Microsoft's latest Xbox 360 dashboard update has buried indie game content on Xbox Live, leaving little opportunity for developers to find success on the platform, says Xbox Live Indie Game developer Kris Steele.
Following the tepid release of his new XBLIG title Hypership Still Out of Control, Steele examined the first week success of all six of his indie titles on Xbox Live, and found that overall trial downloads have decreased significantly since the debut of the new Xbox 360 interface in December.
To help put things in perspective, Steele wrote a blog post comparing his new game to its predecessor, Hypership Out of Control. He reports that the original title saw 374 downloads on launch day, and 1,506 additional downloads over its first week. The new game, however, failed to break 1,000 downloads after a full week on the service.
When looking for differences between the titles, Steele says, "The in-game artwork for Hypership Still Out of Control has been vastly improved. Hypership Still Out of Control is the better game. I would expect similar or slightly better sales numbers if all other factors were equal."
This isn't even the first time Steele has noticed a decrease in XBLIG downloads after a dashboard update; he also notes that he saw trial downloads decrease by more than 2,000 after Microsoft updated the Xbox 360 interface in 2010.
"Shortly after the release of Hypership Out of Control, Microsoft did some dash reorganization. I believe that’s why my next two releases Trivia or Die and Volchaos saw 2,000+ decreases in first week trials over what Abduction Action! received (I should note that despite the lower first week trials, Trivia or Die is my top selling XBLIG release by a wide margin)."
After witnessing downloads decline so significantly, Steele says he is bailing out of the XBLIG market, as his games aren't getting the publicity they need to generate a profit.
"Ultimately I do not believe the XBLIG market is growing. I believe these numbers show that," he says. "I believe the biggest factor is Microsoft's burying of XBLIG. Even with Volchaos-like trials, I was not making enough sales to run a profitable game studio. Certainly with Hypership Still Out of Control trial downloads, I have no chance. And that's why I've moved on."
Under the current interface, indie games have been filed under a new tile dubbed "Game Type" on the Xbox 360 dashboard. These titles won't appear in the "New Arrivals" section, nor the "Genre" listing on the marketplace, though users that already know a game's title can find it through the new Bing search bar.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Microsoft said that indie games on Xbox 360 "are generating a growing revenue stream for developers. In fact, the average revenue for the top 50 indie games is now well over $100,000 per title."
According to the company, the key to success on the indie platform is to maintain a consistent marketing strategy well after launch. "We encourage indie developers to work together and support each other in marketing efforts, like the Indie Games Winter and Summer Uprising promotions," Microsoft said.
Late last year, PC developer Stardock tried its hand in the XBLIG market with the small-scale title Elfsquad7. The game clearly struggled on the platform, however, as shortly after release Stardock's Brad Wardell noted that the indie game channel on Xbox 360 "is a waste of time from any sort of commercial POV."
Shortly after the 2010 dashboard update, a number of other indie developers expressed concerns over the XBLIG indie channel, as Microsoft relocated the Indie Games section to a remote section of the Xbox Live marketplace.
I think it's telling that the metric MS chooses to share is 'average revenue' (not 'average revenue per year' or 'average revenue per month') and it's restricted specifiically to the top 50. If it were the top 100 or top 200 the average would skew way down, and 'average revenue' lets them include all the revenue from the oldest XBLIG games into the average.
This is assuming that they're not being sneaky and including all indie games into their XBOX Live Indie Games average. You know, stuff like Braid or Limbo. But I don't think they'd do that.
Not hard to believe at all. The bloody dashboard is shoving ads in my face like nobody's business, but can't find space to push indie games or other functions I actually want to be accessible (e.g., my video player still buried under layers of menus).
Which reminds me. Microsoft, now that you are making money by shoving ads in my face, your're going to stop charging for XBox Live right? Right??? Hello? Man, the silence in hear is deafening.
How about some damn marketing from the developers?! XBLIG is a self-publishing service ie. the devs need to do the work of the publisher as well! I've never even HEARD of "Trivia or Die", "Volchaos" or "Elfsquad7". The least they can do is submit a trailer to GameTrailers.com alongside the launch.
XBLIG is an open platform, so just like the App Store or Android Marketplace it's full of shovelware. Making a good game is not enough to get noticed above the noise! Only a tiny handful of enthusiasts keep an eye on the dashboard's new release list. To reach the core gamer you need footage, coverage and advertising!
@Christopher it's not it's free it costs 100 bucks to use their services to upload your games. So no its not free the software is but the ability to upload isn't.
It didn't say it was free, just that it's open for anyone to use (ie. you don't have to negotiate a publishing contract with Microsoft first). The developer is still for all intents and purposes the "publisher" and carries the burden of all the responsibilities that entails (localization, marketing, QA etc.)
Some XBLIG developers have met with much better success on PC portals like Steam, but when ~90% of the people who would play your game on a particular platform would acquire it via illegitimate means, you have to wonder "Why bother?".
Microsoft's recent dashboard update certainly isn't doing XBLIG or XBLA any favours, but I still reckon XBLIG would be far more lucrative, if only indie devs didn't consider the work on their games to be done as soon as they pass peer review.
What really doesn't help the indie games section is that it is constantly flooded by awful games. There is no way that every gamer will try the trial of each game one by one to know which one is actually worth paying for.
I recently bought The Fall of Gods. It had the potential to be a good game, but I can't even finish a playthrough, because of some pretty obvious bugs right at the beginning of the game. It is as if the developer never made a single playthrough and published it.
Even if Microsoft adds some features to help the research, it won't solve that problem. The great indies games are buried by hundred of crappy games.
Better filtering is certainly something that would help to improve gamer satisfaction in the service. I don't think it's something Microsoft will ever add though. The XBLA model works alright because it's much lower volume and MS seems unwilling to make framework changes just for XBLIG.
I don't have numbers to back up any games other than my own, but off the cuff comments from other developers and what numbers I have seen shared show others seeing similar results that I did. I hadn't seen numbers put to this before which is mostly why I wrote this piece.
This is assuming that they're not being sneaky and including all indie games into their XBOX Live Indie Games average. You know, stuff like Braid or Limbo. But I don't think they'd do that.
Which reminds me. Microsoft, now that you are making money by shoving ads in my face, your're going to stop charging for XBox Live right? Right??? Hello? Man, the silence in hear is deafening.
XBLIG is an open platform, so just like the App Store or Android Marketplace it's full of shovelware. Making a good game is not enough to get noticed above the noise! Only a tiny handful of enthusiasts keep an eye on the dashboard's new release list. To reach the core gamer you need footage, coverage and advertising!
It seems to me like all these XBLIG developers totally pass on the PC market, which is a HUGE market...
Microsoft's recent dashboard update certainly isn't doing XBLIG or XBLA any favours, but I still reckon XBLIG would be far more lucrative, if only indie devs didn't consider the work on their games to be done as soon as they pass peer review.
I recently bought The Fall of Gods. It had the potential to be a good game, but I can't even finish a playthrough, because of some pretty obvious bugs right at the beginning of the game. It is as if the developer never made a single playthrough and published it.
Even if Microsoft adds some features to help the research, it won't solve that problem. The great indies games are buried by hundred of crappy games.