BIT.TRIP RUNNER released on May 17, 2010 for the Wii, through the WiiWare service. The game was developed by Gaijin Games and published by Aksys Games. It received an ESRB rating of "Everyone" with no content listed for gamers or parents to be aware of, and released at a price point of 800 Wii Points, which is $8.
How many total hours have U.S. Wii owners spent running, jumping, kicking, and sliding their way through the 2D Bit world with CommanderVideo? Does Bit.Trip Runner offer enough hours of game-play to justify its WiiWare asking price of $8? Brew yourself some coffee, and let's take a look!
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| Download a free demo for Bit.Trip Runner on your Wii console, through the Shop Channel. |
The Brew
BIT.TRIP RUNNER has approximately 12,040 U.S. Wii owners that have reported data through the Nintendo Channel, with 784 days possibly reported. Wii owners are averaging just under an hour each time they sit down to play the game, with the average play-time per day/session being 46 Minutes.
The game has a "professional" review score average of 76.07%, based on 15 reviews on GameRankings.com. While I wasn't able to find a list of individual customer reviews, I was able to find a few "overall" customer scores for Bit.Trip Runner and how many "recommend" it on Steam.
Bit.Trip Runner's PC version on Steam has 12,928 players that would recommend it to others, and the Wii version has a "User Score" of 8.3 out of 10, on MetaCritic.com.
How much has Bit.Trip Runner's WiiWare release made for Gaijin and Aksys? The U.S. WiiWare release has made about $96,320 for the developer and publisher over the last 2 years, before any state/federal taxes or profit sharing with Nintendo, based on the number of players that have reported data and the game's $8 price point.
Caffeinated Thoughts
I have been playing the WiiWare demo of Bit.Trip Runner a good bit (ha!) over the last month. If you have never seen any game-play footage of Bit.Trip Runner, below is a video me playing through the first level, "First Contact", and the first "Retro Challenge" level as well:
Because the demo of the game plays so well and I have really enjoyed my time with it, I have added Bit.Trip Complete to my "wish list" of Wii games.
What is Bit.Trip Complete? If you don't know, according to the description on Amazon.com it has "All 6 BIT.TRIP games with new difficulty levels" on a physical game disc, so it's not just digital copies. Complete has a list price of $39.99 on Amazon.com, whereas GameStop.com has its price as just $19.99.
I own another WiiWare version of one of the Bit.Trip games, but haven't played it very much and never completed it, which is why I'm surprised I have been playing and enjoying this one so much, if only in demo form.
Based on the reported game-play hours, do I think Bit.Trip Runner is worth the $8 asking price for it on the WiiWare service? Absolutely! $8 for a game averaging 9 Hours, 2 Minutes, I think is a great deal. Considering Bit.Trip Complete has five additional games as well, I would say Bit.Trip Complete is probably a steal at $19.99 from GameStop.
Questions
Have any of you played and beaten Bit.Trip Runner? If so, is it a game you would recommend to other gamers?
If you own Bit.Trip Complete, and/or have completed other games in the series, do you have one Bit.Trip game that you favor more than the others?
If any of you are interested in Bit.Trip Runner, you can still download the game from the Wii's Shop Channel for $8, get the PC version on Steam for $9.99, or get it in the Bit.Trip Complete set which is linked below to Amazon.com and GameStop.com:
