NAMCO Bandai took an original approach to monetization of its game THE iDOLM@STER SHINY FESTA. The Japanese company has divided it into three parts, each of which is now offered for the price of a full-fledged console project.
iDOLM@STER has a long history. A musical slot machine game (a la Guitar Hero), which received its own TV series and manga, was ported to Xbox 360 six years ago. Now it has been moved to iOS. The problem is that the current release is intended only for fans of the original project.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone else will buy a game with a price tag of $55, when most users prefer to download only free-to-play applications. However, the high price is not the only disadvantage of the project. All three parts of iDOLM@STER are almost identical (and this is in a story-oriented game!). The difference comes down to a set of songs (fans of Japanese pop will appreciate) and game characters. Plus, when unpacking iDOLM@STER weighs 3 GB.
Of course, this is not the first time that Japanese developers are wringing the price. For example, Square Enix asked for $150 for a port with Nintendo 3DS with microtransactions, while the full version of the original game cost $30, but it seems to us that NAMCO Bandai with iDOLM@STER still exceeded the bar.