Just running a quick question past you guys.

Do you, or anybody you know buy from the Community, now called Indie Games tab?

If so, how often? And what influences your decision to do so?

I'd like to find out because i'm starting a game development project, and I am currently planning and deciding which technologies to use, developing through XNA will be more difficult for me, but potentially yeild profit, whereas developing through other means will be easier though possibly yield less experience.

I have a full license to Torque 2D, and am considering Torque 3D or XNA for this project, the upside of XNA is that it's free unless I decide to release the game for sale. The upside to Torque 3D is that I have much more experience with it than I do XNA.

So yeah, essentially, what do you reckon? Should I go with what I know, or expand my horizons and try and get it out onto Xbox Live?

I'm not buying them.

I've bought a couple of novelty community games, but honestly, I've never gotten more than a half hour's play out of any of them.

I don't see how XNA would be "more difficult" then torque, even if you know a little about torque already. Torque, IMHO, is a mess and documentation is crappy. Documentation for XNA is abundant, hell Georgia Tech even put up videos to their MGP class that taught it. Plus you get the option of PC, 360 and Zune release and it doesn't cost anything if you sell the game on PC, only on 360 or Zune.

As a indie developer I don't see how anyone would not pick XNA.

However I have never bought an XNA game because honestly none of them have been good, and that is partly because of Microsoft publishing anything that looks good on XBLA. For example Rocket Riot, that was built with XNA but Microsoft picked it up to publish, would have been cool if they just promoted it as an indie game though.

No.

I really can't speak to which you should do as I know almost nothing about programming, however, if you do decide to make it for XNA, I can say that I would at least give it a shot when it came out.  I haven't actually bought anything from there yet, but I'm not adverse to the idea.  Especially if it's reasonably priced and in support of a member of the GB community.

Some of them which are good.

I've only ever purchased two games from the "Indie Games" section, Dig Deep and Angry Barry. With both of them, I heard of them from someone else and ended up being impressed with the demo. There's so much garbage on there that I never even look unless I somehow hear about a specific game somewhere.

As far as whether to go with Torque or XNA, I would honestly recommend XNA. The documentation for it is a hell of a lot better than what's available for Torque and if in the end you've got something that you want to market then you've got the ability to throw it up on XBox Live.

No. I haven't even touched that tab in a long while (they are calling it "indie" games now? That's lame). I already don't have enough money to buy all the games that are good, so why would I spend $ on stuff that is crappy?

The thing about community games is that they are not worth money. They're all the type of shit we've been getting for free for years. The type of shit we play at work or school. The same goes for multiplayer maps. I don't pay for those either.

I can tell you this, it'll only return profit from people within the US and probably Canada as Europe gets less features. Among them the Indie Games tab.

Can't really say anything about XNA or Torque as I never got XNA to work for me, and I've only played around with Torque for a very short time.

" I can tell you this, it'll only return profit from people within the US and probably Canada as Europe gets less features. Among them the Indie Games tab.Can't really say anything about XNA or Torque as I never got XNA to work for me, and I've only played around with Torque for a very short time. "

I haven't found one XNA game worth paying money for. Most just seem like flash games, which are free on the internet.

I bought one, then wished i didn't.

My advice, would be to come up with something simple yet clever and enjoyable

I've bought a couple, but I haven't gotten any recently due to unemployment. I wish someone would make a good, old-school RPG for XNA though. I'm surprised I haven't seen any yet.

I made the mistake of buying one, and i wasted 5 bucks

" I've bought a couple, but I haven't gotten any recently due to unemployment. I wish someone would make a good, old-school RPG for XNA though. I'm surprised I haven't seen any yet. "

i only bought KODU.............. KUDO not sure how its spelled

Nope.

" i only bought KODU.............. KUDO not sure how its spelled "

" @Hockeymask27 said:

" i only bought KODU.............. KUDO not sure how its spelled "

Really? How is it? It's kinda like a Gerry's Mod type thing right? "

" @CoverlessTech said:

" @Hockeymask27 said:

" i only bought KODU.............. KUDO not sure how its spelled "

Really? How is it? It's kinda like a Gerry's Mod type thing right? "

not really. hard to explain but you how dream weaver makes web design easier by putting HTML code into visual stuff as your working on the site. well kodu puts game code in to actual objects where you visual see what the code is doing. i recomend downloading the trail. "

Never have and I don't plan on buying one soon unless the quality improves dramatically, every community game I have seen or played the trial version for is garbage

I bought two. Miner Dig Deep and KODU. I don't really have the time to sort through shit to find good games though, so I'm rarely going to bother with Community Games. Or Indie games. Or shit-on-a-stick games, I don't give a fuck what you call them.

I haven't seen any community games that have interested me enough to buy them so far.

Nope, but i do occasionally download a demo.

no i dont

"@Azteck said:

" I can tell you this, it'll only return profit from people within the US and probably Canada as Europe gets less features. Among them the Indie Games tab.Can't really say anything about XNA or Torque as I never got XNA to work for me, and I've only played around with Torque for a very short time. "

XNA is starting to open up in a lot more regions. Japan just got access and there is already a few Japanese side scroller shooters with anime girls up there."

They don't show up on my 360. Maybe if I go to browse, but I don't see them when I look at that section, you know the tabs thing.

" @CoverlessTech said:

"@Azteck said:

" I can tell you this, it'll only return profit from people within the US and probably Canada as Europe gets less features. Among them the Indie Games tab.Can't really say anything about XNA or Torque as I never got XNA to work for me, and I've only played around with Torque for a very short time. "

XNA is starting to open up in a lot more regions. Japan just got access and there is already a few Japanese side scroller shooters with anime girls up there."

Yeah I noticed this last night, some of them look pretty damn good as well, with decent looking production values, pity they are in Japanese so I couldn't even tell you their names though. "

No, I won't waste money on Indie Games. & it REALLY feels like a waste thinking about purchasing any of those titles.

"@The_A_Drain said:

" @CoverlessTech said:

"@Azteck said:

" I can tell you this, it'll only return profit from people within the US and probably Canada as Europe gets less features. Among them the Indie Games tab.Can't really say anything about XNA or Torque as I never got XNA to work for me, and I've only played around with Torque for a very short time. "

XNA is starting to open up in a lot more regions. Japan just got access and there is already a few Japanese side scroller shooters with anime girls up there."

Yeah I noticed this last night, some of them look pretty damn good as well, with decent looking production values, pity they are in Japanese so I couldn't even tell you their names though. "

I don't know about "good". Graphically they are decent looking but they are pretty much carbon copies of source code you can find all over the web with different anime art attached to it. Building a side scroller shooter like that is actually pretty easy, there is no AI or choices or anything, it's simple patterns and collision. The hardest part about making a game like that is level design, since it is all scripted and on a pattern you have to be really good at designing the levels to really impress the player. "

" @CoverlessTech said:

"@The_A_Drain said:

" @CoverlessTech said:

"@Azteck said:

" I can tell you this, it'll only return profit from people within the US and probably Canada as Europe gets less features. Among them the Indie Games tab.Can't really say anything about XNA or Torque as I never got XNA to work for me, and I've only played around with Torque for a very short time. "

XNA is starting to open up in a lot more regions. Japan just got access and there is already a few Japanese side scroller shooters with anime girls up there."

Yeah I noticed this last night, some of them look pretty damn good as well, with decent looking production values, pity they are in Japanese so I couldn't even tell you their names though. "

I don't know about "good". Graphically they are decent looking but they are pretty much carbon copies of source code you can find all over the web with different anime art attached to it. Building a side scroller shooter like that is actually pretty easy, there is no AI or choices or anything, it's simple patterns and collision. The hardest part about making a game like that is level design, since it is all scripted and on a pattern you have to be really good at designing the levels to really impress the player. "

Yeah but not every wannabe game designer is a programmer. Some of them are artists with limited programming knowledge, and from that angle some of those games look kinda impressive for like 240 points or whatever.Scrolling shooters aren't hard at all, but a scrolling shooter that looks relaly nice is a pretty good edge over some of the other artwork i've seen showcased on Community Games.As for returning a profit, it's not like i'm investing life savings into this, it's just in my own spare time as experience to bring back to uni and hopefully lobby for a placement year at a company, so the break even mark would be the community games subscription fee. Which is like $99, so even if I get a lower end of MS's "up to 70 percent" pay, even a smaller game I only need to sell a couple hundred copies to get that back. Given the sheer amount of people who own xboxes connected to live, probably make that in impulse buys alone. "

no, i barely buy anything from the market place. i just don't think that it is worth the money to spend on things that i know when a new xbox comes out i won't have any use for the ones that i already bought.

I bought the Dishwasher, if that counts, and that game was good.

I'm in Australia, so we don't even get Community games (or the countless other handy features that you guys in the US get)

I've tried a few, but no purchases yet.  I have my eye on Miner Dig Deep b/c I've heard good things about it.  I think the new rating system will help the good games float above the turds.  My main complanit: no achievements.  I like achievements.  I really, really like achievements.  I want community games to have them, even if it's just a few (like 50 per game?).  If they aded achievements, I' d probably buy some.

My other comment:  If you're getting into this to make money, don't count on it.  Edge magazine did a great story a coupl months back on community games and interviewed a lot of developers.  Some were pissed that there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Those doing it as a hobby and to learn were happy though.

The real question you should be asking is what kind of game would you like?

You need to make a game that stands out and get it viral and out.

I don't.

I tried Rumble Massage and decided to not keep up with community games ever again.

I did buy Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp because I had an extra 200 points. I was tempted to buy Rumble Massage.

"The real question you should be asking is what kind of game would you like?You need to make a game that stands out and get it viral and out."

I've bought XNA games before--yay, Carnavale Showtime!--but not for a while.  There's just SO much crap there, and even screen shots take forever to load.  MS really needs to get some quick loading low res videos on XNA if they want me to wade through that shit.  I'm hoping user rankings will help, but I doubt it will. :(

I've only bought one so far (Weapon of Choice), but if I see a game that may be interesting and not overpriced then I'd definitely pick it up. ...I also picked up Kodu Game Lab, but I really don't consider that to be one of the "Indie Games".

Ive got about 15, so yes.

I never have and probably never will.  As far as 360 games are concerned, no achievements = no thanks.