yyr:

Domipheus:

If you are planning to make a game truely worth 800pts, and actually get sustained good sales, Arcade is the way to go - even considering the entry barrier (which is now lowered now, given the likes of xna based games making it in).

Everything I've seen in the gaming press has seemed to point at the opposite: the bar for XBLA has been considerably raised, because there are fewer gaps in the portfolio than there used to be, and more developers.  According to what I've read, it is now more difficult than before to be greenlit for XBLA, especially for small developers.

I agree with you, I was talking more of the technical barrier - however I dont know how using XNA for an XBLA title like we are seeing with the likes of Rocket Riot complicates requirement checklists, etc. The hard part will always be the approval, but if somone aimed to realistically charge 800msp, i'd expect to at least try.

I do worry about the 80msp price point in that it may saturate the XBLIG Marketplace with hundreds of apps, many duplicates at that. Categorizing by price may be of value in this respect.

I nearly choked on my coffee this morning when I read about the recent Indie game changes. Yes, it's nice that indie games have finally come to Sweden, but the sudden and (at least, to me) unexpected removal of the 800 point price range really pisses me off.

First, let me introduce myself shortly. I've worked with games for about 10 years, the recent years being professional work. I've lead the work on a Nintendo DS title that got released, and I've been involved in PC and PDA titles that also were released. I've worked on starting up a game company and worked on dozens of demo projects while doing so.

For the last year, I've placed a major part of my free time on a XNA project. The game will be based on a familar concept but have full network support and professional-level graphics and design work. I have high faith in the project and I decided a long time ago that it fits the 800 point price range. And now, somehow, it feels like a lot of that effort has gone down the drain.

You suddenly announce that the price range has changed. How can you casually swap around things like that, don't you realize that some of us are trying to build a business on your technology? How can we trust you to not to shake the foundation again, or perhaps one day screw us by suddenly demanding 50% of the income of games? I won't invest months and years working on projects that are bound by your platform if I don't feel I can trust you not to rock around the foundation at your own leisure.

I won't go into what I feel about the business validity of the change, since I suspect you don't really care about what I or anyone else of the indie developers think. I'll settle with stating that my trust is shaken, and that XNA is less attractive now than ever.

Olle Håkansson
Game Programmer

Edit: Okay, seems like my post has been moved. It was intended to be a thread of its own, but I guess it fits here too.

Wow. this thread is a massive boost to my Ego!

I personally beleive the 80pts price point is AWESOME. perfect for all the tat like clocks and fireplaces. I know on the iphone ive spent a FORTUNE on random crap - Im almost glad my new windows mobile (touch pro 2) doesnt have an app store yet!

But losing the 800pts? there is a quality issue with XBLIG currently and now MS are telling us to reduce our prices - so we'll reduce the time spent and therefor - the quality. thats brilliant.

And I've got an update for ezmuze+ due very soon. The current version has a few bugs in - but is 800pts. if i update, i do the good thing yet get my price reduced by 50%. I now have negative incentive to produce an update. thanks. Id be better off WAITING till im forced to change the price THEN updating - that would be good business sense.

It also makes me want to spend less time on the follow up - i spent 7 months on the first - so in theory, i should spend 3 and a half months on the next version - the update shouldnt be better - it should be worse.
wheres the logic?

Im not asking for special treatment because ezmuze sold well at the mythical price point. Im just asking if the total removal makes sense - hell, id be totally up for a more stringent review process that includes not bug testing but also quality testing - allow games to sell at 800pts but only if they are worth it.

I know we have the unique review system compared to the app store - and its deffinately more fair overall - but the customer doesnt give a crap if we've gone through a more fair review process or not.

think of it this way: you have a project where you need some photo editing software urgently and u have no internet access. you go into a store and see two photo editing packages youve never heard of - both capable of what you need but one is $5 and the other is $150 - youre more likely to consider the $150 one because $5 is cheap and you want a good product - like it or not cheap is associated with crap.

I belive the price changes is going to make a big impact on some game studios thats currently working on "800 point games".
The change was sudden and non expected.

AmmountSold x Price = Money

I think there wanting to make people more comforable about spending points on the market place, lots of people will have atleast 80 points spare and will be looking for somthing to spend it on, which will bring them to the Idie games.
I belive and hope the changes will bring more people into the marke place.

nrXic:

I feel that I should point out Jim that your opinion of these games clearly differ with the general public.  EzMuze+ had a conversion rate of over 13% for an 800pt game. 

So I differ from 13% of the general public. Big deal. :)

nrXic:

But I would disagree with the removal of 800pts price point for one big reason...it discourages Indie developers from making titles that are larger in scope and offer a lot to the consumer. 

It certainly doesn't discourage me. I never planned on pricing any of the games I have in the works at 800 and one is a sizeable RPG. Let's turn it around. If 800 had never been an option would "it discourages Indie developers from making titles that are larger in scope and offer a lot to the consumer"? The fact of the matter is that XBLIG games will already don't offer a lot to the consumer when compared with XBLA games so why should they be priced the same?

nrXic:

This could be due to pressure from XBLA publishers. 

I'm so sick of this argument. There's no facts supporting it, just random conjecture from idiots on the internet. MS is not going to be pressured by publishers. There's so many developers that want to get onto the 360 that they're standing in line and MS can afford to pick and choose. They have no reason to bow to pressure from anyone. Let's just drop the conspiracy theories, OK?

nrXic:

It goes without saying that 800pts would be a fair price for such a title,

It does?!?

nrXic:

a price that gamers have no problem dishing out for. 

Yes, for XBLA games that have several key features that XBLIG games cannot have. Your argument fails, right there. Several of the MVPs heard from many of the Xbox MVPs at the MVP Summit that they would never buy an XBLIG game just because they don't have Achievements, and that's just one of the features that we're missing.

nrXic:

Now with MS's price changes in affect, you may consider removing many features because they add to your development time as well as testing time.

Huh?!? Your logic is flawed IMO. Who cares about development and testing time? Are we under some kind of time constraint that I don't know about? I don't care how long development takes. I'm certainly not going to cut features out because I can't price it at a certain price. If you're basing your feature list on price you're working backwards IMO.

nrXic:

An alternative (as someone already mentioned in this thread) is to attempt to make the game feature complete, but lacking in content.  Instead of having a full-fledged Castle to roam in, reduce the scope of that by 1/3, and position your game as the first of a Trilogy.

Which is just as stupid as cutting features. AAA studios are getting slammed by people that think they're doing exactly this. The brouhaha around L4D2 is a case in point.

nrXic:

is there anything negative/wrong/bad about XBLIG developers having the option of releasing games for 800pts? 

Yes, public perception of XBLIG games compared to XBLA games. For 800 points would you buy a game that has the features that are missing from an XBLA game or one that has them?

nrXic:

Other arguments go into segmenting the quality of titles between XBLIG and XBLA, but those do not factor in that XBLA publishing of XNA titles is a rarity. 

Which the public doesn't know nor care about. All they care about is what your game has in it.

nrXic:

Currently XBLIG has a poor reputation among gamers, and the removal of the 800pt price point re-inforces that. 

Again, huh?!? The poor reputation is based on the fact that XBLIG games currently in existence are mostly crap, not the price they're at. Try again.

nrXic:

It's like saying, "You're never going to see a game worth 800pts here". 

And you're not, compared to XLBA games, from a feature list standpoint.

nrXic:

They have probably thought long and hard about this anyways. 

But it's just easier to argue from the viewpoint on not having any evidence to support your argument, right? :)

I'll wait to see my first question above get a serious answer, but I'm not going to hold my breath. `>

Domipheus:

I do worry about the 80msp price point in that it may saturate the XBLIG Marketplace with hundreds of apps, many duplicates at that.

Already happened, so price point has nothing to do with it. We've got what, a dozen crappy massager games already!?

Necci:

I belive the price changes is going to make a big impact on some game studios thats currently working on "800 point games".

Why? If 800 points had never been an option would they still be working on their "800 point games"? I certainly would.

@Jim, he's enjoying good sales at an 800 price point. Doesn't that prove that there is market for 800 point games on the service?

Yep, from my market research, if you're going to make something high quality, even if it gets a ton of press, the best option seems to be pricing it at 800 points because your potential lost income from the people that will buy at 400 but not 800 won't cover the difference in profit. You run into a "whoever's going to buy it, will anyway," for the most part - with the most popular GAMES only getting 50,000 trials, max, you just aren't selling enough at 4% conversion rate to make anything with enough dev time to make it comparable to XBLA.

And, from personal, as well as second hand experience, it's really, really hard to get on XBLA now, much harder than before due to catering to the larger companies and making sure genres don't get saturated.

So removing the 800 point price point is very "meh" - the biggest issue being, what's the point of doing so? One of the biggest sellers, EZMuse+, is at 800 points - I fail to see the issue there. Yes, people on the Internet whine about price, but those same people would whine if the games are FREE - their entire purpose is just to be seen/noticed by offering the most negative viewpoint possible; not to give a fair review of the titles. Fortunately, I do have a pitch option with a larger company for my game after next which might get it shoved on XBLA, but it's still irritating that I now don't have the 800 point option.

One game does not a statistic make. :)

arrogancy:

but it's still irritating that I now don't have the 800 point option.

If you'd never had the 800 point option would you still be irritated?

Huh?!? Your logic is flawed IMO. Who cares about development and testing time? Are we under some kind of time constraint that I don't know about? I don't care how long development takes. I'm certainly not going to cut features out because I can't price it at a certain price. If you're basing your feature list on price you're working backwards IMO.

I care. Definitely! Why wouldn't you, as a business, care about the man hours put into your product? That's the easiest way to make your company go under!

Essentially what it means is this - I, as a business owner, have come up with a profitable way to make XBLIGs. For instance, I could make games with a 4 week dev time, stick strictly to that throughout the year, while allowing myself 2 or so 2 month dev time games a year that I charge the 800 price point for. Without the 800 price point, it becomes non-feasible to make the 800 point games, which, to put it bluntly, sucks for my company's reputation and for the service as I can't make the ultra-quality XBLA level titles that I wish to. The only way to do a larger game now is for one of the 400 point games to becomes an RC Air Sim "luck hit" that just catches on and self perpetuates. And no, you don't make enough off of PC releases, either, for the most part to justify that kind of time.

Duality ZF, for instance had a year or so of dev time put into it and it's PROBABLY going to max out at 15 -20k at best for the 400 point price point going by past trends. A year of dev time, 2 people, 20k, is not keeping a company afloat, sorry. It's an extreme example, but you can't make a game of that quality in 4 weeks. People constantly ask me why I won't release AAG - it's because I can't afford to; and you'll run into a lot of stuff like that now in the future.

Jim Perry:

arrogancy:

but it's still irritating that I now don't have the 800 point option.

If you'd never had the 800 point option would you still be irritated?

No, because I wouldn't even look at XBLIG for that kind of title in the first place. It's irritating because it has taken away the option to make a game with more than a month's worth of dev time when it was once there.

arrogancy:

No, because I wouldn't even look at XBLIG for that kind of title in the first place.

arrogancy:

I care. Definitely! Why wouldn't you, as a business, care about the man hours put into your product? That's the easiest way to make your company go under!

If you're limiting yourself to XBLIG only then your business plan is flawed to begin with IMO. :)

Jim Perry:

arrogancy:

I care. Definitely! Why wouldn't you, as a business, care about the man hours put into your product? That's the easiest way to make your company go under!

If you're limiting yourself to XBLIG then your business plan is flawed to begin with IMO. :)

No, it's not. It's quite feasible to make a profit selling games on XBLIG as long as you release enough, keep the dev time to 4 weeks or so, and use PC distrubtion as a secondary method to back up profits.

So for the games that take more than 4 weeks you should eventually get some cushion from other games, right? I don't see a problem in that case.

The long tail isn't that great for XBLIGs, and with Microsoft constantly changing parameters, who knows what future stuff they'll change that may impact sales greatly. You'll make some return on older titles, but that's exactly what WOULD support the 800 point games being made. With those games now being 400, it will cut into profits a great deal and simply not make the dev time worthwhile. An 800 point game at a certain time COULD break even, at 400, it won't. You don't want to actually take a profit loss on any game, if at all possible.

madninjaskillz:

I personally beleive the 80pts price point is AWESOME. perfect for all the tat like clocks and fireplaces. I know on the iphone ive spent a FORTUNE on random crap - Im almost glad my new windows mobile (touch pro 2) doesnt have an app store yet!

80pts is good for Randomness, Games from Beginning Programmers, Games that should be in some "WarioWare" Style Collection...

madninjaskillz:

hell, id be totally up for a more stringent review process that includes not bug testing but also quality testing - allow games to sell at 800pts but only if they are worth it

Maybe they should choose price this way, QT and with the rating, give a recommendation for Price and give it a level, (Low = 80,Med = 240,High = 400, Extreme = 800),but kind of akward for someone to say "This game sucks, 80pts, NEXT!"

It's hard to be the consumer and the developer: You know you want the games amazingly awesome and being a developer you have more of that mindset that it its hard work and time consuming to make a game! But as a consumer : "Do i Really want to spend $?.?? on this?" and of Course you have to decide for your self if a game has play value! (like in my case : Why should I buy a Shump (Shoot em' Up - like R-Type) if i suck at that genre more than anything!)

what i dont get is that how do you profit from a 400pt game (that should have been 800pt) you spent a crap ton of money buying software, Paying others their cuts (if your on a dev team), and other things you do to keep a coder\Artist Happy!,

arrogancy:

You don't want to actually take a profit loss on any game, if at all possible.

with some users having to hire help to get content this is a very big deal to some people - and from my own point of view - when developing ezmuze+ - the target was always an 800pts game - some features were added because before hand it didnt justify the price. if 400pts had been the target - dev time would have been greatly reduced because we wouldnt have wanted to invest so much time. in theory if the staff were paid a reasonable wage rather than a % - ezmuze+ would have barely broken even. at 400pts wed be looking for new staff. in india or china.

the plan - tbh - was to release the next version at 400pts - but only because of a slightly more niche soundset and because most of the dev work is already done - only minor tweaks needed. but the plan after that was a much larger version - one that wed like to charge 1200 or above for - as well as release on pc. with the 400pts limit - the PSP has suddenly become a lot more interesting and viable.

Jim Perry:

Domipheus:

I do worry about the 80msp price point in that it may saturate the XBLIG Marketplace with hundreds of apps, many duplicates at that.

Already happened, so price point has nothing to do with it. We've got what, a dozen crappy massager games already!?

True, but there is still that feeling that even apps sub-par to those may roll in, due to the cheap nature of them.

Nick Gravelyn:

Reggie S:

Without the ability to price your game at 800 pts, there's no incentive for the devs to spend the time to make high qualiy games.

Then make the game you want and sell it on PC for $10. I personally don't get this argument.

I believe you.  You have to realize that not everyone here is a hobbyist doing this for fun.  There are quite a few developers here doing this as a business and those will be the ones to make the games that eventually banish the massage apps from the charts.  You really don't want to encourage them to leave for other services where they can make games worth 800pts and get paid what they're worth.

madninjaskillz:

And I've got an update for ezmuze+ due very soon. The current version has a few bugs in - but is 800pts. if i update, i do the good thing yet get my price reduced by 50%. I now have negative incentive to produce an update. thanks. Id be better off WAITING till im forced to change the price THEN updating - that would be good business sense.

It also makes me want to spend less time on the follow up - i spent 7 months on the first - so in theory, i should spend 3 and a half months on the next version - the update shouldnt be better - it should be worse.
wheres the logic?

Here's a developer who has made a successful 800pt game.  They're facing exactly what I said.  There's no incentive to put the extra effort into a polished game.  Sure, a hobbyist wouldn't care whether they made money or not but they're not faced with the cost of art and the other expenses of running a business.


Reggie

I think it hurts a lot, high quality artwork is very expensive to have produced for next gen consoles in 720p or 1080p resolutions, and costs quickly add up. Most medium sized games that are level or action heavy and not extremely repetitive are most likely looking at 15-30k in costs if not more . I know for a single animated character for a 2D side scrolling platfomer game your generally talking around 3-5k alone for pro quality in this resolution, and that is on the cheap side.

The income potential just isn't here so far for this type of expense and development, its been slashed even more now with the loss of the 800pt price margin.

I like the new changes, I'm going to let Pwned drop down to 80pts.   However, an ~800pt tier should be an option as well.

The 80msp price point isn't even an issue. People are going to make terrible games regardless, and now they'll probably receive more sales regardless.

Reggie S:

There are quite a few developers here doing this as a business

"quite a few"? How many exactly?

Reggie S:

those will be the ones to make the games that eventually banish the massage apps from the charts

I believe the rating system will banish them, not developers hoping to build a business on XBLIG.

Reggie S:

Here's a developer who has made a successful 800pt game.  They're facing exactly what I said.  There's no incentive to put the extra effort into a polished game.  Sure, a hobbyist wouldn't care whether they made money or not but they're not faced with the cost of art and the other expenses of running a business.

As I said before, building a business plan on a new platform alone is probably not the wisest decision. You have to think that that platform may change. Yeah, it would be great if it's successful, but you can't hold your breath and hope for the best.