This is a wonderful wonderful post. I'll follow up with a question:

Nope, even better. Economics major. What you call purposeful obfuscation I call the principle of consumer value. I honestly believe what I'm saying.

The price we pay for the game is what the game is worth to us as consumers. If we didn't value the product at $60, we wouldn't pay $60. So if a company finds a way to sell a $60 dollar consumer value without paying a retailer cut, good for them. But the consumer is getting the same product for the same price, so…

Why should the costs the company is paying for distribution (if there even are any) alter the consumer's value calculus? Don't matter how much they paid to make the product or distribute the product, only matters if the product is worth, to you, the price being asked.

Ayup. It went down again because it eventually got a second and third print run. But it was one of those weird games like Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn that didn't follow the normal price curve. Started at normal DS retail, went up from there. Radiant Historia is another one.

Better than Phoenix Wright 1, which actually increased in price 2 years after release :P

But... it is the same thing. The exact same thing. You play the same game on the same hardware with the same content. The product experience for the consumer is identical. If you buy Super Mario 3D Land digitally and you buy the cart both, you have two ways to access the same exact experience.

Please do explain then. Why should consumers pay less when a publisher is able to cut costs in distribution? And why should consumer prices reflect publisher spending in distribution but not reflect spending on asset generation, marketing, or other costs of creation?

And yet is your statement 'If the producer isn't paying for a game cart, case, and shipping expenses to the retailer, I don't see why I'd still have to pay the same amount." not an expression of that same mentality? That idea that the money a publisher puts into a project should be reflected in the price the consumer…

This is a silly mentality I see a lot on the internet. "If a company spends less to produce a product, they should charge less for it." That's not really how the world works. As a consumer, what you economically should be concerned with is what value is being proposed to you. Is another Ace Attorney game worth $40 (or…

This is a silly mentality I see a lot on the internet. "If a company spends less to produce a product, they should charge less for it." That's not really how the world works. As a consumer, what you economically should be concerned with is what value is being proposed to you. Is another Ace Attorney game worth $40…

Reading through all the comments about this announcement, it is shocking to me how much people seem to value their collections of physical carts and boxes. The idea of a "glaring empty spot on a shelf" is so foreign to me.

I throw my games in a box and rustle through it when I wanna find something. I buy most of my games used. Your enthusiasm for packaging and organization is foreign to me. Some of my favorite games I don't have a box for, and many of my DS game boxes hold two or three carts just to keep them from getting lost…

Okay guys, real talk. Let's talk about this new Ace Attorney game.

Maybe I'm just a simple man, but I find myself very happy not to be running that sort of value equation. My value equation is never more complicated than "Am I willing to pay X price for the content of the game?"

I too would prefer to have a box and cart, but going all the way to "flat out don't want to buy the game" just because of the distribution model? Isn't that kinda extreme? I mean, this doesn't change the content of the game at all, and it's the content that matters. It's the content that we care about. Right?

Really? The box and cart are worth half the value to you?

Why is Phoenix talking to himself? I mean, that happens all the time, but I always interpreted it as him thinking to himself. But here I see his lips moving as he fusses about whether he's going to be able to prove guilt or not. I hope that's not the norm. The thought of him constantly muttering to himself is...…

It is pretty hard. The second GBA Fire Emblem is appreciably easier, but then they started ramping back the other way. Fire Emblem Gamecube is a touch harder than the second GBA game, and then the DS one is a little bit harder still, and then the Wii one is brutal and soul crushing. It is to the new Fire Emblem's…

...we're talking about Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn here. Scroll up in the comment thread a little bit.