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[Dr. Zoidberg]

Xbox Live Indie Games: no way to make a living

They were never meant to be. It's a cheap to publish on, unregulated service. It's nothing like Steam and that was not the intent. It's a hobbyist showcase.

I get annoyed at people who blame MS not because of what XBLIG is, but rather that it's not what they wish it was.

Some of those screens look cool, but the XBL interface does suck a poor job at displaying these games that I don't know what to buy.

There's a "Top Rated" section right there. I don't see how people can miss it. Plus there's the monthly GAF topic for more serious gamers.

 

[Gowans]

It will be interesting to see what's done in the new dash (&stote) later this year.

The app Market is world wide now with unrated games everywhere, I would like to see ms get a little less cautious with the indies and release some of the constraints.

 

[Deleted member 13876]

I'd totally buy some indie games if they were available in my country.

 

[toythatkills]

There's a "Top Rated" section right there. I don't see how people can miss it. Plus there's the monthly GAF topic for more serious gamers.

Those topics are for less serious gamers, really. Obviously it's the more serious gamers that post and discuss in it, but it's for everyone that only has a passing interest in the service to look at and instantly be able to queue five or six games they like the sound of without having to really do any work at all.

 

[Kafel]

To anyone not knowing what to get on XBLIG : there's the 50 top rated games section.

Is this really difficult to find on the dashboard ?

 

[JesseZao]

To anyone not knowing what to get on XBLIG : there's the 50 top rated games section.

Is this really difficult to find on the dashboard ?

Willful blindness is a terrible affliction. "There are just ads EVERYWHERE!"

 

[chubigans]

And release them where, exactly?

The good games typically will pursue options like Steam (and a few once XBLIG games are on Steam and/or are coming to Steam), but most of the stuff on XBLIG is going to sell the best on XBLIG because if their game isn't good enough to be approved for Steam, they're only other option is to just sell it on their personal website.

PC isn't the magical fairy dreamscape people want it to be.

Being "good enough" isn't necessarily a qualification for being accepted into Steam.

Getting a game on Steam is a huge enigma. I've tried to submit games to the service, talked with some talented devs who also tried, and none of us can figure out what exactly it is they want.

It's mind boggling and depressing.

 

[Princess Skittles]

Being "good enough" isn't necessarily a qualification for being accepted into Steam.

Getting a game on Steam is a huge enigma. I've tried to submit games to the service, talked with some talented devs who also tried, and none of us can figure out what exactly it is they want.

It's mind boggling and depressing.

Well yeah, "good enough" is certainly subjective and there are a few games on Steam that could easily qualify as clunkers, but I think in general, an indie developer should know that they aren't going to be able to submit "Baby Maker Extreme" or "Try Not to Fart" to Valve hoping to drink from the well. But with no approval process and a large audience, XBLIG is a pretty nice spot for garbage peddlers.

 

[Mimir]

The real problem for me is that despite the quality I feel Sequence displays, Steam has completely and utterly ignored my application and follow-up E-mails. I love Valve, but that made me feel pretty rough. Maybe it's just not good enough.

So what options are there beyond Steam? I could try GamersGate or Direct2Drive, or just release it on my own. I doubt it'll make more than a few thousand, to be honest, with any of these options.

Oh well.

I don't think quality is really the issue. Spiderweb Software couldn't get Avadon onto Steam either, and that's definitely better than a lot of the games that make the cut.

For other markets, there's also Impulse, Desura, and the upcoming Indie City, but I don't think any of them have great market share. If you do decide to release it yourself, www.showmethegames.com is a portal site that's designed to help people find and buy indie games directly from the developers.

 

[acm2000]

XBIG was never meant to be a way to make a living, people dont seem to get that, its a foot in the door to get your games published

 

[Visualante]

No shit.

Steam pushes indie games extremely well but it's still not going to earn a living.

Steam also doesn't take every dumpster game thrown at them, which is the biggest problem the XBLIG platform has.

Depends who you ask, seems like a lot of independents have had success in the last year or two.

 

[Neuromancer]

Yeah, with those Kinect things having achievements and being both free and totally throwaway, there's no excuse not to let XBLIGs have 20GS to play with per title, or more.

Even 20GS would get some interest in it. Even six achievements for no GS at all would help with getting your game noticed because it would go on people's gamercard as "recently played."

At the moment XBLIGs are totally invisible, but that might be how Microsoft wants them.

I wonder about this too. XBLA publishers might not be real happy with MS if they felt Indie games were getting too much attention, or got achievements.

 

[Stumpokapow]

They were never meant to be. It's a cheap to publish on, unregulated service. It's nothing like Steam and that was not the intent. It's a hobbyist showcase.

I get annoyed at people who blame MS not because of what XBLIG is, but rather that it's not what they wish it was.

Their point is that it could be better. These people aren't complaining, they're appealing.

Their second point is that other services which are similarly open and easy to get on have better chances for success, particularly for high quality content producers, which the people quoted in the article are.

I don't think quality is really the issue. Spiderweb Software couldn't get Avadon onto Steam either, and that's definitely better than a lot of the games that make the cut.

The consensus seems to be that Steam likes:
- High quality games
- Steamworks games
- Games with a lot of buzz surrounding them
- Games from established developers and/or established publishers and/or devs/pubs who will put other games on the service
- Games that are priced to move
- Games that are complete and available.
- Companies who have good connections, good PR, and are able to reach out to Steam

The more of these you have, the better, definitely, although there's no magic scoring formula that seems to guarantee your game being on Steam.

 

[szaromir]

I think Microsoft doing a section of "community standouts" for selected Indie Games that were generally well rated and letting them give even only 20GS would help the developers who try immensely. But sadly that's not going to happen. I'd love to see more games like Astroman.

As for PC not being such a great option if you aren't approved on Steam, well that's why I was arguing that Steam's huge marketshare isn't good for anyone but Valve.

 

[Princess Skittles]

The consensus seems to be that Steam likes:
- Steamworks games

Can a developer even incorporate these features before being approved?

 

[toythatkills]

If we started a campaign to get Sequence on Steam, do you think they'd take notice? Nothing serious, just something light-hearted to get word out about the game and that it wants to be on Steam

 

[JWong]

People need to ask Cromulent Word on how to start indie.
Capybara is doing very well and I had a chance to hear how they started up.

I still think indie development is a nearly loss cause. Yes, you'll have a one shot wonder every year or more, but you'll have a gazillion carbon copy games with no effort while passionate indie devs are buried from being noticed.

 

[CountAntonius]

We can blame Microsoft all we want but people just don't care to buy indie games. They aren't that hard to find. There are also plenty of tabs that show good games as well. I just think people don't buy them for the same reason xbla games don't sell as well as retail. Most gamers just aren't interested. Sure they can pimp the service a little better but I still doubt we'll ever see huge improvement in sales.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

If we started a campaign to get Sequence on Steam, do you think they'd take notice? Nothing serious, just something light-hearted to get word out about the game and that it wants to be on Steam

Why not? It surely wouldn't do any harm.

We can blame Microsoft all we want but people just don't care to buy indie games. They aren't that hard to find. There are also plenty of tabs that show good games as well. I just think people don't buy them for the same reason xbla games don't sell as well as retail. Most gamers just aren't interested. Sure they can pimp the service a little better but I still doubt we'll ever see huge improvement in sales.

I'm kind of in this camp too. Even on GAF, interest in the good xblig titles is quite (and to me surprisingly) small.

 

[mujun]

XBLIG is great.

Still I would like to see MS keep working on it and doing as much as possible to help the people putting games up.

Achievements would definitely encourage me to buy more games.

 

[Deleted member 81567]

Most games looks like shit, most games play like shit, so people just assume all games are shit. No one wants to wade through that crap for the few decent games out there.

I'm never actually going to navigate all those indie game titles and download trials and make me suffer just to find a decent one. I usually check the internet for the highly praised ones and play those. And that's 1 or 2.

So honestly, this thread is kind of obvious. Microsoft will never support anything that slightly disobeys their closed, strict policy and the fact they have those indie games in there is surprising by their part.

 

[mt1200]

Isnt Itunes more indie-friendly?

 

[SamVimes]

No shit.

Steam pushes indie games extremely well but it's still not going to earn a living.

Tell that to the creators of Terraria.

 

[brain_stew]

The real problem for me is that despite the quality I feel Sequence displays, Steam has completely and utterly ignored my application and follow-up E-mails. I love Valve, but that made me feel pretty rough. Maybe it's just not good enough.

So what options are there beyond Steam? I could try GamersGate or Direct2Drive, or just release it on my own. I doubt it'll make more than a few thousand, to be honest, with any of these options.

Oh well.

The likes of GamersGate, Impulse and Direct2Drive still offer a very big market and if your game starts selling on those services then Valve will take notice as they have done for other indie games in similar situations.

 

[William-SSS]

I have mixed feelings on it personally, but you are correct.

I hope there will never be a "quality" judgment in the peer review process cause it's not the purpose of the service to deliver quality games. It has been made to allow "anyone" to do a game and release it on Xbox, even if it means having terrible things on the service. Anyway, maybe people (including myself) should talk more about the things they LIKE than the things they don't and good games will sales more.

We had pretty low sales on the XBLIG service with Blocks That Matter, and we are porting the game to Windows/Mac/Linux as we always planned. And I encourage developers to do this too cause XBLIG is clearly not a viable platform if you want to make games for a living.

But, like some of you already said, it's a great service to experiment things, gain experience and that's also a way to bring your games to console players "quite easily". For our next game, we will probably try to do teh same, release it on XBLIG and PCs, just like our previous one, using the appropriate tools (Flixel XNA > XNA > JAVA) to allow "easy" port.

I follow the work of chubigans (Vertigo Games) since years, and I'm sad they didn't manage to reach Steam, but they are a good example of what Indie Development can be. I hope Vertigo Games, Iridium, Zeboyd and many others will continue to create games even if it's really hard sometimes cause it worths it.

One thing the article should have said is that making great games is important but it's not enough : in indie dev (and in many other domain) you also need to be "persevering" and flexible.

 

[Nasreddin]

In the beginning I loved the Community/ Indie Games channel and tried every new demo. But in 2010 I lost interest and since then only tried very few games.

Not because of the majority of crappy games, but because I am not interested in most of the good games. Yes, many Indie Games are good, but that is not enough to sell a game. As a commercial developer you need to make games, people want to play. But my impression is, that most developers make games, they want to make. Which is fine. But in that case you shouldn't complain about not making a living.

 

[fernoca]

I've been a supporter of Xbox Indies since beginning, and sorry if this sound harsh..but they need to be delusional to expect make a living based on indie games.

Is like some are making games with the hopes of becoming the next Angry Birds, or (as far as Xbox Indie games goes) the next "I Made a game with Zombies in it" (don't know the exact typos )...


As this gen has show, not even good retail games are selling well with tons of advertising and good worth of mouth, and sadly the mentality of most console games when it comes to digital distribution is a big "DO NOT WANT_DOG.png*; even on a forum like this with many "hardcore gamers" Xbox Indies are ignored left and right, and indies in general; since many jump into indie games when either: the games are on Steam; or the games are on Steam AND on sale. ..or the usual "humble bundles" and the "pay what you want" kind of deals.

And I could be wrong, but the whole idea and concept of making indie games its to make this "experiments" that under normal circumstances publishers would just ignore if they went through the regular channels. Of course we all dream on making it big and be famous and earn profits; but nothing comes from nothing. If you make a game for Xbox Indies and is not as successful as you wanted; keep an eye out for criticism, look for other channels and ways to get the game out, talk more about it, spread the word about it.

There's no secret recipe for success on indie "anything" (games, movies, music) and more of a combination of perseverance, losing a lot of money and still love doing what you do.

 

[Lesiroth]

I hope there will never be a "quality" judgment in the peer review process cause it's not the purpose of the service to deliver quality games. It has been made to allow "anyone" to do a game and release it on Xbox, even if it means having terrible things on the service. Anyway, maybe people (including myself) should talk more about the things they LIKE than the things they don't and good games will sales more.

We had pretty low sales on the XBLIG service with Blocks That Matter, and we are porting the game to Windows/Mac/Linux as we always planned. And I encourage developers to do this too cause XBLIG is clearly not a viable platform if you want to make games for a living.

But, like some of you already said, it's a great service to experiment things, gain experience and that's also a way to bring your games to console players "quite easily". For our next game, we will probably try to do teh same, release it on XBLIG and PCs, just like our previous one, using the appropriate tools (Flixel XNA > XNA > JAVA) to allow "easy" port.

I follow the work of chubigans (Vertigo Games) since years, and I'm sad they didn't manage to reach Steam, but they are a good example of what Indie Development can be. I hope Vertigo Games, Iridium, Zeboyd and many others will continue to create games even if it's really hard sometimes cause it worths it.

One thing the article should have said is that making great games is important but it's not enough : in indie dev (and in many other domain) you also need to be "persevering" and flexible.

Maybe a group of indie developers can band together and create a common publisher and push hard for that publisher to get accepted on Steam?

 

[Reuenthal]

You are more welcome to the PC.

 

[Campster]

I've been a supporter of Xbox Indies since beginning, and sorry if this sound harsh..but they need to be delusional to expect make a living based on indie games.

Is like some are making games with the hopes of becoming the next Angry Birds, or (as far as Xbox Indie games goes) the next "I Made a game with Zombies in it" (don't know the exact typos )...


As this gen has show, not even good retail games are selling well with tons of advertising and good worth of mouth, and sadly the mentality of most console games when it comes to digital distribution is a big "DO NOT WANT_DOG.png*; even on a forum like this with many "hardcore gamers" Xbox Indies are ignored left and right, and indies in general; since many jump into indie games when either: the games are on Steam; or the games are on Steam AND on sale. ..or the usual "humble bundles" and the "pay what you want" kind of deals.

And I could be wrong, but the whole idea and concept of making indie games its to make this "experiments" that under normal circumstances publishers would just ignore if they went through the regular channels. Of course we all dream on making it big and be famous and earn profits; but nothing comes from nothing. If you make a game for Xbox Indies and is not as successful as you wanted; keep an eye out for criticism, look for other channels and ways to get the game out, talk more about it, spread the word about it.

There's no secret recipe for success on indie "anything" (games, movies, music) and more of a combination of perseverance, losing a lot of money and still love doing what you do.

The problem is that it's simply a completely unviable platform because of the way Microsoft treats it. No achievements, no gamerscore impact, no dedicated servers or any sort of matchmaking, no advertising, fixed prices, no DLC, no 'free game' option, and no promotional deals all tucked away behind three or four steps just to get to the main indie games page. It's a bloody miracle they caved on avatar support.

It's not that indies aren't getting Minecraft or Angry Birds rich off of this. It's that it's an environment where selling 500 games is considered a success, and anything more than 1,000 is a runaway smash.

This was supposed to be Microsoft taking a brave, bold, forward-looking step towards opening up their platform and letting developers who aren't multibillion dollar publishers develop for their hardware. Garage developers, small time app makers, and artsy indie studios were supposed to get their chance to shine brightly. Instead it's an undersupported, unmarketed waste of everyone's time.

I'll put it this way: If you're an indie developer and your game is struggling on the iPhone or PC there could be a million reasons why. If you made an XNA game and put it up on XBox Live Indie Games and it only sells 15 copies over two months, it's hard not to point to the utter failings of the platform on every level as the primary reason as to why.

 

[Feep]

If we started a campaign to get Sequence on Steam, do you think they'd take notice? Nothing serious, just something light-hearted to get word out about the game and that it wants to be on Steam

I'm down for that >.> One way or another, I'm PC'ing it up.

A band of indies creating a common publisher is an incredibly romantic idea. I certainly couldn't do it; it would take someone with a great deal of business savvy and industry experience. Someone do it! And then contact me!

 

[Gaspode_T]

It's ridiculous to say that it's impossible to make money off of the service, because some people have made much more than many of the XBLA/PSN games have made. It involves some combination of luck and finding a niche to fill that people on 360 will go crazy for. The Fortress Craft game has made something crazy like $500,000...

I agree that people are most upset about the potential that is being wasted. It's so close to being without a doubt the best platform for indie games ever made, but some problems are there that are unquestionably affecting it from reaching that god tier of game platform, right now I think it's super cheap, it's relatively open and people should appreciate it for what it provides on home consoles that has never been there outside of nearly unknown things like Yaroze

It's just as easy to say "no way to make a living as a middle tier developer" these days. It's a struggle not just for bedroom/garage coders but for anyone bigger than that and smaller than a big studio. The competition on mobile platforms is more than fierce and none of the mobile app stores are super friendly for indies. There is a nearly constant stream of super polished mobile games being released, almost every day, it's probably nearly impossible that even more than 5% of them will sell anything significant.

Steam seems to be some sort of anomaly in my opinion, I've been playing PC games since the Shareware days in 90s and there has never been such great support for indie games. I have questions about how Steam will keep business practices fair and the market not flooded when suddenly every indie in the world wants to publish on there (which is how the current situation is). I think there is some sort of perfect storm where Steam/PC gamers are in this zone of having the most people with the most disposable income and the highest ratio of people passionate about indie games like those, there's no other way to explain the success where in past most PC gamers would pirate the heck out of those games and never think about dropping cash for them.

 

[djtiesto]

We had pretty low sales on the XBLIG service with Blocks That Matter, and we are porting the game to Windows/Mac/Linux as we always planned. And I encourage developers to do this too cause XBLIG is clearly not a viable platform if you want to make games for a living.

That's a shame to hear, I really liked what I played of the demo... only thing stopping me from buying is a lack of free time these past few weeks. I promise to pick up a copy this weekend though.

It sucks that indies sell so poorly, but it's usually because people are under the impression that everything on there is crap (which is not true), or because they don't even know about it. There's some great finds for $1 - games like Apple Jack and Prismatic Solid have a ton of content for such little cost. Then you have $3-5 titles like Sequence, Cthulu and Avatar Legends which are easily XBLA quality.

 

[Rlan]

Nobody's Mentioned This?

Indie Games Summer Uprising Plans Laid Out

Organizers for Indie Games Summer Uprising, the seasonal campaign for promoting and releasing standout Xbox Live Indie titles, have revamped the event's site and shared its plans for how this will all go down.

Immediately after Microsoft's own Summer of Arcade event for XBLA winds down, Summer Uprising will begin releasing eight developer-voted titles and 2 community-voted titles from August 22-31, putting out one game each day.

Summer Uprising has received more than 70 titles for inclusion, and developers are currently voting for the eight games that they feel "best represent the platform" -- voting ends July 18, and the winners will likely be announced shortly atterward.

From August 1-15, everyone else will be able to vote on the two additional titles they want to play at Summer Uprising's Facebook page. The winners selected by the community will be shared on August 16 via a Summer Uprising Developer Twitter Chat.

You can see all the entries here, and preview several of them in the video above (SpeedRunner at 00:43 and T.E.C. 3001 at 00:15 look particularly fun).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X3rlblR8vw&feature=player_embedded

 

[Parallax Scroll]

sequence is hella good

that is all

 

[Kalnos]

Why would anyone think that it is in the first place? It's a great place to gain experience and feedback for your projects while making some money on the side.

 

[U n i o n 0015]

I barely look at Indie Games these days, there's so much shit released that I don't feel it's worth my time - I'd rather be playing XBLA games or full retail titles.

There is a TON of crap games on the service. So much so that a genuinely great title, like Chuthlu Saves the World gets lost in the mix.

 

[foxdvd]

radiangames makes some great indie games on the xbox, and he has a website that goes into detail his struggles with the service...I would recommend going to one of his first blogs and working up to see how his experience with the service is...


http://radiangames.com/?paged=9

 

[chubigans]

Feep, check your PMs!

And wow, thanks William-SSS for the support!

 

[Bomber Bob]

iTunes App Store's more than happy to have you, independents.

fixed

 

[Emitan]

Yes sir!

Didn't realize I was talking about you until you were posting in the TREAT DANCE THEATER Final Fantasy thread.

 

[watership]

Microsoft doesn't care about Indie games. If they did they'd promote them more, have them organized better and easier to get to, make them available in more regions, and offer achievements and offline play.

They care enough to create the service don't they? They're not it's #1 priority, but at least they worked out a framework and a way for the market to take care of itself via work of mouth. They have organization on the best ratings/most popular and new releases. I think it's a pretty good as is. And games that really rise above get noticed and talked about.

 

[bluemax]

Is this really news at this point?

We've had one of these articles every 3-6 months since XBLIG opened up. Why does anyone expect the service to change at this stage?

 

[Emitan]

Is this really news at this point?

We've had one of these articles every 3-6 months since XBLIG opened up. Why does anyone expect the service to change at this stage?

Everyone loves to hate Microsoft.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Is this really news at this point?

We've had one of these articles every 3-6 months since XBLIG opened up. Why does anyone expect the service to change at this stage?

Hope that MS will change their attitude? Much like stories about GFW or Microsoft's treatment of PC Gaming etc.

 

[NervousXtian]

The visibility is there, not as much Arcade, but they are easy to find, easy to search, etc. The problem is that too much absolute garbage is released, that it drowns out worthwhile titles.

This said, a lot of the Arcade titles bomba just as hard scale wise as Indies. They might sell more, but cost of production is higher.

I think if monetary gain is your idea, you're doing it wrong with the Xbox Indie games. You do it to release your game, not make money. To gain exposure.

I mean, would you rather not have the chance to release on it?

 

[dragonelite]

indie should make post on different forums 360 section.
I saw multiple post of fortress craft game on different forums 360 section.

Some negative some positive but the game got exposure.
Hell some even poster even took the effort to put the download link in their thread.

 

[Kafel]

The truth is that gaming "journalists" would write about this each time an indie whines enough (and they whine a lot).

In fact, the games mentionned in these articles are in the top rated lists. People have an easier access to them than to demos.


You don't have to check the just released list if you're not a die-hard fan of indie output (the real indie games, not the ones Steam would highlight occasionaly). It's not the XBLA or Steam. Best rated and Most downloaded are your ways to go.

By the way, I'd fear for the life of anyone trying every game just released on the AppStore.



You can now keep talking about how all of this is unfair.

 

[Feep]

The truth is that gaming "journalists" would write about this each time an indie whines enough (and they whine a lot).

In fact, the games mentionned in these articles are in the top rated lists. People have an easier access to them than to demos.


You don't have to check the just released list if you're not a die-hard fan of indie output (the real indie games, not the ones Steam would highlight occasionaly). It's not the XBLA or Steam. Best rated and Most downloaded are your ways to go.

By the way, I'd fear for the life of anyone trying every game just released on the AppStore.



You can now keep talking about how all of this is unfair.

Kafel, as usual, is unrelentingly negative.

First of all, just to clear things up, I was contacted by Ars Technica out of the blue for my comment on the story. I was not whining or complaining, and you can see in the article I recognize XBLIG for what it is.

Second, even though Sequence is currently the 27th highest rated game in America, 16th in the UK, 10th in Canada, and around those slots in other countries, I literally get about 18 trials a day, less than two months after release. That is to say, among an install base of 47 million, 18 people try my game per day. (Around 8 of those buy it.)

XBLIG suffers from a lack of exposure. I don't begrudge the platform, but that statement is ineffably true.

 

[Special J]

yes even the best games dont sell without marketing.