With the launch of Braid to the Xbox Live Arcade this week, there has been a lot of talk surrounding the pricing of the title and whether or not it warrants the above average price tag. The game debuts for 1200 Microsoft points ($15USD / $17.15CDN), which is only slightly above the normal 800 MS Points ($10USD / $11.43CDN) that most titles launch at. While it doesn’t seem to be that big of a difference, especially considering the acclaim the game is receiving so far (look for our review next week), there seems to be worry about setting a bad precedent for future XBLA game pricing and the lack of content within Braid in terms of raw hours playable as to question its “value”. The only other game that has this price point on launch for the XBLA is the popular Puzzle Quest, so why the backlash on Jonathan Blow’s (creator of Braid) platformer?

There was initial hesitation on the price of Puzzle Quest when it was first announced, but the major difference seemed to be that it was twice the price on the Nintendo DS, where it was first released, so the savings involved in that were very apparent. Braid does not have anything else to compare to.

So just what sets the “value” of a game? What is a game worth to you? Is it the time that’s spent in it, the time that took to make it, or just the overall quality and depth of the game? A lot of factors are involved in the concept of pricing a game, some of which are lamented in and described in an interview with 1Up yesterday. With Blow being an indie developer and wanting to simply break even, it makes the subject a bit trickier to not empathize even just slightly. Pricing in this case depends on the audience, what they’ll pay, and how much it will take to simply make enough money to cover development costs. For a lot of indie developers, this makes a lot of sense, especially when you are trying to break out in the industry (we’ll see more of this with the launch of XNA later this year).

For major studios, however, what sets the price? What makes almost every game that arrives on shelves now to find a steady price point of $59.99 regardless of size, content or developer? While that’s not necessarily a defined price for all games and platforms, most titles seem to launch at similar prices, gradually reducing over time. Unlike with the film industry, gamers don’t get a full sense of just how a game profits beyond the various numbers that come streaming through each month about sold and shipped units. What is the sweet spot for developers so they can have a good idea that they will profit off of any given title?

There are a lot of questions here, as it is a fairly loaded question: just what gives a game value. Consider Criterion’s Burnout Paradise, a game that has been loaded with in-game advertising for the better part of this year through the use of banner ads scattered across the Paradise City. There was a lot of criticism and debate on lowering the price of the game in reaction to this, which the publisher / market seemed reluctant to do, so just where did the value of the added advertising go to the gamer? Well, with a consistent plan of patches that add more than just bug fixes, Criterion is pushing the limits of free content with added races, challenges, modes and even motorbikes and environmental shifts later in the year. The price also has dropped in most places to just below $40, which is making the game much more attractive to fans of the series who may have missed it.

In-game advertising can be almost completely transparent to the value of a game. EA Sports has had consistent advertising in their products not just through actual banners or direct sponsorship, but also through licensed soundtracks. These additions seem to give little back to the players of the game, perhaps adding a tinge of realism to a genre that is loaded with advertising in real life, but the price point of these games usually remains the same and only drops once its sequel has arrived.

Games like Blast Works for the Wii have recently suffered the fallout of poor pricing methods after having to slash the price of their game from $39.99 to $19.99 after sales did not take off as well as planned. Many other games have stayed adamant about their pricing, merely relying on stronger marketing or word of mouth to continue the sales of the game. Many first party games for each console remain consistent throughout the time they are available, likely due to the fact that they have made their money within the company and don’t have a strong desire to reduce the price unless it is a Greatest Hit.

The real question is, what makes Braid worth $15 dollars and GTA IV worth $60? Is it the features, the graphics, the style, the gameplay, online, offline, re playability? What do we value as gamers? A lot of questions we’re going to have to continue to ask ourselves as the dynamics of in-game advertising and downloadable games and content continue to rise within the industry.