OK. Questions and comments - prices based on 240 points being about £2 in the UK (excluding bargain points) and 40 points being 34p.
The pricing structure for take-home games is fair.
For a play as you go title where I've had to provide the hardware, electricity and premises (compared to a regular arcade) it's over-priced. Better machines (90s) than these would be 20p a shot at the seaside, don't charge a premium for something that is cheaper to scale up than the real world equivalent.
Question: If I play a game on 'quarters' (40 points) to the extent that I have put in 240 points do I get to keep the game?
If not then you are almost admitting that quarters are basically only there to encourage people to buy straight after their demo. Most people won't play these old titles more than 6 times anyway, but if they 'win' the actual machine for funnelling in quarters it's going to be a big incentive to try before buy and then just to keep going after they hit 2/3 goes so those 80/120 points were not 'wasted'.
Both amounts of cash are trivial to people in their 30s like me that this is aimed at, but if you want users to spend casually like in a real arcade you need to lure people in with incentives to spend - I trust the devs did actually go to arcades and see the different types of people that go there and what they spend their time on? If so they know the basic people that they are targeting and how to get them to spend, if not this is going to be as dead as HOME. Get a casino floor manager on board as a consultant to tell you whats not working once you have some basic figures.
On the subject of the one Demo Ever - this is a great move and better than I thought it'd be. Note that I can redo the demo infinite times on arcade and indie games though. What are you telling the consumer by giving them this option - that most games you only need to play once, or that after the demo you'll be hooked?
Question: Can silver members get a game room and do all the demos etc? Can they visit a friends game room?
Question: IS there any difference or advantage to having my one free go in a friends arcade?
If I have to visit someone and see if they have the machine I want to play for no extras I might as well just play the demo at 'home'. I'd need a reason to go to someone elses virtual space - why not make it so they gift me a token each week for their arcade that I can spend in any machine they bought?
Otherwise it's like having a house full of arcade machines and no one to play them with like Tom Hanks in Big. After the initial buzz no-one will bother to visit other peoples arcades if there is no incentive other than 'check out my phat lewt'.
Sell a retro joypad with a points card, seriously, put this into action today. This also doubles as advertising the service in Bricks and Mortar stores so even if it's practically a loss leader or a special edition to celebrate a specific game then it's worth it. Most people don't bother looking through all those lovely blades - they do see boxes on shelves.
Encourage publishers to give away their back catalogue with modern games. Stick codes in game boxes and give GameRoom related things away the same as avatar rewards when you reach certain points in games.
The Achievements system is odd, but workable. Those who crave easy achievements will get it free and get the first few and maybe get hooked, those that love 100% just lost the price of a full game on these mini-games. I'll be watching trueachievements to see how it goes on that respect
I can see 'Easy to medal' games selling well to the crazy people who go for the Achievements too so it'll be interesting to see which devs lower the bar (Avatar style) to get the quick sales.
On a side note when a friend told me that Xbox 360 live was going to have an 'Arcade' back before the console came out this is how I pictured it (minus the avatars) with me spending lots of coins on games that I remember from the past and only buying a few that I wanted to keep. It's taken a while to get past the iTunes model that XBL Marketplace has had since the start but I think this model will prove interesting and may get bigger as we plough through the older titles and into the newer ones.
I want historical landmark arcade games and then the Konami 90s side scrollers like X-Men & Asterix.
And that post turned out a lot longer than I thought so kudos to anyone actually bothering to decipher it.