Hi people,

Can you submit a game with dummy textures for peer review? i want to know this becouse it could spare alot of money on artists. It could be a good idea to make somekind of model where you can technicly and functional review a game first and do graphics after. Or the other way around.

You could certainly put it in play test if you indicated in your description that the graphics are placeholder. You couldn't put it in review, as once it's approved it will be on Live with your programmer art, which is not what you want. Playtest is your friend.

As Dadoo says there are 2 kinds of review and you get to choose when you submit your game.

Peer Review is for 100% finished and tested products
Play Test is for everything else - if you are looking for help testing or game feedback then put it in here.

In playtst you can put in as many versions as you like and have plenty of discussions with the community. If you do that in peer review then you will likely find a forum full of grumpy testers who think you are wasting their time by going to peer review before you are ready. Note that 99% of games we are seeing really need to spend a week or so in peer review. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you are the exception to the rule.

Just curious, let's say you submitted a game that had no problems (not likely, but I can dream). How long does that take to go through peer review before it appears on Xbox Live?

Seems to be taking 7-10 days to get through review about now much more if you have any non english languages in there.

Probably faster if you have a fun game that peopl like to review, probably more if you annoy the reviewers or have something that people don't care to play. Remember theres usually 20-40 games in review and playtest so people have to allocate their time.

That's not too bad... I think I may put my game up for play testing soon so hopefully when i go to peer review, it won't be so bad.

I'd like to start reviewing some games as well, but I'm so busy these days trying to hammer out my game... I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The point is you cant be a good software engineer and 3d artist.

It would kinda suck for me to make a full game and pay for the artwork and after that throw everything away cus the game is rejected for example.
So you must make a full game before you know if your allowed to sell it. Thats kinda non indy becouse that would require a big investment and thats not what indie's do.

So am i missing the point? or did stuff change becouse i came here in May and decided to make xbox arcade games but i was stil on a project wich ended now so i am back and made a prototype but all that doenst mather anymore since everyone is talking about full games.

Peer Review is the process by which you get your game onto the xbox to sell through Xbox live. If you put your game in there with placeholder art then when it passes it will be on the xbox for people to buy with placeholder art. There's no way to change it once its there unless you go through the review process all over again.

If you are worried about your game being rejected after you have forked out $2000 for art then use the playtest option when you submit your game. All the reviewers will tell you stuff that would fail the game which you can choose to fix or give up. Then yes you could add the art as a last step and playtest with the final art - provided the final art doesn't cause IP or decency issues then its very unlikely to be a fail reason.

Once you are done then you put the final version of the game with the final graphics into peer review.

Does that make sense? Play Test and Peer review are 2 separate but similar processes... playtest is for feedback, peer review is for final approval before Xbox but the same people will look at your game.

If not then I think we are all misunderstanding your question.

Note also that you are making Xbox Live COMMUNITY Games not Xbox live ARCADE games - thats a totally different closed, expensive process.

Hm i guess i had it wrong then,

I was under the asumption i could submit a game wich would apear at the marketplace so people can buy it for a few credits or download a free demo.
Small 150mb games that is. Unles i dont understand the difference between a community game and a Xbox live arcade game if so whats the exact difference then?

On my experiance as programmer i calculated it wil cost me ManHours equal to 10.000 euro of coding rounded down. So my cost prince is 10k+ artwork wich can be as cheap as 2.000 euro but can easely cost 5.000 aswell. A high quality game both code and graphics wise will cost me 15.000,00 euro. I did not buy an xbox and xna membership to clown around.

It would be nice to upload my code but if everyone can aces it, it would mean i can review someones code and steal his IP or a part of it. Can you please explain to me the differences between those concepts becouse at the moment i am clowning around but i am thinking of submitting a game in March and i begin to wonder now what the benifits are.


Thanks in advance

Yes thats exactly what community games is. You write a game, price it at 200, 400, 800 MS Points and then people can downlaod a trial (trials cut out after 8 minutes). However that game needs to be complete, not crash and follow proper xbox guidelines - thats what the review process checks.

Games in peer review and playtest cannot be accessed by everyone, only other creators club members. They don't get your source code or assets, though technically they could reverse engineer them from the compiled .ccgame file that you submit. There would be little point though becuase if they submitted it to the service as their own work you wuld fail it and report them for IP theft.

Community games costs $99 and anyone can submit a game as long as they get through peer review. There's little marketing done for you and you don't get achievements or leaderboards.

Arcade costs (at least according to the rumours) $10,000 for the xbox SDK, requires a publisher, requires you to go through a long certification process, requires you to go through multipel countries ratings boards (also expensive and long) and hardest of all its not open to everyone - you have to pitch your game and get chosen. In return you get lots of free marketing, exposure to a maket that only has a couple of releases a week, gamer pics and themes, achievements and leader boards.

All you seem to be confused about is the process... the thing you submit to the xbox needs to be complete - consumers will be paying for it. So it would be very unwise to put a game with placeholder graphics in for review. As logn as the game plays though it won't be failed. Quality is not determined by peer reviewers. Just crashes and anything else tht makes the game unplayabel such as not following xbox best practises or safe areas.. there's docs to follow. But if you put up a playable game with crap graphics people would advise you not to but it would likely pass. Of course consumers may not buy it and game blogs may mock it.

So becuase MS know people want to get feedback they added a playtest process. Its jsut the same as peer review but the reviewers dont pass or fail, they just play and give feedback.

Zman thanks for the info,

Ill guess i wil have to try out community game first then. I think its a good way te earn my deuce and the costs involved in it arent that high. Supose ill make 3 good games wich cost me 45.000 euro i probally wil have some good experiance and proven record for producing games. What are your experiances? i am thinking about realesing 3 good games.

So far i seen there is a huge difference in quality of games, how much cash is 200-400-800 pts? and how many games did you sell till now release wise of average (and include name of game please so i can buy it and experience it)?

Thanks

Right now nobody knows their sales figures... they are not due till the 1st payments in March.

See the FAQ for payment information http://creators.xna.com/en-US/faq

Hmm i wonder what you guys will get. Ive been trying for 2 hours to play your games and maybe buy them
but till now all i found is a description dating from 5-2008 that i must instal xna connector and download games wich doenst work.

I installed modded and played my first game in 30 minutes but getting in aproved games really is a big challange. Any updated info?

If you are in USA/Canada/UK/Italy/France/Spain then there is nothing to download. You jsut go to community games in the xbox live marketplace to get the trials. Make sure you have no parental restrictions on your account as they won't show.

If you want to review games then jsut look on the games menu up top for review and playtest. Download XNA Connect from Marketplace, run it on your xbox and then open the ccgame you downloaded and it will install it to your games library on your xbox.