So, say I write a game in XNA with hopes of getting it on Live Arcade.

If it isnt picked up, what do I do with my code to sell it to the PC market?


XNA currently requires 3 seperate installs for PC users to even get game code running.  That means 'no way in hell' for portals selling downloadable games.  It also means even if you sell the product yourself, users have to jump through serious hoops just to get a working demo on their PC.




Any idea if and when this will be addressed?  I would love to get my property on the X360, but if it doesn't happen(I'm trying to be realistic) the PC side of things needs to be brought up to speed or XNA will be niche and nothing more.

Anyone else have these fears about their product?

We've been telling Microsoft that Managed DirectX (and now XNA) has too much of a download burden for years now. I raised it again at the MVP summit this year... I'm really hoping that something changes in the next release of XNA GSE but I have to say at the time I didn't get a good vibe back from the DirectX or the XNA GSE teams... I hope things have changed since then.

XNA only requires 3 downloads if you decide to tell a user to do the downloads - just like any PC game in reality its your job to include the runtimes with your game. How to do this is really not MS place to document since most people use 3rd party installers - but its possible to do. Now there is a different problem - the size of your game is probably only feasible to ship on CD.

I have suggested that MS provides (or allows us to use the one on ms.com) an incremental downloader - sure the 1st XNA game has a big burden of download but after that its like flash... everyone will have the runtimes and our tiny .Net games will be fast.

Getting things on Live Arcade is really up to the live arcade team and outside the realms of discussion here... the process is no different to a native game.

See also this FAQ and rant... http://forums.xna.com/thread/9927.aspx and please create an entry on connect.microsoft.com - the more people who complain the more likely MS will do something.

I suppose it's always worth exploring the option of porting your game to C/C++ and DirectX/OpenGL?

If you have enough practical experience wit the language then it shouldn't be too dufficult to do and even if you don't then the hardest part will be learning it but it shouldn't really take too long if you're motivated enough..

I know that's what i'd do without a doubt if I was seriously considering Windows based distribution..

https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=290253&SiteID=226

Submitted.  I realy hope this is addressed soon.  I would LOVE to get my game working with the upcomig networking framework, but if this isnt addressed soon XNA on the PC will stall bigtime.

maybe one thing that Microsoft could do is provide a landing page on the xna.com site that would provide download links for whatever an end user has to install to play XNA games.  That way, everyone that distributes XNA games could link to that page and say, "if you want to play an XNA game, make sure you install this".

If the XNA community puts on a unified front, this all becomes a non-issue.  A gamer just has to visit that page once and install various components, and then they can play any XNA game out there.

Joel Martinez:

maybe one thing that Microsoft could do is provide a landing page on the xna.com site that would provide download links for whatever an end user has to install to play XNA games.  That way, everyone that distributes XNA games could link to that page and say, "if you want to play an XNA game, make sure you install this".

If the XNA community puts on a unified front, this all becomes a non-issue.  A gamer just has to visit that page once and install various components, and then they can play any XNA game out there.

That is not a fix to this issue.  They need to make it as simple as POSSIBLE for a potential customer to get their machine 'XNA ready'.   And there are a number of ways of doing this.  I really like Z's idea, I really hope MS addresses this soon..

While I agree 100%, PC gamers have been dealing with directX updates for over a decade now.

Does it need to get fixed?  Totally.

Will it hinder your credibility over this?  Probably not to most people.

Just my $.02 but this wouldn't be some huge shock to gamers to have to download a few files initially if it could be worked so that you could link to a download site.

Aren't there redistributable installers that you can package with your game for .NET, DirectX, and XNA? Couldn't you simply put those with your installer, check if they are installed, and then install them?

The issue here isn't that its not possible to do it, its that the size of the runtimes dwarfs the size of a casual game. Given that most casual games today are either flash, some popcap library (small download) or a DX8 games (guaranteed to be on 99% of computers) then XNA and MDX cannot compete in that market.

Since there are no incremental installers available for packaging you have to include

1.  .Net 2.0 runtime 22Mb
2. DirectX runtime (full is 53Mb but I think this can be pruned down to 20Mb or so)
3. XNA runtime 2Mb

No there is no way to 'officially' check for these things - at least not documented. Microsoft position is that you include them and call them and each installer will decide what to do. This was a great position to take when things shipped on CD or DVD but not in the downloadable casual game.

So we accept that there needs to be runtimes - that is a fact of life. However we should not have to accept that we need to package close to 50Mb with each download 'just in case'.

Of course in the world of xbox then all these runtimes or gone so the download is small - but we are not allowed to make commercial games on the 360 and all consumers need to be members of the creators club.

Personally I think that all three ought to have been pushed through Windows Update, at least as recommended updates. Arguably, they're all key parts of the Windows platform and strategy, and thus they shouldn't be the job of third parties or the end user to provide.

The only way to get past this is to have one runtime + game downloadable and one stand alone game downloadable.

Speaking of runtimes it gets better with physics now, must have the physx runtimes installed to run physx on computers.

It's like the world is moving into the runtime world nowadays... 

The ZMan:

Since there are no incremental installers available for packaging you have to include

1.  .Net 2.0 runtime 22Mb
2. DirectX runtime (full is 53Mb but I think this can be pruned down to 20Mb or so)
3. XNA runtime 2Mb

And it's not just the size of the .Net runtime, it also takes FOREVER to install, a half hour or more on some machines. And you have to be an Administrator to install it. I wonder if they could do a micro-CLR like Silverlight has and only include the namespaces that are supported on the 360 as well (maybe include the XNA Framework in the same install?). I guess you would still have the large DirectX runtime requirement though.