Xbox Live Indie Games... definitive thread

[Silent_Buddha]

The great e-commerce fallacy. If creating to make money, you have to know your market, what they want, give it to them and tell them you're selling it. Anyone entering into XNA to write their ultimate game they've always wanted could well be surprised by how everyone else doesn't get it and isn't interested. LBP offers a wonderfully low-cost introduction to this experience! Create an original level that deviates a lot from the norm and you may find the public unreceptive. It's this principal that retards a lot of originality in mainstream games. At the end of the day, the market isn't particularly receptive to new ideas. If you want to sell something new, you need to educate the masses to it, and convince them they'll like it.

That's a very good point. And one way in which current PC/Console gaming differs from the past. At least past PC experience where a game could go well off the beaten track and still sell relatively well.

Gone are the days when the number of new game releases was so small that someone into gaming would buy almost anything that was released, thus getting exposure to and having to learn a "new" type of game.

Now, there are so many games available that it's quite easy for most people to just stay in their gaming comfort zone and still not run out of games to play. Thus, there isn't as much incentive for most people to try something new.

I know that for myself I've almost completely stopped playing racing games and flight sims due to this alone. I know they are good. I know they are fun. But I already have too many games in my gaming "comfort zone" to bother to pick one up. Even if it's a critically good game.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deepblue]

CG definitely needs more prominence in the dash, and user ratings would certainly help.

 

[Acert93]

Battle Havoc is a great one, but it needs more people to buy it so we can play online more. XNA Roundup just reviewed it today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDSD86Y5-6s

I like Battle Havoc. It needs more people online, the ability to set start up cash, bots, and a few other tweaks (maybe a stationary mode, more environments that take damage) but it is fun and has better pacing than death tanks imo.

 

[vanquish]

Does anyone think XNA makes it easy enough, so that anyone with a modicum of programming knowledge (and a great idea) can make a decent game?
Is it easier than making an equivalent Flash game for instance?

And say you make a game, it passes peer review and gets listed on XBLM, does it only stay listed until your premium Creators Club membership runs out? Or could you just get a four month subscription, get your game listed on XBLM and rake in the profits (assuming it sells) for only $49?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Does anyone think XNA makes it easy enough, so that anyone with a modicum of programming knowledge (and a great idea) can make a decent game?

No. There's no development platform that allows that. All game creation needs a good amount of programmer know-how and a load of quality assets. XNA is harder in this respect than other high-level languages like Dark Basic, but of course the results can scale up to something far more professional. XNA isn't targetted at newbies and wannabes to quickly turn out sellable products, but enabling 'real' programmers or giving wannabes a platform to learn and grow on. It'll take hard work and dedication to produce a quality product. Great ideas are but a titchy part of the equation.

 

[AlNom]

Hm... regarding sales & MS' cut:

http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2009/03/big-fish-in-shallow-pond.html

1. Microsoft’s baseline cut of 30% and remittance rate.​
2. Microsoft’s potential additional 10% to 30% cut depending on the amount of Microsoft promotion for the game. (Edit note: it has come to our attention that Microsoft has "decided to maintain the 70/30 split across the board whether your game was featured or not." Therefore, this is not longer a factor to consider. Thank you Microsoft!)​
3. Royalties owed to our contractors.​
4. State and federal taxes.​
5. Cost of development, not including salaries, i.e. membership, software licenses, travel, hardware and marketing.​
6. Although this is only 4 months of sales, except by the grace of God or a divine new marketing strategy, we do not anticipate seeing sales staying this strong.​

1. ​

So that puts it at the devs collecting 140 points per sale? ($1.75 USD). Mmm..

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It makes me wonder. It sounds like there's quite a few XNA games that come out fairly frequently.

Are there any XNA Games websites where they do reviews of XNA Games? If not, I can only wonder why not?

I'd imagine it would be great to attract people to a gaming site, and I'd imagine XNA Game devs would love the extra exposure. And it would be great for gamers also that would like to know a little more about a game (like me) before plonking down money on it.

I see something like that as a win-win for pretty much everyone involved. Well, unless a game was so poopy that there is noone that would be interested in it.

Regards,
SB

 

[BadTB25]

I recall someone linked a a youtube vid call XNA Round UP.

I watched their review of Solar and some kind of death tank game.

I liked the format.

 

[Sc4freak]

There's also XNPlay, which does regular reviews:

http://www.xnplay.co.uk/

 

[BadTB25]

There's also XNPlay, which does regular reviews:

http://www.xnplay.co.uk/

Cool!...Bookmarked!!

 

[liolio]

XNA sales figures:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22970

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Considering the size of XBLive!, those numbers are tragic. You can afford at best about $4k to make a game and recover your costs. Suddenly the service is not looking at all appealing. I'd love to compare this to a table for iPhone apps. And of course, the more people that create stuff, the harder it's going to be to make sales.

 

[razredge]

Considering the size of XBLive!, those numbers are tragic. You can afford at best about $4k to make a game and recover your costs. Suddenly the service is not looking at all appealing. I'd love to compare this to a table for iPhone apps. And of course, the more people that create stuff, the harder it's going to be to make sales.

Yes, it is rather disappointing.

I wonder how the makers of Biology Battle are doing, since it has a $100,000 budget.

I think one of the problems is that Community Games are too low key and there is no categorization or rankings etc. which means users are faced with this mass of 200 games, or widely variable quality. If they download a trial of a particularly iffy one, they may be scared off the CGs completely.

Also, I don't think Community Games has been rolled out to all regions yet (I may be wrong).

 

[AzBat]

And say you make a game, it passes peer review and gets listed on XBLM, does it only stay listed until your premium Creators Club membership runs out? Or could you just get a four month subscription, get your game listed on XBLM and rake in the profits (assuming it sells) for only $49?

Once your game passes peer review & is posted on the service you no longer need a Creators Club membership. The game will will stay on the service indefinitely regardless of that. However, you wouldn't be able to peer review other games without the subscription.

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

Here's a few other sites for reviews...

http://xblaratings.com/xna-ratings

http://www.deadpixellive.com/ - They're a podcast that has just started doing a "Community Seal of Approval" for games on the service.

Tommy McClain

 

[Zassk]

It's too difficult to find the quality games on XBox Live. There's a lot of cruft in the Community Games section. I suspect most people check out 2-3 Community Games, get turned off by the quality, and then never check any more out ever again. I'm a programmer with Game Studio who knows how cool XNA is, and even I lost the motivation to browse after checking out a few of the offerings. How can we keep Joe 6Pack's attention on this?

 

[makattack]

ooo... great idea Zassk! I'm going to fire up VisStudioC# with the XNA SDK and implement a clone of Tapper for joe-6-pack! Maybe I'll get corporate sponsorship to fund it from PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon for the uncouth)... and add a rodeo side-quest, as they also sponsor first-life rodeos. Actually, while I'm at it, I'll throw in a NASCAR element.

Edited to add:

The ideas keep rolling in! I'll also add DLC: Sport Fishing, Horse Shoes, Duck Hunt, and Ciggy Runs. I'll call it "Joe-6-Pack Olympic Games"

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Considering the size of XBLive!, those numbers are tragic. You can afford at best about $4k to make a game and recover your costs. Suddenly the service is not looking at all appealing. I'd love to compare this to a table for iPhone apps. And of course, the more people that create stuff, the harder it's going to be to make sales.

I'm not so sure. After reading the article, it appears that developers that actually took the time to try to advertise their game appear to be doing relatively well. While those that don't bother don't see much in the way of sales.

It's a matter of getting your game noticed when (as someone pointed out after your post) there is so much dross to wade through that a potential customer may get discouraged and just not bother.

It still may not be the cash cow that some are hoping for (just like shareware back in the day was hugely hit and miss) but it appears that you can do relatively well if you have a quality title that receives some form of advertising to get consumer interest.

Likewise, if there was more XNA games review websites that would also give more games more exposure. Assuming word got out and those websites could draw enough traffic to make it worthwhile.

Regards,
SB

 

[MrFloopy]

Considering the size of XBLive!, those numbers are tragic. You can afford at best about $4k to make a game and recover your costs. Suddenly the service is not looking at all appealing. I'd love to compare this to a table for iPhone apps. And of course, the more people that create stuff, the harder it's going to be to make sales.

Also, remember, the app store is the main (only?) source of product on the IPhone where as XNA titles are the third tier of product and developers with a very good title will likely aim for XBLA.

 

[NRP]

Any devs here who have XNA games on the marketplace should lets us know the title(s). We'll check 'em out and possibly throw you some support.