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[Cromulent_Word]

Yeah, I know that. A part of the earnings (and sometimes a big part) goes to the publisher... I was not referring that all the money was for developers... that's why I wrote that the X amount of money was for the project. The "4-men project" part was probably misleading. Its likely that I have not expressed myself properly... my english is pretty bad.

Your english is quite good - i just jumped to the conclusion that you were assigning 100% of all sales to the dev (more to make sure people consider that before they get all OMG HELLO GAMES IS RICH).

 

[jvm]

yea, in a crazy world where devs keep all the money their games make.

unfortunately this world does not exist.

What a cromulent world that would be.

 

[Bisnic]

”Collecting giant coins feels unrealistic to me”

Whoever said that must hate Mario games.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

I'm pretty sure UNO was a huge hit before it was bundled though. I think the popularity of the title being that it was the first of it's kind. A board game on XBLA actually done correctly.

 

[geeko]

So us Xbox owners wont get to play Joe Danger, BIG WHOOP DI DOO. I don't doubt it is a good game and would love to see it on XBLA, but now the world will never know if it would have succeeded or failed on XBLA. Lost potential profit if you ask me.

 

[ULTROS!]

Hopefully, this brings in more smaller but fantastic devs/indie companies into PSN.

My most recent favorite is Rockin' Android for the Gundemonium Collection.

<3 Gundemonium

 

[kenta]

So us Xbox owners wont get to play Joe Danger, BIG WHOOP DI DOO. I don't doubt it is a good game and would love to see it on XBLA, but now the world will never know if it would have succeeded or failed on XBLA. Lost potential profit if you ask me.

His point (as I understand it) is that the game has to sell 25,000 copies on XBLA or they don't get paid. That's a risk they couldn't take as a young startup

What's the payout threshold on PSN? Anyone know? (Mario?)

 

[radjago]

I feel kind of bad about begging them at PAX East to bring it to XBLA now. Their XBLA analysis looks solid and they went with the safe bet.

 

[PataHikari]

”We want games that are less about fun right now”

This is an amazing quote.

In all the wrong ways.

 

[Son of Godzilla]

I'm pretty sure UNO was a huge hit before it was bundled though. I think the popularity of the title being that it was the first of it's kind. A board game on XBLA actually done correctly.

Unless Uno is secretly sitting at like 6 million sold, this quote makes no sense:

”The reason for the Uno effect,” he said, “was that it was given away for free with the Xbox 360 Arcade [SKU], and then grew via word-of-mouth.”

 

[PasteyMF]

Kudos to them getting it out on the PSN. I'm not surprised to hear about XBLA honestly.

As a side note to those that haven't played it yet, it's the bastard love child of Excite Bike and Trials HD. It's pure fun and a lot of game for $15. If you're looking for something to fill the void between the major games of summer, I recommend it.

 

[Jerk]

Hmm, good to know that fun is not always a priority...

 

[levious]

I'm pretty sure UNO was a huge hit before it was bundled though. I think the popularity of the title being that it was the first of it's kind. A board game on XBLA actually done correctly.

I thought it was bundled with the vision camera or something

 

[SapientWolf]

I feel kind of bad about begging them at PAX East to bring it to XBLA now. Their XBLA analysis looks solid and they went with the safe bet.

I dunno, Trials HD sold like gangbusters.

The main issue is that there isn't anyone promoting these digital games. They are announced and then they're quietly launched years later with no hype or fanfare.

 

[FrankT]

:lol Trials HD is like one of the fastest selling DL games this gen.

It's also over a million now on the leaderboards. Cashing in big time.

 

[Cromulent_Word]

What a cromulent world that would be.

it would really embiggen us small devs

 

[LakeEarth]

I'm pretty sure UNO was a huge hit before it was bundled though. I think the popularity of the title being that it was the first of it's kind. A board game on XBLA actually done correctly.

It also came out after a huge 2-month gap for XBLA games. XBLA was a surprise success that had very little coming out after its initial launch, so Uno had really good timing behind it as well.

I know I was starved. I bought Feeding Frenzy for godsake.

 

[Owzers]

”We want games that are less about fun right now”

Whatever publisher that said that is now my favorite publisher in the industry.

Probably every publisher out there right now making big budget games that are a chore to play.

 

[Huevos de Oro]

Whoa. Are publishers really that disconnected from the very audience they're trying to sell their products to?

 

[Steroyd]

”We want games that are less about fun right now”

Less fun? What the fuck is a "less fun"?

All this talk makes me want to get Joe Danger now.

 

[hey_it's_that_dog]

Sarcasm? Cause I hope you aren't implying that simulation and strategy fans are not having fun.

Less fun? What the fuck is a "less fun"?

All this talk makes me want to get Joe Danger now.

There are different kinds of fun. Joe Danger and a hardcore flight sim are different kinds of fun just like movies like Toy Story and No Country for Old Men are different kinds of fun. Nobody would describe No Country as "a fun movie!" but people certainly did enjoy watching it.

The publisher who wasn't interested in "fun" probably meant specifically the light-hearted, playful kind of fun.

As one last example, I submit to you that Shadow of the Colossus is not "fun" in the same way Joe Danger is "fun."

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Joe Danger is my broseph and all, but that monkey idea is pretty hot.

 

[Lagspike_exe]

So us Xbox owners wont get to play Joe Danger, BIG WHOOP DI DOO. I don't doubt it is a good game and would love to see it on XBLA, but now the world will never know if it would have succeeded or failed on XBLA. Lost potential profit if you ask me.

They did loose profit, but they got additional funding and support from Sony.

 

[Blast Processing]

I bet they just wanted to rip the heads off of the publisher mouthpieces that said some of those quotes.

 

[subversus]

o....m....f...g....

I thought that some clever people work there.

But after reading this I don't know really.

It seems that industry is in decline not because consumers are greedy bitches but because industry people are ignorant narrow-minded assholes. Or it could be both.

smh

 

[hiro4]

o....m....f...g....

I thought that some clever people work there.

But after reading this I don't know really.

It seems that industry is in decline not because consumers are greedy bitches but because industry people are ignorant narrow-minded assholes. Or it could be both.

smh

There has to be only one narrow minded person: the person that makes the decisions.
He ruins it for the rest of us, developers or gamers.

 

[charlequin]

Very interesting.

I'm a bit confused about their XBLA sales numbers, though.

Of titles on XBLA that were self-published without the assistance of third-parties, Murray claimed 47 per cent sold less than 25,000 copies, 23 per cent sold around 100,000 copies, 13 per cent 200,000 copies and 17 per cent more than 200,000.

They present the story as XBLA being a "slaughterhouse" but those numbers are actually quite good -- so good that I'm pretty sure they're also not accurate. :lol

 

[John]

Oh fuck

 

[jrricky]

I refuse to believe some of those quotes... :-/

 

[LosDaddie]

They present the story as XBLA being a "slaughterhouse" but those numbers are actually quite good -- so good that I'm pretty sure they're also not accurate. :lol

Same here. Those sales numbers, if accurate, don't sound like a "slaughterhouse" scenario to me, at all.



Good sales for JD though.

 

[Steroyd]

There are different kinds of fun. Joe Danger and a hardcore flight sim are different kinds of fun just like movies like Toy Story and No Country for Old Men are different kinds of fun. Nobody would describe No Country as "a fun movie!" but people certainly did enjoy watching it.

The publisher who wasn't interested in "fun" probably meant specifically the light-hearted, playful kind of fun.

As one last example, I submit to you that Shadow of the Colossus is not "fun" in the same way Joe Danger is "fun."

I'll agree people's degree of fun differs (I like grinding my characters to god mode in RPG's for example) but still... I don't think "fun" can be quantified in such a way that you could request less of it in such a way, in a frikken video game of all mediums.

Oh damn this game has too much fun put in it, I want less of fun please.

 

[seady]

”We want games that are less about fun right now”

Admit it, most of you don't care about this.
You only want brown and gray pretty graphics and games that allow you to shoot.

 

[John]

oh damn seady caught us, we were only pretending to like games this whole time!

 

[SolidusDave]

Same here. Those sales numbers, if accurate, don't sound like a "slaughterhouse" scenario to me, at all.

well, we would need a PSN comparison.
But I'm not sure if it sounds that hot if half of all self-published games have lifetime sales below 25k, because that is probably not enough to break even for many of the them.

 

[Rad-]

well, we would need a PSN comparison.
But I'm not sure if it sounds that hot if half of all self-published games have lifetime sales below 25k, because that is probably not enough to break even for many of the them.

All of those under 25k titles are totally horrid games though and deserve to bomb as hard as possible. A good title like JD would have no worries.

 

[Chrange]

Very interesting.

I'm a bit confused about their XBLA sales numbers, though.



They present the story as XBLA being a "slaughterhouse" but those numbers are actually quite good -- so good that I'm pretty sure they're also not accurate. :lol

That's what I was thinking. If 30% of self-published titles sold 200,000 copies or more, how is that a horrible market...especially when you take into account the kind of games you see being 'self-published' on XBLA.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

It also came out after a huge 2-month gap for XBLA games. XBLA was a surprise success that had very little coming out after its initial launch, so Uno had really good timing behind it as well.

I know I was starved. I bought Feeding Frenzy for godsake.

Agreed. There are lots of reasons for the obnoxious success of UNO but I think that the bundling of the game is on the very bottom of that list.

 

[Mrbob]

Congrats to Hello Games!

Now that you guys made your money back put the game on sale.

 

[Pimpbaa]

“Name me one popular game with motorbikes?”

”Collecting giant coins feels unrealistic to me”

”I can see this working as a Facebook app”

”We want games that are less about fun right now”

”We love the theme, but with a different game”

”We believe the iPhone will be largely unsupported”

”Can Joe be a monkey? We like Monkeys”

Publishers are a cancer on the gaming industry.

 

[Mario]

His point (as I understand it) is that the game has to sell 25,000 copies on XBLA or they don't get paid. That's a risk they couldn't take as a young startup

What's the payout threshold on PSN? Anyone know? (Mario?)

You are thinking of WiiWare which has been revealed to have a threshold. There has never been a public suggestion of a threshold for XBLA and PSN.

If you haven't sold 25k or more copies, you probably haven't recouped your expenses when developing for PSN or XBLA though (will vary depending on dev complexity and price point of the game).

 

[Nemo]

Your english is quite good - i just jumped to the conclusion that you were assigning 100% of all sales to the dev (more to make sure people consider that before they get all OMG HELLO GAMES IS RICH).

XNA is 70/30 split. I always assumed it's like that in the big world too, or is it closer to 50/50?

 

[El-Suave]

I got the impression from their PS blog post replies that Hello Games would have priced the game much lower had it been completely up to them.
Good for them that they were able to sell well at a higher price. They didn't even release a demo yet and that price leaves many options for sales down the road.

The only bad thing about this might be that the floodgates for $15 games are now opened as they were on XBLA last year.

 

[see5harp]

The crazy thing is that either Behemoth or MS is still advertising Castle Crashers. Every issue of Giant Robot I've gotten since that game launched years ago, has had a pretty substantial "thick stock" ad with a papercraft. Where is the PSN version?

 

[Hypereides]

I'm sure these type of comments happen to lots of developers pitching their wares. It's always nice to see a success story come from it.

Now this cap is starting to make alot of sense :lol

”Collecting giant coins feels unrealistic to me”

”I can see this working as a Facebook app”

EA

”We want games that are less about fun right now”

“Name me one popular game with motorbikes?”

Activision

”We love the theme, but with a different game”

Nintendo

”We believe the iPhone will be largely unsupported”

”Can Joe be a monkey? We like Monkeys

SEGA

My best guesses.