Creator of Braid Jonathan Blow is “less happy” with the 1 200 price tag attached to the XBLA game. He would have been happy with a launch price of 800.

Speaking on the Braid blog, Blow explained how the increased price helped him guard against the “Space Giraffe problem” where Jeff Minter priced his non-mainstream game cheaper but barely made any money.

Blow continued “There is a significant possibility that Braid would have been the next Psychonauts or Beyond Good and Evil (critically acclaimed but nobody played it), even at $10. If that happens at $10 then I am in debt and have to get a job and can’t make games any more. If that happens at $15, maybe I can still make games. That is the difference.”

Even so Blow does not know if he would have been able to convince Microsoft to release the game at 800 Points. “So it seemed my best move was to make the agreement and keep a good relationship with them.”

He ended his discussion with this reply to a gamer concerned about the price. “All I can say is, try the demo all the way through (you can play pieces of 3 different worlds) and if it seems like it’s worth $15 to you, then, cool. If not…well, hopefully Braid will get price-reduced in the future.”

Braid is now available on Xbox Live Arcade for 1 200 Microsoft Points.