Topic: XBLC games not 'financially viable' (Read 387 times)

Xbox-Scene · « **on:** June 24, 2009, 09:38:00 PM »

XBLC games not 'financially viable'
Posted by XanTium | June 24 23:38 EST | News Category: Xbox360

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Quote

Clover developer Binary Tweed believes the Xbox Live Community Games market is too small to be "financially viable", and that the service's only use is as an "arena for proving concepts".

"It's a shame to say that Clover has not sold as many copies as we'd hoped for. As it stands, through Community Games alone, we definitely won't recoup costs," Binary Tweed boss Daniel Jones told Digital Spy.

"Frustratingly enough, the critical reception to the game has been good," he added, as if reading Eurogamer's Clover review aloud. "The size of the XBLCG market is prohibitively small to be financially viable, so I can only see it being of use to Binary Tweed as an arena for proving concepts."

Full Story: eurogamer.net

zerog52 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 25, 2009, 08:01:00 AM »

Surely it is not because Clover is a piece of crap game.....that would be crazy.

---=Snyper=--- · « **Reply #2 on:** June 25, 2009, 09:32:00 AM »

Good example of this is the message apps.. They are TECH/SAMPLE demo's made into some kinda game thats what $8 ?? How the hell do they allow them to just rebrand a SAMPLE and make money off it.

I understand SOME of these have ALOT of work in them but I just feel that the prices is whats killing the community, for most they are just way to high and or should be free.

For all the ones ive looked at or tried the trial version.. I'd only pay $1 for them. Some might think OMG thats shotting the dev that worked for a whole day in the foot.. but its just like the whole $9.99 will sell alot easier than $10.00. There might be only a handfull that would be willing to buy your game for $8 where as just about everyone on Xbox-Live would most likely not even bat an eye to pay $1. In the end instead of 5 people willing rich enough to blow money on homebrew crap (dont take that the wrong way..) and im sure that 100 times that would be more that willing to drop $1 on it.

ZX3Junglist · « **Reply #3 on:** June 25, 2009, 05:11:00 PM »

QUOTE(zerog52 @ Jun 25 2009, 03:01 PM)

Surely it is not because Clover is a piece of crap game.....that would be crazy.

+1

tbb033 · « **Reply #4 on:** June 26, 2009, 11:44:00 PM »

Ah, the old "our game flopped but it couldn't possibly be our fault" ploy.

Alex Atkin UK · « **Reply #5 on:** June 27, 2009, 10:57:00 AM »

They are partly right though. I for one rarely bother downloading community games as 99% seem to be a pile of crap.

There are just too many of them, and no way to know which are worth having a look at versus which are just wasting my time and precious HDD space. That sheer fact alone that community games cannot have achievements (and rightly so, imagine how many games would just be "boost your gamerscore" utilities that give you 200 points for just buying the game) is a big downer. Add the fact they are usually crap and its just not worth my time looking. Its just more logical to stick to official Arcade releases, even the crap ones at least hit a certain standard that community games by its very nature is not subject to.

I thought from the start this was a bad way to go about it though. There should be a way if you write a really good community game that you can submit it for a full Arcade release with achievements. I need to be able to download a game, realise its crap and then rate it as such. I believe this function is coming in the Fall dash update but for crying out loud, it should have been there since day one.

Agent ME · « **Reply #6 on:** June 27, 2009, 05:50:00 PM »

Er, where do you find the Xbox Live Community Games in the dashboard? I've never found them (probably from a lack of looking), and only know they exist because of the news items on this website. I doubt most users know they exist.

MrFish · « **Reply #7 on:** June 28, 2009, 05:25:00 AM »

QUOTE(Agent ME @ Jun 27 2009, 11:50 PM)

Er, where do you find the Xbox Live Community Games in the dashboard? I've never found them (probably from a lack of looking), and only know they exist because of the news items on this website. I doubt most users know they exist.

They're hidden somewhere in 'game marketplace'. I believe you have to choose the one on the left, and then scroll up.

The real question is 'where do you find /anything/ in the dashboard?'. It can't even do simple things like take you to the content the adverts are advertising (see 'this week in music games'). Worst offender is the 'my games library' contained in 'game marketplace', which has big pictures of your most recent games in its icon, but doesn't actually take you there.

The previous dashboard was way, way better when it came to marketplace: the 'what's new/what's hot/what's free' tabs were actually useful, and there weren't four or five confusingly similar ways to get to the same place.

I didn't realise that the point of community games was to make a profit; I thought it was just to recoup some money from feasability studies (that would otherwise be pure loss). If you were learning .NET (or how to port to .NET), you could make a few quid (and gain experience of the publishing process) by putting your experiments up there.

Frankly, I'm shocked that there were people that thought it could be a business proposition. If you've got a 'community game' to the 'something you think people would actually pay money for' stage, then you start talking to a publisher. Hell, it can hardly be less fun than Undertow.

LootinGraves · « **Reply #8 on:** June 28, 2009, 06:42:00 AM »

Dear Binary Tweed, make a game that is GOOD and it will be 'financially viable'. I could go to a car dealership and test drive some crap heap vehicle which i wouldn't pay 2 cents for...but that doesn't make a Car Dealership a bad front to sell cars on though.

AmyGrrl · « **Reply #9 on:** June 29, 2009, 03:00:00 PM »

Microsoft needs to get rid of all the crap programs and come up with some kind of standard for allowing community games. I thought it was great that people could make their own games and sell them. Instead we just get people making quick programs. They aren't even trying. Just to make a quick buck. Now we have so many crappy programs like Rumble Massage, stupid joke programs, etc. That no one wants to look through the crapware to find the good programs. Which alot of people have already stated in this thread. Also I would like to note that its called Community Games.... not Community Applications... lets get rid of all the Applications.

This post has been edited by AmyGrrl: Jun 29 2009, 10:02 PM

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