Congrats on the placement. That's great news and will hopefully result in some sales.
Gaspode, I hope they do drop the price of Escape Goat (which looks likely given the content of the link you posted) because it should result in more sales. I want that game to sell as much as possible, and 240 points is looking like a kiss of death if your game's title doesn't end in '-craft' or '-miner'.
As for what's been up in my XBLIG life, I had people over on Xmas and my one friend decided it would be funny to purchase the full version of Cassie's Corner Episode 3 on my account with my points. I can safely say that it is not a game. It's a half-an-hour recording about the actress rambling about her life, her mistakes and her job, set to a slideshow of horribly photoshopped Facebook pictures and Windows desktop themes. There's enough personal information that you could probably hack into her Hotmail account with enough effort.
Also, there's one of those "snowing screensavers" included as well. Obviously, don't buy this.
Must remember to try out Orbitron. Reminds me of Star Ray for the Atari ST.
Wrong thread, but what happened to Minecraft XBL ? Was it canned ?
When I did the free giveaway for Hypership iOS, the following day I sold around 35 copies above average. There is value in getting your game out to more and more people, gets more people talking about it and sharing it with their friends.
Steam is a curated platform though.As long as your game doesn't require a server, then it's fine. I heard complaints from iOS developers after Amazon put their game up for free for 24 hours (you know, they do that promo every now and then). The problem was that this game (I can't remember which ones) required server access, and the flood of thousands of new people required more servers, which obviously these people couldn't afford because they had never received additional money for the game.
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The XBLIG marketplace could be flourishing if MS took a bit of time to work on it. I'm not sure where the top games list today came from. I looks like it is top sales (is this confirmed?), but even so, it continues to promote games which are already on top, instead of quality titles which aren't selling like hot cakes.
I had a conversation with Arthur Geiss of Joystiq about this the other day. He was saying something along the lines of "Maybe no one wants to play XBLIG games made by people in their basements." To that I responded "Well it seems like people do, based on how sales greatly increase when devs port to other platforms (ex: steam)"
Steam is a curated platform though.
That's true, but it's essentially the same game being released (Ex: Solar 2, CSTW, BoD VII), so there is a demand for the games, when they can be found.
what are the best places on the internet to connect with other xblig developers. i'm aware of the official app hub forums, but i am not aware of any other places...
Twitter. Everyone is on Twitter if they are a xblig dev.
I agree with Gasplode. However XBLA had a pretty bad year. Outside of Bastion and Torchlight I was pretty disappointed in Arcade games taking root this year. I still think Section 8 Prejudice is one of the best of the year but I don't think it found a sizable audience. Renegade Ops was lovely too but why are people walking away from certain XBLA games? Has XBLA become an art based platform?
Twitter. Everyone is on Twitter if they are a xblig dev.
I agree with Gasplode. However XBLA had a pretty bad year. Outside of Bastion and Torchlight I was pretty disappointed in Arcade games taking root this year. I still think Section 8 Prejudice is one of the best of the year but I don't think it found a sizable audience. Renegade Ops was lovely too but why are people walking away from certain XBLA games? Has XBLA become an art based platform?
Yeah, it is just a matter of branding. If Orbitron dropped in XBLA for $5 it would have sold far better.
what are the best places on the internet to connect with other xblig developers. i'm aware of the official app hub forums, but i am not aware of any other places...
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet was also great. But yeah, I echo the sentiments in this thread that XBLA is going through a weird time in terms of sales right now
In regards to publishing and losing money on XBLA, I -believe- it costs $25k each time you submit a title for certification to launch. If MS' internal team finds any bugs or a reason they can't launch, they hand it back, and you are then charged another fee to resubmit. At least that's the way an XBLA dev explained it to me about a year ago.
Holy shit -- $25K?! That's an insane amount of money. Now it makes sense that indies can't make the jump to XBLA easily.
College Lacrosse 2011
Total Miner: Forge
Avatar Adventurers Online
CastleMiner
Techno Kitten Adventure!
Flight Adventure 2
CastleMiner Z
FortressCraft Chapter 1
NLL 11
Avatar Legends
Gross.Wow, Microsoft. Really? You decide to spotlight on the Indie channel by picking the best ten games of the year and this is the list you come up with?
Dammit Skittles, little Tiana is the cutest thing ever. I just completely stop focusing on whatever topic is currently being discussed when I see it.Gross.
Grats to BakersCrest for Avatar Legends' placement though.
Gross.
Thing is, does that come out of your immediate funds or your backend payment?
DaveVoyles said:In regards to publishing and losing money on XBLA, I -believe- it costs $25k each time you submit a title for certification to launch.
We'll be releasing a title in January. You heard it here first It'll be a surprise you'll all like
It's nothing I've announced before. I'll do a trailer once I get the music for it.
I didn't plan to do anything new so quickly, I was hoping that Volchaos sales would be enough to finance my next bigger project. In light of the poor sales though, I've instead put together something quickly (which is good I assure you) that I had considered doing before but never had.
At this point I'm not going to do any big new XBLIG projects but I'll still do things here and there that I can complete in a few weeks. As it sits now, my new game is pretty much done. I'm just waiting on music (and whether or not my current music guy can do it in time, may need to hire someone else).
It's easy to be brought down by Debbie Downers of XBLIG Worlds but I'm seeing waaaaaay better games than ever and there is a world of difference in between 2010 XBLIG and 2011 XBLIG.
You do music too?What kind of music are you looking for?
What kind of music are you looking for?
I actually just got the first version of the song yesterday so I'm good on music for now. Thanks for the offer though.
I really don't think people ever go into App Store -> New Releases, the first thing they look at is likely New and Noteworthy which are hand picked/highlights ... so comparable zone on XBLIG would be the view with Kotaku's Faves/Contest Finalists...unfortunately the entry points/etc and the Game Type thing is kind of messed up but I hope they are going to fix it...
I am just reading a bunch of devs posting that they are getting lots of sales out of the blue for older games, hope it keeps up like that...lots is a relative term of course
So I'm going to bust my ass to get the thread for tomorrow ready tonight and tomorrow morning, hopefully it'll be up before the afternoon. I found it was a rough month when I played through everything. So much completely insulting crap was released.
If anyone has lists they'd like posted in the OP, for like best-of 2011 or something, please do them and I'll feature them in the OP
No prob man. I'll keep building my skills, and maybe someday I'll send you a track I'm particularly proud of.
I did a list.
Top 5 Favourite XBLIG Games of 2011:
4. Wizorb
Simple, not really original gameplay with beautiful graphics.
Blocks That Matter
You're not the first one with this opinion on Wizorb and it makes me wonder...
Where are all those other block breaker games with an RPG twist if this one is not original? Direct me to them because Wizorb was, to me, one of those RARE original twist to the block breaker genre.
And don't hesitate with Blocks That Matter. I tried the trial "just because" and I've been hooked. Sorta was the game I was waiting for: Some platformer involving digging in a good way that isn't just taken from Minecraft. The game is alot of fun and there's some pretty good (although geeky) humor in there.