FIFA Street wasn’t a bad game by any means, but a fair amount of reviews, including one from yours truly, suggested that the game may be better suited as a cheaper release as opposed to a full priced one. The game did receive a price drop, but the surprising thing was how quickly one came — in less than a week.

 

One couldn't help but ask: Perhaps the game was overpriced to begin with?

I don't want to argue the business aspect of this, simply because I have no way of knowing, financially, just how successful Street was. Theoretically, however, it just doesn't hold up to release it at $60, the same price as FIFA 12. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that as it stands, no arcade sports game do.

Having been your typical starving college student not too long ago, I am still conscious of the price tag whenever I buy anything. Video games especially make me draw up a whole list of pros and cons. After all, $60 can either mean one less game in my collection but some decent meals, or getting that game and microwaving Hungry Man dinners for a week. Because of my stinginess, I will never buy an arcade sports game at full price, simply because the value isn’t there.

 

At $60, it's easy to tell FIFA Street was overpriced.

 

Team-based, simulation sports games — quality issues aside — have always had the greatest bang-for-buck of any game genres on the market, and it’s because of one thing: franchise modes.

 

Why is that you ask?

 

Because technically they offer unlimited replayability. Your goals are constantly changing depending on: what team you start with and what the AI general managers do within your particular game, both of which force you to make different decisions, creating endless scenarios within the game. You can start 10 different franchise saves with the same team, and it’s incredibly likely that two, three years into it, you get 10 totally different league standings. This ever-shifting landscape offers a non-linear playability that contributes so much to keeping a game fresh, and calling a gamer back to the fold after their inevitable, initial, burnout with a game.

 

Think about it: how many times have you popped back in a disc that sat on your shelf for a month because a hopeless team just made another bad trade, and you wanted to take that control of that franchise and sim the future?

Arcade games, sadly, don’t offer gamers that possibility. Most have, in some way shape or form, a structure that asks you to “beat the boss:” play teams from around the world, be No. 1, etc. Beating the boss is fun the first time around, but there’s very little incentive to come back once you’ve conquered the world and reached the top.

 

The lack of a mode that gives longetivity creates a value hole in Arcade titles.

 

Franchise mode in sim games, on the other hand, asks you to stay on top, coercing much more of your time.

There’s not too many solutions to this quandary, it seems. The most obvious one is, of course, to drop the price. After all, when a game offers partly the replay value that a $60 game does, it’s reasonable that it should retail for partly the 60 dollar price too. And while we’re at it, it’s only logical that more and more arcade games transfer over to digital download. The digital channel is accessible, great for impulse purchases — which arcade games are primed for — and it helps reduce cost to get the price to a more competitive range.

Or perhaps there is something that can be done to enhance the value of these arcade games to keep them at full price. Increase its replayability, essentially. Can there be a franchise mode for arcade games? Possibly, but instead of trying to cram a “reality-based” mode into an arcade game — which may ultimately confuse more gamers than it will attract — why not continue the fantasy and offer a mode similar to EA’s Ultimate team? Trading cards and arcade games seems to go hand in hand with each other.

It just doesn’t make sense to price arcade games the same as you would to the, for lack of a better term, “fuller” games such as FIFA. One offers technically limitless replay value because of the changes that can happen every time you start a new franchise; while the other is a static, linear progression to a definite end (unless you enjoy playing every day against friends and online opponents for hours on end). As it stands, you just don’t receive the same bang for your buck. So until that changes, I won't be buying a $60 arcade sports game any time soon.

OSers, chime in! What do you think of a $60 arcade sports game?