To the person that suggested that it should have just been published on Steam: It's not like you can just decide for yourself if your game is going to be put onto Steam. You have to submit it and pray that the Steam Gods favor you. It's tough for indies to get in there, especially if you're from a new studio and don't have some publisher behind you that's already on Steam. The developer of an indie PC title, The Oil Blue, has been vocal about his game's reception during the past year and despite good reviews from the few sites (and gamers' impressions) that were willing to check it out it got denied Steam while some truly shit games still make it on the service.
Xbox Live Indie Games
Concept »
An official line of downloadable games for the Xbox 360 that were developed, peer-reviewed, and self-published by a community of indie developers using Microsoft's XNA framework.
Microsoft Finally Gives Independents Control Over Release Dates, But for One Game, It's Too Late
Indie Games continues to be a great service and really should be covered more in the press. While a big chunk of the games are rubbish there are good games released on there virtually every week, and for most of last year I found myself enjoying Indie Games way more than the stuff that was on XBLA. I mean Apple Jack was one of the best games released last year for anything (download or retail) and cost me 69p to buy. It was almost criminal how much I paid for that game.
A couple of good ones I've found on Indie Games are Breath of Death VII and Cthulu Saves the World, both by Zeboyd games. I also have Epic Dungeon, but haven't gotten around to playing it yet. If nothing else, this article will make me find out more about Sequence. Love the improved news reports on here now.
" @Fobwashed: Honestly? Do a PC version. Even if you don't wind up getting on Steam, there's still quite a few digital distribution services (notably Gamersgate and Desura, and to a lesser extent Impulse) that will be happy to take your game on. And if you do wind up on Steam, then happy days. You'll probably wind up with enough money to get into XBLA. "See...to me that's the problem with releasing it as PC only, is that it's such a fragmented market. Some people only use Steam to download PC games, so if you're not on Steam you're screwed, but I know that's not everyone, however I know most people don't check Impulse, Desura, Gamersgate, etc on a daily or even weekly basis. You have all these different services competing with each other, and usually unless you're in the top 10 most downloaded games on that service at a given point in time you're game isn't going to get much screen space if any at all. I'm not saying "don't release a PC version", but merely that releasing it on XBLIG is a way of hedging your risk since there is only one service on XBOX Live to download real indie games from.
Sequence is incredible. I got at least 10 hours of great playtime for only $3. If you're reading this article, you already know it exists, so there's no excuse not to try it out. Note that you can play the trial multiple times to get through the long (but necessary) tutorial -- it will even resume for you.
So these guys bitch and moan over a system that lets them sell their games that otherwise wouldn't see the light of day?
" @Delusibeta said:It's interesting that your complaint is that "if you don't get on Steam, you won't get much screen time" which is the biggest complaint I've seen about XBLIG. Honestly? Spread the word. Contact RockPaperShotgun (once you've made a PC version, obviously), try to get on the various indie blogs (e.g. Indie Games, DIY Gamer, TIG Source [although again, this last one's specialises in PC games]), make a demo, etc.etc.etc." @Fobwashed: Honestly? Do a PC version. Even if you don't wind up getting on Steam, there's still quite a few digital distribution services (notably Gamersgate and Desura, and to a lesser extent Impulse) that will be happy to take your game on. And if you do wind up on Steam, then happy days. You'll probably wind up with enough money to get into XBLA. "See...to me that's the problem with releasing it as PC only, is that it's such a fragmented market. Some people only use Steam to download PC games, so if you're not on Steam you're screwed, but I know that's not everyone, however I know most people don't check Impulse, Desura, Gamersgate, etc on a daily or even weekly basis. You have all these different services competing with each other, and usually unless you're in the top 10 most downloaded games on that service at a given point in time you're game isn't going to get much screen space if any at all. I'm not saying "don't release a PC version", but merely that releasing it on XBLIG is a way of hedging your risk since there is only one service on XBOX Live to download real indie games from. "
I'm glad to see this article on GB - good job Patrick!
I'm an editor over at GameMarx.com (we cover just XBLIG) and it's good to see these guys get some love from the mainstream gaming sites. One reason game journalists site for *not* covering indies is they don't know about them. Asking someone to cover a game already out isn't the norm either, GB sites like to have a review ready the release day, and being able to know when that day is... well, that's kinda key.
I'll make a plea to see more XBLIG covered here on GB with the others. There are many good games, but Micsosoft has a epic failure in making that clear on the dashboard. They recently had a major security flaw in the ratings system and games were getting up voted and down voted on hacker whims. The closed the flaw, but sadly did not restore the ratings.
This is why getting more mainstream visibility into the service is key. There is no pressure fans and developers of XBLIGs can put on Microsoft to do the right thing, or even push them to stop blocking indies from achievements, leaderboards, or stupid rules like not letting you play XBLIG offline (you must be connected to Live to play).
Once again, really glad to see more XBLIG coverage on GB!
I would question your fears of PC piracy canibalising XBLIG sales, however (360 gamers tend to game on their 360, PC gamers tend to game on their PC, and genuinely multiformat gamers are comparatively thin on the ground).
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