Although it's his point here, I think it's really less the additional work, more the idea of compromising the product that he doesn't like. For example he doesn't want achievements, not because it's work, but because it has an impact on the game experience that he doesn't want, which is totally fair I think.
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Gamasutra: Jonathan Blow (Braid) - Xbox Live Arcade 'A Pain In The Ass' For Indies
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
U n i o n 0015
Member
There's been a LOT of complaints about the XBLA process lately. I hope Microsoft listens to the people who are essentially making their service viable. XBLA is a great resource, but it only thrives because of the content.
TerryWogan
Member
Jonathan Blow said:
Uh. Doesn't this make everything he said basically redundant? He's on a rant about something he hasn't dipped his toes into for two whole years, and even he admits that it could be totally different now. I mean, I'm not saying that it is different now, but I'd take his comments with a pinch of salt.
He comes across as a bit of a douche any way. He seems pretty sure about his "$2 million". Can anyone ever be so sure about that number of sales of anything? The game might turn out to be a complete lemon.
Has there ever been revealed how much money developers make from XBLA games?
I'm doing some basic maths based on 2 Kotaku articles about Braid from 2008:
http://kotaku.com/5037392/jonathan-blow-says-he-spent-180000-on-braid
http://kotaku.com/5035752/braid-sales-surprisingly-good-but-not-yet-profitable
Basically, it cost him $180k to make the game over 3 years, and he still wasn't profitable at around 30k copies sold (he in fact needed a lot more than that), indicating that he was getting less than $6 per copy sold. That's less than 40%, if the game sold for $15.
Have things changed by now or what? Because I find that cut to be absurdly low, especially if the often rumored 70/30 split for most PC digital distributors turns out to be true.
Or am I just doing something wrong here?
I'm doing some basic maths based on 2 Kotaku articles about Braid from 2008:
http://kotaku.com/5037392/jonathan-blow-says-he-spent-180000-on-braid
http://kotaku.com/5035752/braid-sales-surprisingly-good-but-not-yet-profitable
Basically, it cost him $180k to make the game over 3 years, and he still wasn't profitable at around 30k copies sold (he in fact needed a lot more than that), indicating that he was getting less than $6 per copy sold. That's less than 40%, if the game sold for $15.
Have things changed by now or what? Because I find that cut to be absurdly low, especially if the often rumored 70/30 split for most PC digital distributors turns out to be true.
Or am I just doing something wrong here?
TerryWogan
Member
StuBurns said:
Yeah, should. But would you bet the farm on it? Nobody can ever be sure about stuff like this - and either way - nobody should ever talk about it in an interview!
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Honestly though, Fuck the Man. The Man is an asshole. There's a reason so many people don't approve of the Man and his actions. Exclusivity contracts are dick moves that aren't something Blow has to subject himself to.teruterubozu said:
More power to him, tbh. The world is better off.
But it has also pointed out in this thread that he didn't have any more expenses with the game outside of paying for the dev kits and supporting his way of life, which amassed to $180k, according to him. He didn't have any salaries to pay because he was the only one working on the project.tiff said:
Nice of him to take this stance after he had a very successful and talked-about XBLA game that built his 'brand' and made him a recognized name.
Games may be more successful on other services, but beyond the general sentiment of 'this game is good', there's not a whole lot of discourse going on about 'em and their makers don't tend to become 'household names' to the gaming community. Many people will buy Blow's next game because they know the name (even if they didn't play Braid), and they know the name mainly because it was thrown around a lot during Braid's initial console release. Whereas when someone like Dejobaan Games or FatShark release a new game, precious few people are going to go "Ohhh man, they're making a new game?!"... They're mostly gonna say "Who?"
XBLA is probably best viewed as a marketing expense as much as it is a revenue stream. It's a good place to build a brand, even if it's not the best place to capitalize on it.
Games may be more successful on other services, but beyond the general sentiment of 'this game is good', there's not a whole lot of discourse going on about 'em and their makers don't tend to become 'household names' to the gaming community. Many people will buy Blow's next game because they know the name (even if they didn't play Braid), and they know the name mainly because it was thrown around a lot during Braid's initial console release. Whereas when someone like Dejobaan Games or FatShark release a new game, precious few people are going to go "Ohhh man, they're making a new game?!"... They're mostly gonna say "Who?"
XBLA is probably best viewed as a marketing expense as much as it is a revenue stream. It's a good place to build a brand, even if it's not the best place to capitalize on it.
I have nothing wrong with Jonathan Blow voicing an opinion but bitching about certification when your game is a year out is a little silly. He needs to be more specific in saying why exactly XBLA certification is preventing him from making something "different" or unique in the context of the game. Based on the little I know about MS certification, there's nothing about a title screen with New Game, How to Play, Exit Game or a message indicating not to turn off your XBOX while so and so symbol appears that would prevent him from doing what he wants. Be more specific or don't release the game on XBLA...put your money where your mouth is.
SpaceDrake
Member
Blow is effectively right about every single thing here and if you're wondering why you haven't seen Recettear or Chantelise or Fortune Summoners on XBLA and probably never will, welp.
Absolutely not, not unless the operational culture at Valve undergoes tectonic shifts next year or something. Steam works on a fundamentally different level, on fundamentally different assumptions, than either console DD service. Sadly can't make with super-specifics due to NDAs and whatnot, but Steam is not remotely like console DD. There's a reason Team Meat (and us) basically fling hearts at Steam every time we talk about it.
Absolutely not, not unless the operational culture at Valve undergoes tectonic shifts next year or something. Steam works on a fundamentally different level, on fundamentally different assumptions, than either console DD service. Sadly can't make with super-specifics due to NDAs and whatnot, but Steam is not remotely like console DD. There's a reason Team Meat (and us) basically fling hearts at Steam every time we talk about it.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Shig said:
It doesn't really make sense to compare one of the 2-3 most successful devs on XBLA to random, not particularly successful or unsuccessful devs on Steam, and then say "XBLA devs have more brand power".
It's true that people say "Who?" to FatShark, but they also say "Who?" to NinjaBee (a better 1:1 comparison on XBLA) and "Who?" to Metanet, and they won't say "Who?" to the Terraria team or to Dylan Fitterer or to Carpe Fulgur.
So we're back to square one and you still need to demonstrate that there are more (and particularly with a restriction on "recent" successes to reflect that the point is "XBLA is becoming less relevant compared to PC" not "XBLA was never relevant and PC always was") of these breakout successes on XBLA than on PC.
Lime said:
If you can find that, that'd be really cool. I hadn't read that. I'd love to read their actual input on the situation
U n i o n 0015
Member
Shig said:
...And that's sort of the problem, because as the other avenues become viable and generate revenue more easily, there will become little point in releasing your title on XBLA. That just hurts Xbox owners.
Okay I understand there are NDAs in place, but even when asked with XBOX live guys in the building during Giant Bombcast, there was nothing Jonathan Blow could even come up with. One thing he did mention was a pain with updates. It's well known that there's some sort of file size restriction in that way. I'd still ask the question....how is a file size restriction preventing him from releasing a unique game experience? If it's just extra work and not worth the increase in budget then don't release the game on XBLA.
Blow was on the E3 Bombcast this year (or last, I forget) talking about the cert process and he went into detail about some of the specific requirements that turn him off to the service.see5harp said:
On the topic of Steam, correct me if I'm wrong but didn't you say towards the release of Recettear you originally weren't expecting to get it on Steam because Japanese-made games from lower-profile developers were pretty much absent from the service?SpaceDrake said:
Salacious Crumb said:
Actually, the cert thing sounds a bit more like he's biting it because they want him to not poop on the floor after eating it and he really wants to poop on the floor and I've no idea where this analogy is going.
He's right, I've coded cert requirements for a few games; they are a *monumental* pain in the arse, and I grumbled extensively when having to make some fairly major changes to accomodate them. But they're also *good things*. The vast majority of them are usability tweaks which make the game just that little bit better for your end user, the little bits of polish that are so *easy* to neglect when you're distracted by the pretty.
I remember one specific example on the original Xbox which required some pretty extensive changes to how our controller code behaved, and the bugfixing on top of that kept coming up with hideous edge cases for certain combinations of pulling controllers out at random times. But that work made the games I worked on just a little bit *better*, and I don't regret that.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
see5harp said:
MS has a patch file size restriction, but more importantly you need to pay them if you want to patch your game*, compared to PC where you can patch your game 200 times, add new content every day for a year, and it won't cost you a dime.
* The first patch is free
I don't think that'd be one of his top ten complaints though.
That's kind of his whole point.
Jonathan Blow: "XBLA is a bunch of extra work and so we might not release our game on XBLA"
You: "Then don't release your game on XBLA!"
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Persson is similar and he isn't on any content delivery services. Live was good for Braid's popularity because of the environment at the time, but if the environment back then was what it is today, he probably wouldn't have needed a Live release for his popularity.Shig said:
Blow speaks his mind and has a confidence about him and his views. I don't mind it when he delivers them, because they do tend to be important. Pretentious at times, but important.
Eh such is life in getting your foot in the door and getting started. Once you have your foot in the door or you've busted it down, you no longer need deals such as what MS offers via XBLA.
Whether its composing, film making, etc. the indie game often starts with accepting what you can get until you get to the point where you can start dictating instead of being dictated to. He no longer needs XBLA type deals and that's great for him.
IMO it's kind of assholeish off him to bad mouth the service that helped him get his foot in the door but W/E.
Whether its composing, film making, etc. the indie game often starts with accepting what you can get until you get to the point where you can start dictating instead of being dictated to. He no longer needs XBLA type deals and that's great for him.
IMO it's kind of assholeish off him to bad mouth the service that helped him get his foot in the door but W/E.
I'm not sure what the problem is ? IOS is pretty simple to submit because they hardly care about quality . Steam is slightly more stringint . But is he really complaining that when signing an exclusive contract with a company there would be alot of back and forth paper work and negotiations ?
Also is he complaining that MS has a standard of quality they like to be met ?
Also is he complaining that MS has a standard of quality they like to be met ?
Stumpokapow said:
A few unsourced statements there, unless you can provide them. In the game city talk earlier this year Blow listed Braid as selling 'hundreds of thousands of copies'. I haven't found any source that lists the game as a million-seller. The 4% interest is reasonable, but completely unsourced. We have no idea what he's doing with his money. And you overlook whatever debt Braid might have put him in. He famously quotes a 180k figure for Braid's cost (even if how he reached that number is questionable).
Now, I'm not claiming that The Witness failing will put him in the poorhouse, but it was mentioned in the latest Bombcast that he suggested that this game needs to be successful. Now that's a paraphrase of a paraphrase, so the accuracy is suspect, but even if '700k' is left over, that's not nearly enough for him to retire comfortably. Especially not living in SF like he does.
Yeah, I grant that the XBLA well has been pretty dry in the past year or so in regards to huge successes.Stumpokapow said:
Still, it seems to me like the average XBLA release still generates more discussion around here than the average Steam one does... But I suppose this place is pretty console-centric, so we're probably a bad barometer of universal truths on the matter.
Princess Skittles
Prince's's 'Skittle's
Steam has shown a rather large shift in finding/accepting indie content in the last year, it seems. I can almost guarantee that Steam wouldn't have given Braid a second look in 2008 and it was probably only launched there in 2009 because of its success on XBLA. Give Steam another year or two of accepting indie games like they have in 2010-2011 and I would guess it will slow down a little bit (that being the "flash in the pan" successes, not actual content).tiff said:
Stumpokapow said:
Okay so now this is the 2nd time he's said the same thing in a public forum and yet his game is a year out. The way he explained it on Giant Bombcast is that the cert was not only a pain in the ass (no problem with this) but that the cert prevented him from making an art game or unique vision. That's what I don't understand and would like specifics about.
TerryWogan
Member
StuBurns said:
Who said that's what this is even about? Surely adding in those features would be a pretty menial task and therefore not even worthy of Blow's complaints. A poster above mentioned reprogramming controller input code. Have we got any more examples about what this "certification process" actually involves?
TheSeks said:
Go back a few years and look at his comments about Steam. Before Braids success on XBLA, Steam/Valve wouldn't even give him the time of day. The PC version wasn't originally going to be on Steam. Maybe Steam has changed since then since there are a lot more indie games now but it is hard to say how they are towards a new indie developer.
This is something that really needs to change for next gen. Microsoft opened the door just a crack with their high profile indie releases and XBLIG ghetto, but if they want to buck this generation's unhealthy trends, they'll need to knock it off the hinges. Maybe require a slightly more rigorous vetting system like Valve has for Steam, but open the platform up a little for Chrissakes!
TerryWogan
Member
StuBurns said:
Well I ask someone, anyone, who knows what this process is like to clarify whether leaderboards and cheevos are a genuinely difficult task. A task that "can take a third to a half of the effort required to build your game, in some cases". Can anyone shed light on this? I find it hard to believe that we're talking about leaderboards and cheevos.
And, assuming we're not - we're actually talking about quality measures that make for a better user experience - I think it's a good thing. It brings uniformity to the service. It's almost comforting that MS take the process of polishing the game to their "standards" so seriously. There are other platforms available if you don't want to comply to such standards.
AlphaTwo00
Member
As much as I agree and like his argument, the way he treats "cert" and "contract" seems a bit mixed up to me. Please clarify for me if I'm wrong on this:
Certification is for things like hardware and OS compliance: make sure you don't break the system, make sure you don't have bad crashes, make sure you have proper calls to handle things like achievements, etc...
Contract, and specifically the way he mentions it, is dealing with Microsoft the Publisher who would publish their game. How the publisher wants to align their games to what the market wants, etc.
During the E3 bombcast, I've noticed a similar "blurring of lines". He brought in one example of "game takes too long to load with no loading screen", which, to me, isn't that absurd, because the SAME violation exist on iOS in certification, where an app must be responsive within X # of seconds.
Certification is for things like hardware and OS compliance: make sure you don't break the system, make sure you don't have bad crashes, make sure you have proper calls to handle things like achievements, etc...
Contract, and specifically the way he mentions it, is dealing with Microsoft the Publisher who would publish their game. How the publisher wants to align their games to what the market wants, etc.
During the E3 bombcast, I've noticed a similar "blurring of lines". He brought in one example of "game takes too long to load with no loading screen", which, to me, isn't that absurd, because the SAME violation exist on iOS in certification, where an app must be responsive within X # of seconds.
SpaceDrake
Member
tiff said:
No, it was more that we had no idea WHAT to expect. It can be a little hard getting Valve's attention as a new indie developer because they are currently snowed the fuck under in business from both major publishers and smaller places, and we were coming out with an entirely new concept for the platform in a way that we weren't even sure was going to sell. We anticipated a little bit of trouble because we were basically attempting something that'd almost never been attempted before, and certainly not on the scale of the Recettear project.
D
Deleted member 81567
Unconfirmed Member
Lol, nothing's changed.TheOddOne said:
Everyone asking about PSN - he may not have mentioned it because he may not have had to deal with SNE yet. Blow didn't actually do the PS3 version of Braid. Hothead Games did that one. Given how good a job they did, Blow might contract with them again to get it released for PS3.
TerryWogan
Member
StuBurns said:
I don't have time to hunt down some podcast. You've listened to it, right? So why can't you list the things in the certification process? Or are you still saying it's just leaderboards and cheevos?
AlphaTwo00
Member
Partially I would agree with him. As he said on the e3 podcast, "I want no achievements". The idea is that the way MS has achievements setup, the notification is going to popup in game by default. There's no way of either delaying it or getting rid of it all together. This isn't an issue with both Steam and iOS (where it's optional); even Sony seems more lenient on it (see Heavy Rain's exception of being able to delay it afterwards)see5harp said:
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