• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Xbox LIVE Indie Games - The December 2011 Thread

M

MikeHaggar

Member
HadesGigas said:
Debut trailer for Game Type from Mommy's Best Games.
Click to expand...

interesting to see their take on something really "targeting" the xblig market. it's very creative. unfortunately, i don't think that it will do much more than sell to their loyal fans. it's disappointing to see them still whining about the marketplace at the end of the trailer. they've long been a vocal critic of xblig though. i have to wonder, if they feel so strongly about it, why not move on? put your games out on a different platform...
 
H

HadesGigas

Member
MikeHaggar said:
i have to wonder, if they feel so strongly about it, why not move on? put your games out on a different platform...
Click to expand...

Seems like they pretty much did "move on". Game Type is their first XBLIG in over a year, and it's a joke release. They did Serious Sam on Steam and are doing Shoot 1Up on WP7 (with Xbox Live achievements).
 
M

MikeHaggar

Member
HadesGigas said:
Seems like they pretty much did "move on". Game Type is their first XBLIG in over a year, and it's a joke release. They did Serious Sam on Steam and are doing Shoot 1Up on WP7 (with Xbox Live achievements).
Click to expand...

ehh, one steam game, a port of their xblig (using the same framework) to a different device, and then this game right back on xblig. doesn't sound like they've moved on to me. sounds like they dipped their big toe in the waters of steam and came right back to xna and xblig.
 
H

HadesGigas

Member
MikeHaggar said:
ehh, one steam game, a port of their xblig (using the same framework) to a different device, and then this game right back on xblig. doesn't sound like they've moved on to me. sounds like they dipped their big toe in the waters of steam and came right back to xna and xblig.
Click to expand...

It's a joke game thrown together in like a week though. Which is probably a better use of XBLIG if they have other options available to them now for their bigger games.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
Ranger X said:
Didn't strike a chord with me. I should try it sometimes I guess.
Click to expand...

That's funny you should phrase it that way, because one of the things I liked best about the game was the music. Chord... music... get it? Phaw.

I can see why you might not get into it at first. The controls are loose and slippery, which almost put me off of the game completely. Then a friend came over and we played through the game not just once, but twice (the second for the good ending) while taking turns.

I'd say if you have a friend who also likes platformers and doesn't mind dying a few hundred times, boot it up and try it again. But the controls are a potential dealbreaker.

I would also recommend the Johnny Platform games, but never Turtle Casino.

Gaspode_T said:
Kobun of the xblig.co site wrote a quick rant jumping in on the "my game isn't selling" debate:

http://xblig.co/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=187

Negativity generally only breeds negativity in a Star Wars dark side sort of way, it's a very interesting and scary thing.

On a positive note the drop to 80 points seems to really be helping MagicalTimeBean out with Soulcaster I/II sales spiking up:

http://www.magicaltimebean.com/2011/12/magic-seal-pelts-follow-up-first-week-after-price-drop/
Click to expand...

Kobun makes some good points. I appreciate the numbers backing up his points. I still think there's an inordinate amount of crap on the service, and I still think games could be doing better if Microsoft moved the spot forward in the dash and/or streamlined the interface for them in general, but the numbers don't lie.

Good news for Soulcaster as well. MagicalTimeBean deserves all sorts of success given how awesome all of their games have been so far.
 
F

FunInfusedGames

Member
I'm not personally familiar with who Kobun is (maybe I do know him but under some other name). I think you get a very different outlook of XBLIG once you've released / developed titles for it vs seeing it from the outside. It especially irks me when those with no experience say that if we want better sales, we need to do better marketing our games. We got a TON of publicity for the Summer Uprising and it didn't translate to sales success. I market the hell out of myself and my games and it doesn't translate to sales success. Outside of a dash promotion, it doesn't seem like anything you do matters. This contrasts sharply to my experiences on iOS, where a good review or a temporary promotion (free giveaway) clearly improves sales. I think it's the disconnected nature of going from the Xbox to the PC that really hurts here and I don't see any way around that.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
FunInfusedGames said:
I'm not personally familiar with who Kobun is (maybe I do know him but under some other name). I think you get a very different outlook of XBLIG once you've released / developed titles for it vs seeing it from the outside. It especially irks me when those with no experience say that if we want better sales, we need to do better marketing our games. We got a TON of publicity for the Summer Uprising and it didn't translate to sales success. I market the hell out of myself and my games and it doesn't translate to sales success. Outside of a dash promotion, it doesn't seem like anything you do matters. This contrasts sharply to my experiences on iOS, where a good review or a temporary promotion (free giveaway) clearly improves sales. I think it's the disconnected nature of going from the Xbox to the PC that really hurts here and I don't see any way around that.
Click to expand...

I hate to say that the Summer Uprising wasn't as full of quality as it could have been, but it wasn't. I feel like the quality of games released had more to do with its fate than a lack of promotion or interest. Early releases like Raventhorne did little to help generate interest in what was a stronger second half.

You definitely have been doing a bang-up job trying to market VolChaos. And I wish the game would see better success. It's not an issue of quality with this one, I feel like it's an issue of market interest. I don't know that the XBLIG marketplace target demographic is, but I do know that knockoffs, joke games and craftalikes are among the most successful on the service. It's starting to definite itself as a service that isn't for people that like to play your style of game. And that really makes me sad because this service could be offering so much more.
 
G

Gaspode_T

Member
Yeah although I do think platformers are uphill battle on XBLIG I did expect Volchaos to sell more like 5000 easily, so if it didn't hit that number my feeling is more of frustration with the average Xbox 360 gamer.

For expectations of mobile sales, I couldn't find any but finding sales numbers of Mos Speedrun might be a decent indicator of whether there is even a market on mobile...my impression is it does okay, but not stellar there either, I've almost never seen it on rankings unless it's Free. Maybe you can e-mail them and ask: http://www.physmo.com/

There are some other platformers like Arcade Jumper and League of Evil so you do already have competition for the game on mobile.

--------

I downloaded Game Type but haven't tried it yet...the cat ad gets me...I do think it was just a joke between veteran XNA devs, but the fact that "hoodie girl" needs to fight off "media ball" is kind of true, the emphasis on TV apps of the dash is not just some small effort it must have taken a lot of resources to allow so many apps to be released in such a small time period.
 
F

FunInfusedGames

Member
Yeah although I do think platformers are uphill battle on XBLIG I did expect Volchaos to sell more like 5000 easily, so if it didn't hit that number my feeling is more of frustration with the average Xbox 360 gamer.
Click to expand...

Not even close... we just passed 500 sales :(
 
A

AcceptableGhost

Member
MikeHaggar said:
ehh, one steam game, a port of their xblig (using the same framework) to a different device, and then this game right back on xblig. doesn't sound like they've moved on to me. sounds like they dipped their big toe in the waters of steam and came right back to xna and xblig.
Click to expand...

Unless Devolver Digital took like all the money from Serious Sam DD I have serious doubt that it made less than their previous games. This game seems to just be a huge slam against XBLIG, I doubt anymore games will come from MBG for the XBLIG (or atleast be focused on it - if grapple buggy ever comes out no doubt it will come out on Steam hopefully).
 
H

HadesGigas

Member
Alien Jelly is out for $3. Seems really well made, didn't get past what is basically the tutorial stuff in my first trial though.

screen1.jpg
 
M

MikeHaggar

Member
just downloaded the trial for escape goat. it's fucking awesome. bought it as soon as the trial expired. kudos to magicaltimebean!
 
W

Warm Machine

Member
Dark Octave said:
And you have an actual studio with employees right?
Click to expand...

No employees. Contractors out of pocket. This is why OTs of these games are important to get the word out. We had an OT for that crotch kicking self defense game that got 1/10 on IGN or whatever for gods sake and here are two real games made by members of the NeoGaf community.
 
M

MikeHaggar

Member
Warm Machine said:
No employees. Contractors out of pocket. This is why OTs of these games are important to get the word out. We had an OT for that crotch kicking self defense game that got 1/10 on IGN or whatever for gods sake and here are two real games made by members of the NeoGaf community.
Click to expand...

are you not allowed to make an OT for your own game?
 
M

MikeHaggar

Member
Warm Machine said:
I believe it is against the ToS to use GAF as a personal marketing platform.
Click to expand...

and no one has offered? i'd do it for you, but i've never made an OT and i don't have any graphic design skills :p

on an unrelated note, escape goat is very addictive. almost done with the game already!
 
G

Gaspode_T

Member
I thought I would be num one on the Game Type global leader board but I am like 17...made it to round seven too

I picked up Hidden in Plain Sight!

I think Kotaku should put an article out when they update their list, are they not doing that?

Warm have you tried to bug MSFT alias about ability to put on temporary sales? every voice helps

Imagine if you could put it on sale for free for 24 hours, talk about a way of generating word of mouth...look at the Sequence and Steam giveaway threads
 
G

Gaspode_T

Member
Also the dev of Game Type seems upset but not as mad as you guys think " I was definitely bothered too that Games on the console were pushed further from the front by TV and Videos. It takes a good number of clicks to find the browsable storefront for Indie Games and XBLA as well. I ended up making a new game about it called "Game Type" which satirizes the situation, but also educates. If you press the X button the fake dashboard, it gives you an arrow leading the player through the menus until they find the 'Game Type' tile, which is in the same position as it is on the real dashboard.
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Game-Type/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550a27
Here's a video showing some of the dashboard, just not the hint:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeNDznVxp50

I think it would be great if they picked a more appropriate name (All Games, Buy Games, More Games, Marketplace, etc), and a more fitting image (Image of a controller, storefront, shopping bag, etc) for that tile. And of course, moving the entire Games tab closer to the Home tab on the top level would be the great as well. "

From XNA dev forums
 
F

FunInfusedGames

Member
What did your best game do in sales if you don't mind me asking?

Also, we were talking about you and your game today and my wife wants to know what the other titles you made for XBLIG are.
Click to expand...

My full list of games and screenshots, videos, etc can be found at http://www.funinfused.com. For XBLIG I have Volchaos, Trivia or Die, Hypership Out of Control, Abduction Action!, and Nasty. For iOS and also WP7, I have Hypership Out of Control.

Trivia or Die and Hypership Out of Control (iOS) are both approaching 4,000 sales each. Hypership is slightly behind but it hasn't been out as long and should pass Trivia or Die as my best selling title soon.

Nasty was my first game and previous worst selling game with a bit under 800 total sales (some of those at 400 ms points though). I need to sell almost 2,000 copies of Volchaos to cover my artwork and music costs. I never thought I wouldn't reach that and hoped for a lot more. Whatever problems you may have w/ Volchaos, it's certainly a ton better than my first release.
 
G

Gaspode_T

Member
The more I think about it the more I think maybe you guys could convince someone at msft to include indie games sometimes for free in Gold only sales, that is what Sony does with PSN Plus andcPS Minis

You would be surprised at how many people would come out of the woodwork for a free game
 
H

HadesGigas

Member
Gaspode_T said:
The more I think about it the more I think maybe you guys could convince someone at msft to include indie games sometimes for free in Gold only sales, that is what Sony does with PSN Plus andcPS Minis

You would be surprised at how many people would come out of the woodwork for a free game
Click to expand...

How does that even work? Does Sony compensate the developers for giving their game away free?

Would like to see Indie Games included in deals more often though. It's cool when they are, but it's only like a few times a year.
 
G

Gaspode_T

Member
Well worst case scenario maybe dev would not receive anything but marketing value...either way I am pretty sure Gold = free games = more people renewing is a pretty easy sell to suit types
 
F

FunInfusedGames

Member
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.
 
M

MightyHedgehog

Member
Before all hope is lost in XBIG land, I wish that there might be a chance for a few collaborations between groups that take a ton of responsibility & work for any one person down to more reasonable levels but produce standout releases that might sell significantly better than two separately-released titles. An experiment for matching talents and skills to roles much more efficiently to better-flesh out a single more successful game that might mean an end to the monopoly of zombie-crafting releases that dominate the best selling list. A super-dev game built on strong planning and coordination.
 
G

Galdelico

Member
It would be so great if one of those talented Indie developers here on GAF could make a nice Gals Panic look-alike.
I loved that game back in the days, and even tried to approach similar ideas such as Moe Mekuri (but the combo 'logic + lolitas' really put me off there), not really feeling them at all.

Would I be the only one buying it? :D
 
G

Gaspode_T

Member
I kid you not I was just thinking in my head on the way home a couple hours ago "Oh this game idea I've been holding onto for the past few years, boy would it be a good match for Tribute Games style"

The channel is not dead nor dying, if anything it's making more money than it ever has by all indications I've seen. The problem is the direction is squarely at pandering sort of games and the creative games still struggle. Games like Avatar Paintball, Laser Wars, Prank Call, I see these getting lots of sales consistently for months and months and months.

Once Orbitron/Escape Goat/Volchaos break 5,000 sales, there is some justice in the world...

Hey I read on 2ch (Japanese message board) some guy saying "Alien Jelly is OMFG awesome, go download it now, I'm serious" - he compared it to Ilomilo and was saying he was going to upload custom levels. Also the first Starzzle game got pretty good reviews and there is Christmas themed one out now which I think is smart (I wonder if the music is holiday themed too). It was always nice to break out Costume Quest at Halloween time, that's the sort of pandering no one should have a problem with...
 
O

OnPoint

Member
Gaspode_T said:
I kid you not I was just thinking in my head on the way home a couple hours ago "Oh this game idea I've been holding onto for the past few years, boy would it be a good match for Tribute Games style"

The channel is not dead nor dying, if anything it's making more money than it ever has by all indications I've seen. The problem is the direction is squarely at pandering sort of games and the creative games still struggle. Games like Avatar Paintball, Laser Wars, Prank Call, I see these getting lots of sales consistently for months and months and months.

Once Orbitron/Escape Goat/Volchaos break 5,000 sales, there is some justice in the world...

Hey I read on 2ch (Japanese message board) some guy saying "Alien Jelly is OMFG awesome, go download it now, I'm serious" - he compared it to Ilomilo and was saying he was going to upload custom levels. Also the first Starzzle game got pretty good reviews and there is Christmas themed one out now which I think is smart (I wonder if the music is holiday themed too). It was always nice to break out Costume Quest at Halloween time, that's the sort of pandering no one should have a problem with...
Click to expand...

It's breaking my heart that we're/we've heading/landed in that direction.
 
G

Gaspode_T

Member
There are some interesting new games up now:

Lexiv is a city building game with words...this is a great idea, the name of this game sounds familiar, is it already out on mobile maybe?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbGd6qvKHwk

EchoSpace: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN8v84Da-RE

I don't have a problem with pandering games to some degree, they exist on iOS too. The best of both worlds exists

Avatars are also popular for a reason - it's interesting...it's you, in a game...it's not necessarily a bad thing. I had a lot of fun walking around World of Keflings and kicking
keflings around. Crash Course is also very popular for that reason.

There should still be a market for the creative games to a reasonable degree, that is probably a measure of the health of the marketplace...right now XBLIG is lopsided to give success to a few types of games, I can agree with that. The things I mentioned before (pricing flexibility, ability to do sales) would probably bring in enough eyes to the marketplace, also adding Game Type as a top level menu instead of sub menu would help a lot obviously :p i am kind of baffled why that wasn't the default menu...
 
G

Gaspode_T

Member
I can't post the pics here but Famitsu 360 gave "Indie Games of the Month" to SpaceCatcher, Volchaos and Oozi Episode 2 for their Feb 2012 issue.

I saw some more sales #s uploaded to the XNA dev forums, but I haven't heard if anyone has had sudden spike in older games due to Picks section. I have seen some pretty darn good picks in my own, but it could be because I have bought so many good XBLIG games ...

<crickets still chirping, people must be too busy playing games like I am doing>

Curious to know how Soulcaster I and II are doing: http://www.magicaltimebean.com/2011/12/magic-seal-pelts-follow-up-first-week-after-price-drop/ I kind of almost don't want him to drop Escape Goat to 80 pts, it's that good...
 
F

FunInfusedGames

Member
I can't post the pics here but Famitsu 360 gave "Indie Games of the Month" to SpaceCatcher, Volchaos and Oozi Episode 2 for their Feb 2012 issue.
Click to expand...

Awesome news! Can you buy that magazine in the US? If nothing else, can you scan it and send it to me? I get if you cannot post it here but I'd love to see it... you can email kris @ funinfused dot com.

We should also be in the Indieverse section of the February OXM :)
 
O

OnPoint

Member
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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Digital storefronts are a dictatorship
Opinion 2
92
4K
Fbh replied
Blizzard announces massive changes to Diablo 4 starting Season 4
News
2
654
clarky replied
Would you be more interested in an Xbox console if it offered a duel windows/series s OS options?
2 3
106
3K
Kdad replied
Xbox Series S Toaster is real & ready for bread
Deals
49
3K
Team Andromeda replied
RPCS3 - Play PS3 Games Online on PC via RPCN!
Community Retro
18
2K
Klosshufvud replied
Top Bottom