entire video alex just gave it away a round of applause everybody end the video end slate let's do it so yeah this has been coming up a lot lately because metroid dread is a 60 game and there have been other contemporaries like ori in the blind forest or in the will of the wisps hollow knight and so many more in the metroidvania genre which aren't 60 dollars so many gamers are posing the question of why should this be full price and this has gone beyond metroid dread and just gone into 2d games in general and whether they should be valued the same as a 3d game i have my opinions but i'd rather hear from you guys first so what do you guys think about this i think valuing a game based on the number of dimensions it has is a ludicrous idea frankly i mean you can look at any number of amazing old 2d games even things like super mario world are you really gonna tell me that something like super mario world which is a relatively short game which released four full price back in the day i know it's not a direct comparison per se but would you say that that has less worth than i don't know you know assassin's creed 3 how many people will go back and play assassin's creed 3 not to rag on assassin's creed 3 although it is very mediocre but um would you go back and play that like it's a full 3d open world game it hit you know takes all the aaa boxes how many people are actually going to go back and like sit down and replay that and sort of think yeah replay it from start to finish but then think how many people are going to do that with the infant infinitely simpler super mario world like seriously everyone goes back to these simpler 2d games and i think that inherently proves that just purely based on dimensions it's nonsense it's absolute nonsense also can i just point out that a 2d game doesn't have as many dimensions absolutely you don't have as much freedom as a result the level building in the world design has to 100 be a lot tighter and more interesting in order to keep your attention which is a harder thing to do i think not to rag on assassin's creed even more but 2d games aren't as bloated most of the time but they're usually very tightly paced whereas at games like assassin's creed and most like ubisoft games of that kind they do kind of take their world and get the most out of them that they can and some people value that like some people don't look at a game that's 10 hours and say yeah that's worth it so for some people time is definitely a part of value and we all value games differently i can't tell you that that you should only buy games that are 10 hours long or 60 hours long because me personally time is not even a factor enjoyment is my factor but i fully respect that not everyone works that way yeah i mean i don't get me wrong i love big open 3d world you know 3d world games no 3d games things like skyrim you know skyrim arguably has a lot of bloat and there are no doubt reasons as to why i still enjoy it you know due to the world building and variety and just jank as well that's great fun that sort of stuff you know sort of i'm not saying for a moment that 3d games are worth less i'm saying they're worth the same for different reasons yeah i think i think you bring up a good point too is that you know pricing games has to be tough you know there's probably a lot of a lot of factors that go into play with it that we don't even even see because you know we we've seen nintendo released games at a cheaper price point than you know 60 dollars before like a game builder garage for example just retailed for 29.99 at least here in the us that's a 3d game and a 2d game you're right it's both what's it should be a hundred and twenty dollars hex it's it's always hard to say like why like why should a game be more expensive or less expensive we've we've run into instances too with like one two switch when that game came out uh i feel like i i can't remember if we've chatted about this before or not but someone brought up the point that that game should have been a pack-in title for the switch it shouldn't have been a 60 retail release and i i kind of agree with that right yeah at the at the end of the day or at least if it since it did release maybe it should have just been cheaper for the people that are buying switches and they they want something fun to play because that game it it has a lot there and there could be a lot of replayability with the right group of people but it's it feel it felt more kind of just like um kind of like a weird tech demo i suppose in many ways but but who are we to say like what these developers should be charging for their games if we if someone's charging too much for a game then we just don't have to buy it or we can wait for a sale or something and uh i don't know it's it's like if metroid if nintendo feels that metroid uh is is worth 60 dollars let them try to charge 60 bucks for it and then they'll maybe they'll drop it to i guess nintendo doesn't really do that who am i kidding it's easy with other publishers to say waiter out the game's going to get cheaper but that is not guaranteed with nintendo you say that but then there are classic instances where nintendo is absolutely just a susceptible to that animal crossing amiibo festival you know i know it's a god-awful game don't get me wrong i'm not suggesting that therefore it can happen to any nintendo game but i think the reason that nintendo games hold their value is because of their quality and that doesn't mean that other games don't have quality but you know sort of reams and reams of games are printed and then they end up sitting on shelves and things like that and people trade them in you know people have their fill and they move on whereas nintendo games not all the time by any means but are much more likely to have that kind of lasting power and that sort of people want to hang on to them much more so than other systems and what you were saying earlier zion about uh one two switch you know sort of the fact that yes i i agree personally it should have been a pack in game it shouldn't been the price it was the end result of that was i i didn't buy the game and i've never bought the game yeah because i thought it was too much money so i j i just didn't buy it i didn't go out on twitter and say this is ridiculous i might have mentioned it in a video i mean i've just mentioned it now but the end result is i'm not saying nintendo should absolutely bring the price down how dare they charge this much they can charge whatever the hell they like for it but i'm just not gonna pay that much i'm not a one-two switch defender by any means but that game sold more than uh it sold more than i think 503 houses and xenoblade chronicles 2. it was over 3 million units so it's hard to say to nintendo you charged too much for this game when it was a raging success this this this is a really good seller and i'm not saying that it's worth 60 dollars not by any means i'm just saying that they got away with it sure and maybe we shouldn't let them but they clearly did but with metroid i think this game has a legacy metroid is a series that's been going for 35 years and it's been absent for a long time too especially 2d metroid the last one was 19 years ago i think the series has earned the respect to charge that much and the biggest thing going against it though is other games in the genre so much cheaper but i'm saying games like hollow knight i think are ridiculously undervalued i would have paid way more for hollow knight oh yeah i've i've said time and time again that hollow knight is probably one of the best value games in terms of like the quality and the length of time you can play it without it just being you know playing the same thing over and over again you know per pound or dollar on the shop by a long margin yeah there's so much quantity so much quality very few games can match that and perhaps by necessity it was undervalued but if hollow knight were a 60 game i don't think it'd be as successful as it is people it got the it got the big recognition because so many people were playing it because it was so cheap um and if it were more expensive it probably wouldn't it was a new ip it was an indie game uh i don't think the same approach applies to nintendo team cherry are a four-person team at mercury steam i believe like 120-person team you're you're paying a lot more heads it's a much higher budget game there's 3d cinematics to me the production values the effort um and the the team just make it worth more in terms of of money but that doesn't mean that hololens can be a lesser game by any means i just think metroid has earned uh the 60 price tag you bring up a good point it's kind of this example just popped in my head but it's kind of almost like going and seeing a a well-known band or uh going going and seeing a live music act you know like i'm not talking about seeing your uncle play i'm talking about our uncle again you know this is the second video now that i'm bringing them up but you know hi dave it's not like you're going to see your uncle play at a bar down the street you know on a on a tuesday night you know um but but you know let's say you're you're going to see a band that you really enjoy you know versus going and seeing a nationally touring act that uh that pulls in just you know that fills amphitheaters you know you still could have a great time at both uh but but one one act just has the ability to charge more because that they have the the credibility uh of you know they people know that they're going to be a good time and they still could suck their their their vocalist could still come out and he could be a big jerk and he could be on a bunch of things that make him say weird stuff and then things are going to be really bad and nobody's going to go see animal crossing amiibo festival live anymore but uh but that's for the people to decide i and ironically want to see animal crossing amiibo festival live on ice you know these arguments don't really hold true when it comes to actual sales either the 10th best-selling switch game is new super mario brothers you deluxe at 10.44 million units that is a wii u port it's a 2d game and it sold over 10 million so clearly i don't think when it comes to sales 2d games sell less um the switch doesn't actually have that many 2d games to be fair like in the wii era though we had games like kirby's return to dreamland and you super mario brothers wii and donkey kong country returns and they were all multi-million sellers yeah how did you guys feel when link's awakening released because that was that's would you call that a 2d game i kind of would i don't know if there's a it's not 3d right is it it's a top-down 2d game isn't it yeah yeah this is another example entirely because that by design is a gameboy game like you're paying for a game from 1919. four i want to say isn't it 91 i'm pretty sure it came out the same year i did it it might be 91. when i say game now it might be 92. you know it's 93. we're all wrong oh god that's great that's great but yeah i mean by design that's a gameboy game and clearly they've done so much to elevate that but the game design does have roots to early 90s so should that be worth 60 i'm still gonna say yeah because i think the effort in remaking that game went a long way uh the production was crazy the music was amazing they all kind of came together and made this great effort as i said earlier we all value games differently but i would absolutely pay 60 dollars for a gameboy game if it has those modern standards yeah i mean i did i bought links awakening with my own money because i didn't get it um i didn't get a review code or anything like that but i was like you know what i want to play this game so i spent the i can't remember i think i got it for a decent price in the end but you know i still paid essentially full retail it's not like i got it used i got it like the weekend it came out i think you know i i paid full retail price for that game it's and do i regret it no it was just a game boy game a game boy game that i've played several times before but it was worth it for that price it was worth it to me i i bought the special edition filling's awakening and for metroid dread and i think what what makes me want to buy these in these in these special sets is there just aren't that many games like these like i don't want to bring up assassin's creed it's not fair and assassin's creed but there's assassin's creed there's far cry there's all these annual franchises which come out every year there's multiple of them too there's very similar triple a games but a game like metroid dread doesn't come out very often so am i more likely to buy the next assassin's creed which i can buy every year all the time or is my is my money better spent on something that doesn't come every um like every single year something special something different because for me yeah that diversity is worth a lot yeah i don't want to i don't want to come off as sounding like a big grump or i don't want to make people mad by saying this but i kind of want to know who's getting upset about metroid charging not 79.99 they're not like going above the board or anything you know they're they're charging the the most they can on the switch or at least the most nintendo is is charging but who who is who's getting upset about this like do you do you do these people want a new metroid game or not like it's been forever since we've gotten this is a brand new 2d metroid and and people are complaining about the price and i don't i feel like that didn't happen with links awakening maybe it did i mean nobody i think it did no but i'm sure it always happens to an extent you know yeah but i know you're saying like that this game is a big deal it's it doesn't deserve to be a budget title you know there's another game similar to this i mean it's a remake rather than a brand new game but i think they're undervaluing themselves which is um super monkey ball banana mania that's a i think it's a 25 pound game for the standard edition and 30 to 35 pounds for the special one which comes with a few cosmetic stuff but 25 pounds for two gamecube remakes and deluxe i think it's too cheap i'd pay more i'd pay more than that we know you would john we know you would i do appreciate that they are charging less for for a title like that like maybe maybe they're just trying to get more people to buy the game or maybe i don't know i don't know how how they came to that that number but but i agree though it does it doesn't feel like enough but it's appreciated that they that they're not trying to overcharge like if they feel that they can they can pull in the money that they need with that you know title uh maybe maybe that's just where they've set their mark maybe nintendo is charging 60 for metroid because they were worried that it potentially isn't going to sell as well as it could so now if they sell extra units they'll have you know extra income to make potentially uh another 2d metroid beyond this you know i think there's merits of that yeah um niche audiences you'll notice like a lot of jrpgs a lot of the stuff that doesn't sell great they tend to have special editions because publishers want to get the most they can out of them so if a game's destined to sell 200 000 units you may as well get as much as you can and with metroid yeah i mean this one does look like it could be a success but it isn't going to be the next mario or the next zelda i think the only people and this this is a very sweeping statement and um you know it's pro you know not accurate necessarily by any means but the way that i see it in my head are the people who are actively complaining and certainly brought you know to light the fact you know the the complaints that nintendo was charging 60 for metroid dread were they ever going to buy the game that's a good question i i feel not i feel like you if you are invested in metroid dread you're probably gonna pay anything for this game i mean it's it's it's a massive deal and and i suppose maybe at the same time too maybe there are people out there that are are genuinely curious like why why am i paying or should i be paying 60 for a new metroid game you know is that fair because there there are still so many people out there that i suppose have not played the series at all you know i just uh i've never beaten a metroid game before i've started a couple but i finally played through zero mission uh recently and i i started samus returns and i'm getting i'm getting my feet wet with the series and trying to figure it out and uh but yeah there's probably tons of people that maybe they do feel caught off guard like that maybe they maybe they feel they wouldn't give dread a shot if it or for it being 60 but they would if it was 30 and so so maybe there are a lot maybe there is some merit to this this question you know but i think uh it's good for us to like come out here and just talk about it and try to educate people as well i guess and say you know yeah this this series does seem like it it deserves the price tag obviously we have to wait for the game to come out to truly answer that because we have to play it first but it could be a hot pile of sick i mean i don't think it will be but you never know i mean this this price debate came out a few years ago too with donkey kong country tropical freeze on the switch and i if there were a brand new donkey kong for 60 dollars i would have no issue at all but the fact is tropical freeze came out on wii u for fifty dollars when it when it first launched um which is ten dollars less than it than it was five years later on the switch and i can see a problem there i can see how people are upset i still bought it because i'm an idiot but some people were pretty upset by that and with in that case that it's not because it's a 2d game i think it's because it was valued less and they've increased the price despite it being a few years old i think in that case there is merit being upset but um in in terms of just sweeping statements for 2d games i don't think so i was one of those people that was very upset about tropical freeze being more expensive on switch than wii u and i think i also purchased tropical freeze because i was waiting in line to play smash bros on 3ds back in the day and are the nintendo rep walked through the lines and handed out coupons for 10 off select wii u titles so i actually paid less than 50 less than retail wii you msrp for it so yeah i think i wanted to play that game on switch and then it came out and it was more and i was just i i was upset and so i was i was vocal about that but i yeah it was kind of a different situation that was a that was a game that we've we've already had before and now funky's in here and it's that's great that's great the new funky mode is worth ten dollars i mean come on i do think that um that is a that that is an unusual instance and i think maybe nintendo's learned from that but something else to take into consideration is the fact that um the three of us and probably most of the people watching this video we're all in a very surprisingly tight and small bubble you know sort of we we we're aware of the wii u we know about the prices and everything and all this but to the average punch on the street if i were to talk to any of my neighbors and if i would say my god can you believe that they're charging 10 you know 10 pounds or 5 pounds more whatever the equivalent in the uk was for donkey kong country tropical freeze when it was you know it was released on the wii u only a few years ago they just look at me and say what and even if they did know i imagine they just probably go um whatever i i think the general punter which is you know the silent majority essentially in these instances they don't care they don't make their voices heard they don't you know sort of um they don't watch videos like these or if they do they don't comment if you're part of the silent majority comment down below um but they you know sort of if they look at something they think that's expensive they will buy or they won't and that is basically that is the primary target audience for nintendo you know it's it's the people that don't that aren't deep into gaming and stuff like that which is kind of a bit of a weird thing to think about but yeah when you think about how many copies of uh wii sports sold compared to metroid prime or you know any of the metroid prime games that shows you just how big the quote-unquote casual market is and the casual market is getting a little bit more hardcore these days and nintendo's responded to that with a switch and they're doing well out of it but they're still they're still gonna be quiet they're still not gonna watch these videos and they're the people who make the money we definitely hear about negativity more than positivity i mean the pokemon situation full of negative comments people were very upset about the pre-release of that game and it's nearly the best-selling pokemon game of all time what else was saying about how the casual audience is kind of the the main pickup for these sales it's absolutely true those people had no idea i mean they they went into pokemon sword and shield just thinking it was a new pokemon game and some people even enjoyed it i mean i enjoyed it but you know it's you know it i have complicated feelings about sword and shield absolutely but regardless though it still sold really well despite all of the negativity surrounding it and i don't i don't want to dismiss anyone's feelings on metroid dread if you think it's too expensive you think it's too expensive that's fine but for me metroid dread and prime 4 are on a very similar level and i don't value prime 4 higher than dread at all let's let's say xenoblade chronicles 3 is on the way should a sprawling rpg which is 100 hours long with multiple worlds with all these side quests should that be valued at the same price as maybe a i don't know how i don't know how long that's going to be but most metroid games around like eight hours max should that be valued at the same a price as that for me yeah because i know those those eight hours are going to be full of quality and it's just going to be beat for beat moment to moment greatness whereas xenoblade's going to like very slowly drizzle out that quality over time but metroid's just going to give you all of it in one go and for me yeah that's worth it well can i use an arguably appropriate analogy sure imagine you uh you got two instances uh two different times in your life uh where you go to restaurants the first time you go to a restaurant you you go to a buffet and it costs you we'll just use it for an example 60 maybe it's not just you going but you and your mum so you go with your mum you go to this buffet it's 30 quid ahead 30 ahead rather you go in there you you have all this big variety you get yourself stuffed and you can sit there and eat for hours and just you know have bits and pieces of everything you could ever want i mean you know it's under heat lamps you know in those steam trays and stuff like that but it's decent food you enjoy yourself and the variety makes up for the lack of you know sort of beat by beat quality but then another time you go to a restaurant and you get served a little you know just a two-course meal of you know hand-crafted beautiful even just something as simple as pasta but you know it is cooked to perfection it is made by a master and it costs you 60 dollars for you and your mum and you have you know you maybe have you know a little little you know bit of pasta and stuff like that and that gets you nice and warm and cozy or a bit of pizza or something but really ridiculously high quality you finish it off with a little bit little tiny dessert or maybe not even a tiny dessert but a nice little something sweet at the end and it's delicious and you know you're there you know in the restaurant for an hour but you know you so you spent less time in it you've had less food but they're both worth sixty dollars is the buffet was that a reference to assassin's creed yet again um assassin's creed is one of those cheap buffets that you go to because it's cheap and you just basically when you're a student like i was you try and like abuse as many offers as possible and try and get a full like as all you can eat buffet for like a fiver which i managed to do a couple of times i don't think they were very happy the food quality was fine but that's all it was if your favorite franchise is assassin's creed that's that's okay by the way there's no problems with it you know sort of some people just like like i mean this is this is going in a weird direction but i just love bread not even necessarily buttered when i was younger and you know sort of i was going out into town with my mum or something i was just a little dinky child and we'd go to a bakery and she'd say you know i was able to get whatever sort of little thing i wanted i could get a sausage roll or i could get a a bun or something honestly i think a good seven times out of ten i would get a plain baguette sometimes i'd go mad and go granary but i just liked plain bread there's nothing wrong with liking simple stuff even if anyone else were to look at you and go why are you doing that who cares if it's what you like you like it enjoy it and sod everyone else you were an old soul even as a child alex i was an old soul i just like weaked ground up with yeast if we can afford games that shouldn't be interpreted as people other people shouldn't because games are valued differently for everyone and i don't want people to think that we're saying it's 60 that's fine we can afford it because that's not what we're saying at all not not by a long shot and games are heading in a very expensive direction where ps5 and series x games are 70 pounds which is 20 pounds more than what a standard switch game is i know it's just 10 in america but the increase in europe is even larger which is a bit scary uh and there are alternatives like game pass um i think like for like eight months you can almost get a ps5 game for the same amount of eight months of game pass which is ridiculous so there is definitely ways to achieve that value in other ways and right now the switches kind of look like the cheap option you're getting more value for money by buying a switch game than a next well then a current generation ps5 or series x game which is weird to think and if you don't want you know like let let's say you're you're kind of looking forward to metroid but at the same time you've got a ton of other games on your plate and maybe you're not even a big metroid fan just just don't buy it right away just hold off and wait i i'm i'm not trying to tell people that they they shouldn't uh that they shouldn't pick up this game if they're excited about it but like for me with donkey kong country tropical freeze deluxe hd featuring knuckles and and dante from the devil may cry series on switch i finally at three thank you i totally forgot uh about that uh i finally bought that game the this was like a week or two ago i got it from a guy on facebook for thirty dollars because that was a price that i owed twenty it was twenty dollars actually sorry and uh it was yeah it was a steal and but nintendo didn't even get that money i bought it pre-owned you know so like uh obviously that didn't support nintendo at all but i i waited for a point where i was happy because nintendo wasn't dropping i think they actually did recently drop the price of tropical freeze at gamestop down to 40 bucks and i've been watching that game like a hawk everywhere because i've i've wanted it but i didn't want to pay 60 dollars for it and so you know if if something releases and it's not within your budget don't don't feel pressured like you have to go get it either just wait for the moment that's that's right for you yeah games come down in value even if you know i know we said the nintendo games rarely come down in value but the second hand market is still booming just wait for the secondhand market and things will come down and you know over time and it's never you know it may well be the metroid red is never like 20 quid or anything like that you may never be able to get it for that price but you know what if it's still not worth that much to you then maybe you could borrow it from a friend or something you know there are plenty of avenues uh or maybe just you know sort of save up or ask for it for a birthday or christmas or another celebration just you know it just because it's 60 now it doesn't mean that's the price you're always going to have to pay for it just don't leave it so long that it starts becoming rare and valuable because then you'll be paying even more for it right yeah it's a complicated situation but i think us through unanimously believe that 2d games shouldn't be less than 3d games just because of their dimensions maybe there are other aspects to their design or their content or their quality but just being 2d to us that doesn't make a difference well said absolutely it's the restaurant analogy all over again indeed but what do you guys think do you think 2d games should be more expensive and if so reason why you believe that down below but until then go that subscribe button but be sure to press it fast because you've left it for a while and ah the value's going up quick and we'll see you next time bye everyone i'm in a 2d world i think i'm gonna cancel my skyward sword pre-order and pre-order metroid dread that sounds like a good shout you

Channel: Nintendo Life

Views: 85,239

Keywords: Nintendo Life, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Switch, NX, New 3DS, Nintendo UK, Jon, Alex, Zion, Metroid Dread, 2d, $60, full price, super mario, donkey kong country, tropical freeze, price debate, worth, is it worth it, gameplay, mario, super mario world, samus, chat, discussion

Id: Kki6l7tf1XE

Length: 29min 14sec (1754 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021