The Witness certainly falls under the bracket "indie game", but much like the upcoming No Man's Sky, creator Jonathan Blow's open world adventure is not your average pixel art side scroller. And subsequently, the Braid maker is commanding a premium fee for the puzzler: $39.99 in North America, and £29.99 in the UK.
Despite the game launching on 26th January, there won't be any pre-orders on the PlayStation Network. "Apparently developers have to set those up months in advance," explained Blow, "and we didn't know that." It's no biggie, though, because the creator's not got any pre-order bonuses in the pipeline: "[Pre-orders on the PC] contain an amazing bonus pack-in: the warm fuzzy feeling that you have pre-ordered the game. And that's all."
Nice one, Jon.
[source the-witness.net]
Comments 28
Expected it to be high. Surprised they're not doing a retail release as well to be honest.
I wasn't that interested in the game anyway, but as a matter of principle, $40 means retail or no deal.
I find the guy creepy as hell, but Braid was superb. If this has an 80 hour campaign then that's money well spent far as I'm concerned.
I thought Braid was the most overated indie of last gen, want impressed at all. Not a bad game but not great either. This might be good, but I'm not paying that much.
Waiting on reviews, impressions, a sale or a physical release.
If the game is good, that's dead cheap. I was fully expecting this to be full price, so £30 is excellent news!
I don't have a problem with paying £30 (and I don't see why others do) for any game if its a good game and this actually looks promising. I do wish it had a retail version too though. The problem with digital only games are you never really own them. Yeah its yours to keep for as long as you want but, if you decide to delete it as some point to make room for something else but later decide to re download it, there is a possibility of the game being pulled fom the store. It wouldn't be the first time thats happened. I had Scott Pilgrim Vs The World but deleted it to make room. I recently went back to download it and surprise surprise, its no longer available. Developers can pull games for various reasons and because of that you never really own that title.
Still, I have been looking forward to this game ever since it was first shown back at E3 2013 so if there is no other choice I will have to purchase the digital version. But only if it gets good reviews across the board. Fingers crossed!
Need a disc mate
Braid was awesome. I dont expect this to be as good, but I owe it a shot.
@Jaz007 I couldn't agree more. I won't touch this game without a retail release. I don't mind paying $39 for it, hell if its good I might even be willing to buy it at the $59 AAA price. But I will not buy it, no matter how good it is, for over $20 without a retail release.
@Swiket Every time I try to download it, it says that its no longer available. To be honest though, I have a few games I cannot download anymore, not many, but enough to bother me. I had Double Dragon on my XB360 and I can't re download that either.
Some games I don't mind loosing once I have finished with them, but some games I never want to loose. I bought The Witcher 3 from the PSN and I seriously regret doing that. I wish I had the physical copy because I know in years to come I will want to go back and play it. I sometimes go back and play games like the original Doom, Final Doom, Oblivion and Fallout 3. Those are games I would never get rid of. When the PS5 comes out some of those games won't be available on PSN so im glad I own the physical versions.
But developers have been known to remove their games from digital stores on occasion for various reasons. They may have gone out of business and sold their IP's and because of that the new owner decides to remove it from the store. Konami did it with PT. I know that was only a demo, but its now gone for good.
Man I do not need another 80plus hour game in my life.
I think they said a physical release is possible but hopefully it's a lesson to some consumers that just because it's "indie" doesn't mean it was cheap to make. If anything it's the new "AA" games now or "premium indie" after all didn't we buy Kula World or Overboard on PS1 for £40 back in the day? Now those type of games would be a tenner these days.
I pre-ordered on amazon for 50 so i just saved myself 20 big ones going digital.
As far as I know, a physical release is on the cards - just not yet. I've got no problem with that price, considering the amount of time you can spend with it. It's about what I was expecting actually.
One week to go!
@LieutenantFatman I thought Braid was heavily overrated, too.
WHOA. Didn't expect that, but with the 600+ puzzles in the game, I'd say that's worth the price of entry. And considering this has been in development for about eight years, it makes even more sense.
I'm really looking forward to this game, but I don't disagree with the idea of waiting on a physical release. I'm not going to double dip for that price, I'll get the digital version, but I'll be bummed if we're getting a physical version as well.
Say what you will about puzzle games (I tend to not enjoy them), but it looks like Blow has put some SERIOUS effort into this game. Seems like the guy created a gaming love letter to Myst. I think it looks amazing graphically, considering.
If Braid released now I probably wouldn't give it a second look, the market is somewhat saturated with such puzzle platformers, at least at first glance. But Braid is different in both its unique story, gameplay mechanics and presentation and came along at a time when decent indie games wernt ten a penny.
Plus all the nuclear war stuff was deep.
http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/braid-explained-469584/
You could call it pretentious but so what, I like this stuff in games. Kinda worried The Witness will be lacking in this area. But Blow is a smart guy. Creepy, but smart.
It's not too bad, the article name has me expecting higher ha-ha.
@Johnnycide I saw that dokumentary about him and the guys who did Super meatboy and Fez... Mr. Blow certainly is a little weird...but that Fez dude...jeez, what a pathetic whining little f#@¥...and he's lying about his awesome experiences with his dad. Dad does everything, mr Fez takes credit to impress camera crew...
Do not like the guy at all so will give this a miss.
Love the look of this. Got too much to play at the moment so will probably hang on until there's a bit of a deal but honestly I'd be fine with paying £30 for this. 80 hours of entertainment? As long as it is actually entertaining, that's brilliant value right there.
In all honesty, Braid was insanely brilliant. I have high hopes for this so I'm going in day one with total faith!
People find this expensive? I dont mind buying games like this digital. If it fun and it 80 hours well count me in. I only want retail releases for some games plus reselling games is anoying with all those cheap people trying to get it for next to nothing. Sell a game for 10 Euro and they still want me pay for the stamps.....
I'm fine with that.
I will buy it if it's on psvr.
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