Making Bank (Part 2): XNA Games

Even though it’s eroded grammar, civility, and our reflex to cringe at spectacles most people decry as “unnatural” and “offensive to anyone without a chemical imbalance,” the Internet has done some good to offset decades of depravity.

It was a boon to indie developers, allowing two dudes in a garage to bring their concisely coded masterpieces to the masses. But until recently, producing content for consoles (the platform most people associated with the term “video games”) wasn’t feasible. Unless you had a spot on one of the major development teams, the financial auspices of an opulent entrepreneur, or some super embarrassing beach photos of Howard Stringer, producing a game on Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo’s turf couldn’t be done.

Nowadays, with Microsoft’s introduction of the XNA toolset and Xbox Live Community Network (and Sony’s touting of the PlayStation Network), indie developers have the means to create console games, as well as virtual havens to hock their wares. We’ll tackle Sony’s brainchild in the coming weeks, but for now, here’s a look at how XNA developers are faring.

The XNA toolset’s been around since 2006, with the most recent iteration (version 3.0) seeing the light of day in October of last year, around the time Xbox Live Community Games — Microsoft’s virtual homebrew marketplace — opened the doors for indie developers. However, that chivalrous gesture came with strings attached — designers didn’t have access to sales data until numbers were released to inquiring minds back in March. But to many developers, the opportunity outweighs any minor setbacks.

“To actually develop for a high end console like the Xbox 360 is a dream come true and something that would not have been possible for an indie game developer just a few years ago,” said Kris Steele, the man behind the retro, co-op friendly shooter Nasty.

Each XBLCG is vetted by the people who know games best: other developers. Along the way, a designer can show off his or her progress to receive feedback. When a game has been tweaked to the developer’s liking, it’s submitted to a final round of peer review before being shipped off to market.

“There are so many people willing to help others create the best games possible, even though in many ways they’re helping their competition,” Steele said.

Originally, Microsoft reported it would give developers 70% of any potential profits, but would charge more if it heavily promoted a title. Amid much protest and clamor from the developer community, however, it appears the software giant is sticking to a straight 70/30 split.

“I’m not really a fan of Microsoft being able to take out pretty much what they please based on advertising over which we have no say,” said Solomon Hurst, developer of Aria, a twin-stick shooter that varies gameplay in tandem with the player’s music library. “The community games seem to be flooded with twin-stick shooters, so I have a lot of competition.”

Most developers still need all the help they can get. Even with a development and distribution system in place, there are additional hurdles to bound over. Most new titles live or die based on how they’re marketed, and turning heads takes times and money. Also, developers have no way of sending out copies of their games to reviewers, and games with online multiplayer often find themselves bereft of an audience.

“Great games can be made, and lost in the sea of rubbish produced,” said David Webb, a 23-year-old developer from the U.K. “Take the marketing of your game very seriously - it will make the difference between being a hit or disappearing.”

Webb’s game, Hexothermic, challenges players to detonate atoms in a series of melodic, multicolored chain reactions. He developed the game as part of his dissertation at Huddersfield University. All in all, Webb raked in about $1000 profit from Hexothermic, but having an ocean between himself and Microsoft headquarters means he has yet to see a penny of it.

For developers without any idea how to promote themselves, Microsoft provides little guidance.

“Microsoft needs to do more to increase the exposure of XBLCG,” said the developer of Remote Massuese, who preferred to remain anonymous. “Not enough gamers know about it, and the ones that do aren’t aware of the games that are worth getting.
“How is a consumer to decide between all the shooters, or platformers, or puzzle games on the service? They all look the same to the average person just browsing through the box art.”

Still, RM’s creator has done quite well for himself, despite the fact his product isn’t technically a game at all. Instead, it’s an application that makes your controller pulse and vibrate, bludgeoning all that tension out of your back and shoulders.

So far, Remote Masseuse is worth more than $9000, much to the chagrin of other game designers.

“Some people are upset that there are non-games on the service, especially since a few of them outsell the games,” remarked RM’s creator.

The problem with marketing an XBLCG is that it’s done primarily through tech demos and gameplay videos — getting a copy of a game into reviewer’s hands can’t be done, short of sending a journalist the money up front and hoping they use it to buy and critique the title.

“It would be beneficial if we could just gift the game directly to the reviewers,” said Matt Doucette, co-creator of Duality ZF. “I would do so even without a review promise, whereas I would not gift money under the same circumstances.”

But even if a potential market is reached, there’s no guarantee the audience therein will be receptive. Multiplayer XBLCGs have struggled to find buyers, in part because, for all it’s multiplayer FPS’s (Halo, Call of Duty), the Xbox 360 just isn’t widely regarded as a party console.

“For a local multiplayer-only game, your customer needs a few extra controllers and some friends on the couch,” said Andrea Roberts, part of Kindling Games. “We ended up steering away from online multiplayer because it doesn’t seem particularly viable on Community Games either. Right now, there isn’t enough of an audience to regularly fill online matches.”

The game in question Hieronymus Bash, pits teams of the divine and the diabolical against one another in frantic game of otherworldly dodge ball. Originally crafted as a multiplayer-only experience, the team’s had to redact that idea with a single-player patch.

“We expect to gain a little boost in sales,” Roberts said. “But overall, we’re not really expecting a big effect. The best window for sales appears to be the first couple of weeks, so we’ve missed our prime opportunity.”

Still, despite the setbacks, XBLCG provides developers with the invaluable chance to bring the sorts of games they want to play to a wider audience. The products may not have the production values of AAA titles, but at least they offer up something besides blowing Nazis back to World War II.