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Gamasutra: Jonathan Blow (Braid) - Xbox Live Arcade 'A Pain In The Ass' For Indies
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Foliorum Viridum
Banned
Yeah, that struck me too, but after the success of Braid I guess it's not too surprising.wrowa said:
It's a shame he found XBLA to be a hassle, because outside of Steam it's the best source for indie/art games.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Kafel said:
Right, but that's the point. That's the point Bacon Wrapped Games (Cloning Clyde, Ancients of Ooga) have made. That's the point Squashy Software (Cletus Clay) have made. That's the point Team Meat (SMB) have made. That's the point Introversion (Darwinia) have made. That's the point Cold Beam (Beat Hazard) have made. That's the point Hello Games (Joe Danger) have made. That's the point Paradox (Magicka) have made. That's the point Amarita Design (Machinarium) have made. That's the point Curve Studios (Explodemon) have made. That's the point Metanet (N+) have made. These aren't all people just being whiny or trying to drum up press. That's the point everyone made when the number of slots reserved for MS-published indie XBLA titles got radically decreased in 2009.
XBLA used to be a service somewhat aimed at indies. An increasing focus on high profile major publishers, less generous revenue splits, combined with lower barriers to entry and more success available elsewhere and particularly on Steam have made it a lot less nice of a place for Indies.
If they don't want to work with Microsoft and they don't need to work with Microsoft, they will be less likely to work with Microsoft, which will result in a less diverse, less thriving service.
These people aren't complaining because they can't sell their games. They'll all sell their games just fine. Almost everyone above are literally so rich off their games that they could retire and do nothing for the rest of their lives. These are not people jealous of the success of others and raging out. They're complaining because the service isn't what it could be, which is bad for everyone.
wrowa said:
Blow claimed Braid had a budget of $150k+ on the basis that his sweat equity was worth that much. I'm assuming his Witness figure is his employee salaries (2-3 years * 3-5 people @ reasonable wage) in addition to his own sweat equity.
I personally disagree strenuously with including ones own time as the part of a budget.
obonicus said:
Braid sold well over a million copies across the platforms. We'll say a million. Assuming he sold at an average price of $10 (seems unlikely, the vast majority of the XBLA sales were at $15) and took home 25% on each platform (seems unlikely given the known revenue splits out there), and was getting 4% interest on his investment, he'd have about $700k in the bank after deducting the "2 million" dollars for the Witness.
Assuming he sold at an average price of $12 and took home 50%, he'd have $4.5 million in the bank after deducting the budget for the Witness.
And this is a guy who chose to hire employees, making his costs and risks significantly higher.
It seems very unlikely to me that this is a guy living on the edge. Introversion literally having to fire all their employees and partially fold their company is living on the edge.
chubigans said:
You're talking about indie devs ? Yeah, working under professional constraints with contracts and deadlines and all of that can be hard for them.
So why didn't he talk about the PSN ? He's looked at his sales figures or what ?
Stump >> The XBLA has moved on. The average budget there has followed the same trend than for retail AAA games.
Meanwhile the Indie Service was created and indie devs can release their artistic productions there.
snoopeasystreet
Member
I think the XBLA is good for indie devs looking to make a name for themselves. There might be a load of bureaucracy and regulations that affect the release of your game but when it comes to promotion, I think it's probably the best service out there.
Kafel said:
Do you know for a fact they have a standard contract? Because a major bone of contention with him seemed to be he has to spend three months dicking around with the lawyers before MS finally caves to the fair terms everyone knows it should be. Sounds like they're trying to squeeze every ounce of blood they can from people who aren't patient and willing to play lawyer chicken. As opposed to say Steam or iOS where the contract is standard and there's no gamesmanship involved.
Phonomezer
Banned
chubigans said:
It's not even a fair comparison.
360 is a closed platform and XBLA is only available in something like 32 countries as opposed to the massive coverage Steam has, not to mention pricing flexibility.
Des0lar said:
Read the bolded and heard enough of his XBLA bitching during E3 to understand what he is coming from. I understand that it could be somewhat frustrating for startups, but it's all well and good of him to mouth off in hindsight AFTER he has had major success on the platform.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
Where they can then watch them get buried.Kafel said:
1-D_FTW said:
That's what he says. I mean, the guy SAYS he's reading his contract and at the same time he bitches on the service in the press. It doesn't click for everyone here ? Are you all rookies ?
We know MS only wants the exclusive or they won't really care, they'll release his game later in a week already filled with two others if he's annoying.
The problem is that MS doesn't specifically need Blow either. They already have a lot of games to fit in a year of XBLA.
Zeouterlimits
Member
That sounds like it'd be a ding against the way XBLA works.Phonomezer said:
D
Deleted member 81567
Unconfirmed Member
You're acting as if the percentage of core gamers is small. Arcade games do sell and if Microsoft is actually a bit more flexible with their policy you'll see better sales because Arcade is a major part of Xbox Live.Zeouterlimits said:
Stumpokapow said:Braid sold well over a million copies across the platforms. We'll say a million. Assuming he sold at an average price of $10 (seems unlikely, the vast majority of the XBLA sales were at $15) and took home 25% on each platform (seems unlikely given the known revenue splits out there), and was getting 4% interest on his investment, he'd have about $700k in the bank after deducting the "2 million" dollars for the Witness.
Assuming he sold at an average price of $12 and took home 50%, he'd have $4.5 million in the bank after deducting the budget for the Witness.
And this is a guy who chose to hire employees, making his costs and risks significantly higher.
It seems very unlikely to me that this is a guy living on the edge. Introversion literally having to fire all their employees and partially fold their company is living on the edge.
Your math seems to be forgetting Uncle Sam's cut
Kafel said:
Name calling? Nice. Are you sure you're not the rookie, because this post makes no sense to me.
Sounds like there's a standard cut that everyone accepts is fair and MS will spend 3 months dicking you around below that mark hoping you'll take a crap deal before their lawyers will finally relent and offer a deal that's fair for the marketplace.
StuBurns said:
Defending yet again another mega publisher. Shocking.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Kafel said:
All problems exist for a reason, it makes no sense to just flippantly say "deal with it" whenever anything is not as good as it could be.
The Indie service caps at $5. It has more cruft, it's less curated, it's less promoted, it has less word of mouth (due to no presence data), it has no achievements, it has ghetto leaderboards. He wants to sell a $15-20 game with these kinds of features. He wants it to be a showcase release that will get a lot of attention. It's obvious why he's not going to release on XBLIG
Pop Quiz: Is the reaction inside your head right now "He should deal with it"?
Two things:
1) He is dealing with it. He's not sitting there and twiddling his thumbs and not making a game because he has a beef with their policy. He's making the game on his own terms, and if MS is a pain to deal with, they won't get his game. He'll still be profitable on any other platform.
2) It's really really dumb and lazy to respond that people should just "deal with" problems. It's clearly a real problem--it's been identified by virtually every developer of Blow's size/importance/pedigree who have worked or failed to work with the service. He's not exaggerating the size or scope of the problem. It's a dealbreaker for some people.
XBLA was a huge draw to the 360 for a lot of people for many years. It continues to be. But if it is servicing a different audience that it was a few years ago, some people are going to be disappointed. They'll look elsewhere for their games. They are looking elsewhere for their games. Some time in the last year or year and a half, the fulcrum tipped for me; I still have 100 XBLA games or so, but I'm much more likely to buy games on Steam now and when I think "indie", I now think "PC". I hear more buzz about PC indie games--even games with $0 marketing budget have a good chance of breaking through. A few years ago, an Indie game wasn't a big deal unless it's on XBLA. Now an Indie game isn't a big deal unless it's on Steam. I chat more in the Steam thread than the XBLA thread. Clearly I care about indie games on XBLA, but the service has shifted and in the process they've lost some of what made them great.
It would be a better system if MS expended some effort to figure out how to continue to highlight the best in independent and the best in big commercial games, rather than simply aiming for the most lucre as soon as possible.
Rlan said:
he was making a pun on your use of the word "hats"
Stumpokapow said:
Blow didn't actually port Braid to PC or PSN -- that was Hothead. He got a cut, but assumedly Hothead gets something too for their effort.
Also since we're mentioning XBLIG games: Minecraft-Inspired Xbox Live Indie FortressCraft Surpasses $1M In Sales
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Rlan said:
Sure, which is why I used the very conservative 25% and 50% estimates. I certainly don't think he would have been silly enough to pay significantly more to Hothead to port the games than it "cost" him to make the game for its primary platform to begin with. If Hothead was getting 30+% of the game's unit sales on those platforms, then... man... that was a pretty terrible business decision on his part.
Phonomezer
Banned
Zeouterlimits said:
I'd be willing to wager that pricing policies are very similar across every console DD service.
I would love to see how the profit margins compare between Braid at $20 on XBLA and $15 on Steam.
Amen. I understand that reading is passé and a lot of people here tend to just read the thread title and a few bolded bits before going by their prior knowledge about the involved parties, but Blow isn't alone in his criticism of XBLA and how MS has been handling the service. He's also not "whining," unless you're the reductionist type and need to distill various shades of criticism and debate down to "XXX rocks" or "XXX sucks."Stumpokapow said:
For everyone invoking the "this is our country, love it or leave it" defense, Blow is explicitly saying he's more than happy to consider the latter. I love XBLA and have more than 30 different games for it, and its exclusives are awesome, but I'm not afraid to admit that it's not the only game in town anymore.
Princess Skittles
Prince's's 'Skittle's
Braid is $15 on XBLA as well. Or was, it might have dropped at this point.Phonomezer said:
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Princess Skittles said:
Now it's $10, but it was $15 for a year or two after release.
What was this contract in regards to? Was he needing MS as a publisher due to the fact that a game released on XBLA needs a publisher? Did he try going with another publisher for XBLA?
Sounds like MS needs to expand XBLA to have a spotlight release every week(which could still require a publisher), and then other games that still need stricter approval than XBLIG, but don't need a publisher.
Sounds like MS needs to expand XBLA to have a spotlight release every week(which could still require a publisher), and then other games that still need stricter approval than XBLIG, but don't need a publisher.
teruterubozu said:
I like how you labeled yourself dumb and unreasonable.
On topic: that's not the first time Blow talks shit about XBL. The first time was Braid postmortem where he talked about amount of time he neede to implement leaderboards and all that stuff. I still can't understand why Braid needed leaderboards.
BruiserBear
Banned
I find it hilarious whenever we hear about how stringent Microsoft's cert process is, and then we have these horribly buggy XBLA games get released. smh
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
subversus said:
XBLA *requires leaderboards of some kind.
* there have been a few exceptions (Rlan would know better than me which games are exceptions) but they'd be less than 1% and they evidently didn't give Blow one.
Stumpokapow said:
yeah, it requires it but Braid still doesn't need it. That's the point of Blow. If your game doesn't need all that stuff why spending your time and money implementing it while there are other venues where you don't need to implement it?
Zeouterlimits
Member
Which games are these? I just don't know of them.BruiserBear said:
lowrider007
Licorice-flavoured booze?
I keep hearing this but yet we are still seeing great indie styled games appearing as exclusives on XBLA so they must be doing something right?
Princess Skittles
Prince's's 'Skittle's
Be a big publisher (same as XBLA) or be seemingly randomly picked by whoever is reviewing content to release (same as XBLA).tiff said:
One major differences is that Steam doesn't have limited "slots" for releases (as far as I know).
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
subversus said:
Oh, sorry, I thought you were wondering legitimately, not that it was a rhetorical question to reinforce Blow's point. Yes, I agree totally.
ULTROS!
People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Do all games require an online component when they get published on XBLA?
As far as I know, PSN doesn't because Limbo (PSN) had no leader boards (I believe the 360 version had one).
As far as I know, PSN doesn't because Limbo (PSN) had no leader boards (I believe the 360 version had one).
Well it's not exactly like you work for free, whether you own the studio or not. The fact that number is totally arbitrary is what makes it debatable though.Stumpokapow said:
Out of curiosity - but who paid for the other people that worked on Braid if they had no part in profits?
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