I'm targeting a buck a game.

To do that I'll put it at 200MS points but as long as it's acceptable / in alignmen to the T&Cs of community arcade - I'll note that whatever of my % that is over $1 per unit will go towards a charity. 

I didn't realise that people thought leaderboards and achievements were such a big deal. They mean absolutely nothing to me, but it appears that I'm in the minority.

I'm curious as to why the prices are 200, 400 and 800, i.e. each price point being double the next one down. At the very least a 600 point option would have been good, but better still would have been 200 to 800 in 100 point increments.

Do you think Microsoft would consider introducing additional price points if enough of us request it, or would I just be wasting my breath?

For me, I'll be going for 400 points. By the time Microsoft takes their cut, then I get stuffed by the USD to UKP exchange rate (Ok, its not as bad as it has been) and then the UK tax man takes his 40%, I'll probably get enough to buy a can of Coke. :) (Note that I'm not complaining, and in fact I think Microsoft are being very generous by giving us 70%).

800 points is difficult because its in direct competition with professional XBLA games, and 200 is too low IMO (Unless you sell loads).

For the best games I would see 600 points as ideal... but thats not currently an option.

Ben

BenS1:

I didn't realise that people thought leaderboards and achievements were such a big deal. They mean absolutely nothing to me, but it appears that I'm in the minority.

You would be surprised.  If there was ever a powerful sound effect in the history of gaming, the toast message "plunk" sound would be a strong reinforcer.

As for pricing and lots of other issues people have, a lot of these comments rise from the fact that we fall under a common contract when publishing to CG.  By doing this, we don't go through a certification process.  It's all peer reviewed, which is our greatest strength as purveyors of content, but also our greatest restriction as we still have to fit into a semi-flexible mold.

Edge of Blade:

As for pricing and lots of other issues people have, a lot of these comments rise from the fact that we fall under a common contract when publishing to CG.  By doing this, we don't go through a certification process.  It's all peer reviewed, which is our greatest strength as purveyors of content, but also our greatest restriction as we still have to fit into a semi-flexible mold.

But surely as the contract is technically a contract between Microsoft and Microsoft (As I believe XNA as a whole is classed as a single game/app.), then they could negotiate more flexible pricing? Its not a massive issue, but additional price points would have been good.

It'd also be good to have some confirmation on whether we will be able to adjust our pricing after release or not. For example, when I release my game I might want to sell it for 400 points, but when I release version 2 of my game I might want to reprice version 1 down to 200 points and release version 2 at 400 points.

Ben

BenS1:

But surely as the contract is technically a contract between Microsoft and Microsoft (As I believe XNA as a whole is classed as a single game/app.), then they could negotiate more flexible pricing? Its not a massive issue, but additional price points would have been good.

It'd also be good to have some confirmation on whether we will be able to adjust our pricing after release or not. For example, when I release my game I might want to sell it for 400 points, but when I release version 2 of my game I might want to reprice version 1 down to 200 points and release version 2 at 400 points.

Ben

There will be no mechanism at launch to adjust the price after the game is published.

Just to be clear that's the case at launch, pricing changing is something we'll look at for a future releae(but no ETA). Obviously feedback is welcome and using the Connect site is the best place for it

I kinda see where people are coming from with the lower cost for their games.  But I, personally, will be shooting for the 800 point price as much as possible, of course it will be based on game quality.  Braid goes for1200 points, and I have confidence that the games I'm working on are of the same caliber.

Spencer A:

I kinda see where people are coming from with the lower cost for their games.  But I, personally, will be shooting for the 800 point price as much as possible, of course it will be based on game quality.  Braid goes for1200 points, and I have confidence that the games I'm working on are of the same caliber.

I agree.  Using basic COCOMO analysis, which is admittedly flawed and I think something of an under-estimate in my own case, I've invested something upwards of $200,000 worth of code to my game.  I'm not expecting, right now, to recoup that sunk cost, but I do plan to target that 800 point price, at least initially, and would like to see my game truly competitive at that price.

Yes, there won't be leaderboards or achievements or ranked play, and I think at first there will be a lot of talk about that, but until the XNA team finds a way to make those available to Community Games I think the we need to band together and carefully explain to users that that is the limitations of the medium, the particular section of the catalog that is Community Games, and that it does not affect quality and should not affect whether a game is "purchase-able"...  It's not like, say, the Wii has achievements or that as many Wii games have leaderboards or any ranked play.  800 Points in CG != 800 Points in XBLM, in terms of money for game.

As a consumer, I'm going to buy the games that interest me no matter what the price point.  If anything I think that I would favor a (fellow) CG/independent/small developer over a game at the same price from a bigger company.  I already do that with movies where I often favor a talented auteur over a bigger mainstream collection when debating what to add to my collection.

Here's the thing that I expect as a consumer, and expect of myself no less, and offer as tool to everyone else here: I see the choice of the higher price point as something as a commitment from a Community Games developer.  At 800 points I expect quality, but I'm willing to accept "quality over time": I expect at least some of that money to be put aside to game improvements.  At the very least a developer should be willing to work hard to squash bugs nearly as soon as they are discovered.  I think that's where the room and the sweet spot for 800 point games will be: those developers willing to track their communities and fix bugs and "always be improving".

Just a few of my own prepaid card of 2 points on the subject,

--Max Battcher--

WorldMaker:

[...] but until the XNA team finds a way to make those available to Community Games [...]

To be quite honest, while I have hopes we will get leaderboards, I think it's pretty safe to assume we will never get achievements. It's far too large a selling point for registered developers on XBLA to just give it to all the community games.

[...] I think the we need to band together and carefully explain to users that that is the limitations of the medium, the particular section of the catalog that is Community Games, and that it does not affect quality and should not affect whether a game is "purchase-able"...  It's not like, say, the Wii has achievements or that as many Wii games have leaderboards or any ranked play.  800 Points in CG != 800 Points in XBLM, in terms of money for game.

I agree education is important, but how do you plan to do this? I'd guess the majority of your consumer base is just finding these on the Xbox dashboard; not via some website making this level of education simply impossible. I agree that if you could explain to them that it's not our fault it might help.

Then again, they don't necessarily care. After all, why should they care about technical limitations? I know I wouldn't. Do you think they'll feel "bad" for us and feel more willing to purchase the games? I don't. I think at best they'll think "That makes sense why I can't have achievements, but that's still $10 for a game that has no achievements or leaderboards and is very much likely to be of lower quality than an XBLA game at the same price." That's what makes it a hard sell. The consumer doesn't care about our limitations; they want a good game at a good price. And I do firmly believe that an 800 point game is going to be a hard sell. Not impossible, but hard enough that I wonder if you would not make more money at 400 points by simply moving more copies.

I think that's where the room and the sweet spot for 800 point games will be: those developers willing to track their communities and fix bugs and "always be improving".

Bug fixing is great (though you should strive to squash them all before shipping ;)), but be careful with the "improvements" part. The team made it quite clear at Gamefest that they do not want you releasing your game and continually updating it with more content. You should ship the finished game and the only updates you should apply are bug fixes or minor tweaks. If you have new features and content to release, roll it up and release it as a separate game.

Also note that there will not (at least initially) be an automated update prompt for users. This means when they start your game it won't say "This game has been updated, hit A to update". They have to manually re-download the game to get that patch. So even if you work diligently and fix those bugs, you still have to hope people re-download it to get that update. Hopefully this is addressed at some point as it would be a major boost to our games if we could update our games knowing those bug fixes were pushed down to every customer.

As a note on the debates of my team, we've been discussing our pricing since the announcement at Gamefest. We were really solidly going to go with 400 points for Bloc, but we recently decided to go with 200 points. We have decided that we believe we will sell more copies and as such stand a good chance of making more than if we charged 400 points per copy. We'll get more impulse buys and more buys from people that are "on the fence" about the game. That said, we're also planning on having a number of other games ready by the end of the year or in early 2009 to launch as well, so we're certainly not banking on a "one hit wonder" to make us all rich. ;)

 For pricing, I would try to compress the game's content as much as possible without hurting quality to get the game's size below 50MB so it can sell at 200 Microsoft Points. I dont really care about how much money I make, I just want to make a game that others can enjoy. People playing the game (and liking it) is my primary concern.

 

My plan is to:

1.)Create a game worth 1,600 points.

2.)Sell it at 400.

3.)Profit!

...I'm having a bit of trouble with the first step, but after I get over that little hurdle, I'll be rich! Thanks Microsoft!

I really wish there was a 600 point price point, too, though. Not that I'm complaining. I love the XNA team and Microsoft in general from the very bottom of my heart. =)

I just wrote a new post asking a similar question:  How much should I charge for my game?    

I think very highly of my game, but I'm not sure what I should price it at.

Honestly, i would love to try the 200 point price, just because i'd rather have the game played by more people, even if that means i dont make as much money.   But on the other hand, the game cost me a lot of time and money to create, so I'm worried about recouping my costs...       anyway, just a dillema i'm facing, similar to others i'm sure.

-Jason

Hi guys,

I'm both concerned and confused about pricing as well. As I'm not in the US, I can't download, test and peer review any games myself. All I can do is watching videos really. Therefor, I ask you american guys how you experience the community games so far? I would really appreciate if you could give some idea of what kind of games are out there, and what you think is good pricing for the nunch. Can you guys help me out on this?

I made a thread about pricing myself (http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/18671.aspx), which was locked and redirected to here, which is good. Thanks Nick. Also, Novaleaf's thread about pricing is very intresting (http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/18818/98176.aspx#98176).

Johnny Herring:

Hi guys,

I'm both concerned and confused about pricing as well. As I'm not in the US, I can't download, test and peer review any games myself. All I can do is watching videos really. Therefor, I ask you american guys how you experience the community games so far? I would really appreciate if you could give some idea of what kind of games are out there, and what you think is good pricing for the nunch. Can you guys help me out on this?

Lots of tech demos, lower quality knockoffs, demos of games with promise, and a few games with enough polish that you can see paying 400 points for right now.

I'll use another approach to answer this particular million dollar question.

If I were someone that had spent a just a few personal resources (basically, time) to make a simple game that I wanted everybody to play with, I’ll price it at 0 MS Points.

Unfortunately, that’s not possible as for today, so I’d price it at the minimum required: 200 MS points.

If, instead of creating a really simple game, I created a more polished game and, therefore, I spent more of my personal resources (basically, time and money) I’d price it at 400 MS points. And I’d do so just because of the minimum 200 MS points ALL no-matter-what-simple-it-is games will have. If I wanted to psychologically separate my game from those simple ones I mentioned, I think I’d have no choice.

As already said, I’d price my game at 800 MS points just in case it has a really, really good quality, as seen on most successful XBLA games.

jwatte:

2D art can compress really, really well if you use a custom compressor. If it's vector art, you can save it as vector art and rasterize to a texture. If it's photographic art, you can compress similar to JPEG 2000. You will, however, have to do some heavy lifting yourself on the code size to make that work out.

 

I'll bite!  :)

If you know where I can find a C# implementation of either a vector rasterizer or JPEG 2000, please share!   because I have not seen either.....

I expect people buy CG games either because they liked a demo, or because a friend keeps asking them to buy the game so that they can play it together online. This indicates that games with a strong multiplayer component should target low prices. Single players may target higher prices, provided they are exceptional games, as they will suffer the comparison with XBLA games.

Even a fantastic multiplayer game sucks if there is no one to play the game with, so there is a real risk associated to over-pricing this kind of games.

While I am just learning to program, and preordered the book Beginning XNA 3.0 from Novice to Professional and I have no C# knowledge but I have a book on it, if I made a game over 50 mb I would split up the game.  I would take one half of the game and put it out on the Community Games.  If people like it, I would put up episode 2 with maybe an extra game mode or something.  I would take what would be the price of the full game, so maybe 400 msp, and then make each half 200, so if someone is not sure about the game then they would put in some money, and if they love it then they would purchase the extra half.  An extra goodie or two might push them towards the purchase.  That is what I would do, not that you exactly asked.  And I agree with everyone and would not make my game ever be 800 msp.  I have trouble making a purchase with a game that is on XBLA, and that has high polish.

It costs less in the Euro zone, then in the U.S.. Their currency is stronger.

In the Euro-zone, there are different costs:

200 Points = 2.40€ = ~$3.25
400 Points = 4.80€ = ~$6.50

and in the UK:

200 Points = 1.70£ = ~$3.00
400 Points = 3.40£ = ~$6.00

Your numbers even show it.

$10.00 US = 7.32€   2/5/2010 rate