You read that right. The flagship title of the Xbox Live Arcade on Xbox 360 was developed to be distributed as a free download. IGN sat down with Ben Ward, Bizarre Creation’s community and web lead, to discuss all things XBLA. Other than the main questions of Boom Boom Rocket, the new game from Bizarre (being published by EA), they also discusses the success of Geometry Wars, and it came to be.

When asked about the development of Geometry Wars, Ward had this to say:

Geometry Wars was really intended as a gift to hardcore gamers and we initially wanted to give the game away for free. When it became evident that we couldn’t do this, we said to Microsoft “what’s the absolute bare minimum we can charge”. They said 400 points, so we went with that.

Wow. Microsoft and their greedy pockets needed to step in and make us pay for this game. Sure, it’s easily worth $5, but when the developer is trying to make it free, let them. It’s better for the consumer. Especially with the 360 and XBLA being in it’s infancy when the game was released.

Hopefully Boom Boom Rocket will live up to Bizarre’s standards and entertain us all for hours on end.