Hi, I've been recently learning C#, and I have a question. Is it worth the money of paying the subscription and working your tail off to get your game on Xbox Live? Do these indie game sell well? Like for example, in the flash game industry, a decent game would usually get you 800$+,might even reach 5000$. Now those games are simple, easy and can be done pretty quick. Making games for Xbox Live is obviously harder and more work, so I assume the pay is much greater. So on average, how much would a decent game get on the Xbox Live?

Thank you for you time and sorry if this is in the wrong place or if this violates any rules.

I've easily made back the $99 subscription fee already in the week my game has been release (I haven't made back the money I spent on art/music though all indications so far are that I will in the next 3-6 months). If all you're worried about is that $99, I suspect even a poor game sold at 80 points ($1) would eventually make that much back.

A really well done game has a chance to make much more... I know a few games here have passed $10,000 and apparently a couple passed $30,000.

It depends on what you're after. If your only concern is making money, you're probably better off taking the Flash route (see this thread for people sharing sales stats for XBLIG). I've made quite a bit of money doing Flash games, but what drew me to the XBox was the ability to make different kinds of games. You can target one set of standard hardware, you're not bound to a keyboard and a mouse, you can use full rez graphics, networking becomes a lot easier, and you can do things interesting things like local multiplayer.

I see, thanks for the replies, I guess I'll stick with flash for a while, until I'm done with learning C# and all set. As long as I can develop games for the XBL and not be losing money, then it's all good.

Another reason why I'd prefer flash, is that with flash you get tons of people playing your game quite quickly. You can easily get 200,000 views on your game in a week. While with XBL games, downloads are way less than that. Obviously because the players need to have an xbox, and still have to download it, but still.

I don't think there is one game that has not made back the $99. If you can make a flash game that will make $5000 then you can easily make an XBLIG that will make $5000. The reality is compared to the competition of flash games if you are able to make a game of that quality you would probably make alot more on XBLIG.

I'd also take into consideration that most of the good selling games do not share their numbers in the sharing thread, nor do they share them with the press. Even the EZmuse while he shared initial numbers, quit sharing as he has stayed in the top 20 for a number of months.

Flash and XBLIG are two very different models of doing business. I'm no Flash developer, but as I understand it, Flash is predominantly driven by ad revenue, though sometimes you'll have a "demo" Flash game with a full purchase available. XBLIG, on the other hand, is all about conversion, conversion, conversion. The number of "hits" (downloads) you get is lower, but the conversion rate is much higher; from what I've seen, even decent games can pull 6-8% conversion rate, with the good games going even higher.

Obviously, this doesn't necessarily make XBLIG a better platform; it just makes it different, and you should take that into account when making your decision. Personally, I would choose XBLIG over Flash. Why? Because it's friggin' awesome that we get to make games for Xbox 360! Seriously, how cool is that?

Even though I did not ask this question, thank so for all of the great facts and info.

Daniel Hanson:

Flash is predominantly driven by ad revenue, though sometimes you'll have a "demo" Flash game with a full purchase available.

My first game which wasn't the best, simple and what not took me 3 weeks to make and the first quarter payout was 467.60$. So yeah xna you can make some green...

To a large extent, I think xblig is being ignored by many developers, because no one has hit it big yet. But I still think there is great potential for success. In a way, it's good that not too many developers are focusing on xblig yet, because I definitely would not want to submit a game in the middle of a "gold rush".

Big Daddio:

I'd also take into consideration that most of the good selling games do not share their numbers in the sharing thread, nor do they share them with the press. Even the EZmuse while he shared initial numbers, quit sharing as he has stayed in the top 20 for a number of months.

I still post numbers for ezmuze. I just try not to post them too often cause it makes me feel like a douche. D:

I also just don't check them that often. Especially when they're low. Haha.

I'll go post some updated numbers though, since you've asked. :D

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/08/analysis_is_there_money_to_be.php

Just saw this article today and felt it was pretty relevant to this topic. Sort of echos my sentiments that you need small teams and short release cycles if you expect to do well (and even then don't quit your day job).

Kris Steele:

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/08/analysis_is_there_money_to_be.php

Just saw this article today and felt it was pretty relevant to this topic. Sort of echos my sentiments that you need small teams and short release cycles if you expect to do well (and even then don't quit your day job).

Hi,

that article is well known I think. The worst part of it is this one:

"Total download rates are low, as Indie Games were hard to find on the dashboard until recently, and good apps are very hard to find, so I believe most people have been ignoring the service entirely."

This opinion is becoming common. In many forums I've read Xbox users write that they don't even bother to check out the Indie Games. The problem is that (because of a lack of MS rules) there are a lot of non-games and also too many games that are not even worthy for a school project. Obviously the gamers had enough of this so most of them just skip the Indie Games section.

If we won't completely sink the Indie Games we really need to auto-regulate the CCO (not waiting Microsoft to rule about this) just not reviewing school projects, massages apps, screen savers and so on. I made a couple of these mistakes before to realize that passing those non-games worked against my own interest, so I stopped. I hope more people will do the same.

Cheers,
Pino

That article doesn't have many facts. It makes guesses, uses age old data which isn't that relevant anymore and emotive statements with little basis in fact. It's good as a piece of FUD but has little value otherwise

PinoEire:

This opinion is becoming common. In many forums I've read Xbox users write that they don't even bother to check out the Indie Games. The problem is that (because of a lack of MS rules) there are a lot of non-games and also too many games that are not even worthy for a school project. Obviously the gamers had enough of this so most of them just skip the Indie Games section.

Reading comments on blogs doesn't count as good feedback. If you read Major Nelson's comments you'd think "omg the world is falling apart, no one is ever going to buy Avatar marketplace items". Thing is, that's not reality and isn't backed up with cold hard stats. Same with Indie Games, there have been a number of break through titles recently and along with DBP, the name change and user ratings I think we're moving in the right direction. What you're never going to get is a managed portfolio which is what you're asking for

PinoEire:

If we won't completely sink the Indie Games we really need to auto-regulate the CCO (not waiting Microsoft to rule about this) just not reviewing school projects, massages apps, screen savers and so on. I made a couple of these mistakes before to realize that passing those non-games worked against my own interest, so I stopped. I hope more people will do the same.

Good luck with that. Many have tried and many have failed. Hating on apps isn't going to magically make things better. Concentrate on what you're doing and try and do the best you can with that

hamsteralliance:

I still post numbers for ezmuze. I just try not to post them too often cause it makes me feel like a douche. D:

This is also why I don't post numbers and I would bet most on the top 10 don't. It's hard to tell people you are making full time income when they are getting $467. Personally I have not had to take on any flash contracts because the drum kit did well.

Pheel:

That article doesn't have many facts. It makes guesses, uses age old data which isn't that relevant anymore and emotive statements with little basis in fact. It's good as a piece of FUD but has little value otherwise

I wouldn't have posted it if I didn't feel it had at least some truth to it. To say the recent download numbers (not purchases, just downloads) for my game Nasty have been bad would be kind. This article was likely pre-user rankings and I think that has helped, but only to an extent. It still appears that if you're not on one of the Top lists, your numbers aren't good. Nasty easily had over 600 downloads a day while it was on the New Releases and its brief stay on Top Downloads. Since then, I've had a high day of 19 downloads and low days (more than one) of six (sales ranging between 0 and 3 per day). It's more fair now who ends up on those lists, but if you don't get on one, your game is not going to do well. That's incredibly risky... if your game isn't highly rated or downloaded a lot right off the bat, it slips into oblivion.

This is going to be more and more of a problem as more games are released onto the service and competition for those top spots gets more heated. While everyone can get a game out there and that's really cool (and thanks to Microsoft for that), there appears to be room for only so many people to succeed on XBLIG.

Big Daddio:

hamsteralliance:

I still post numbers for ezmuze. I just try not to post them too often cause it makes me feel like a douche. D:

This is also why I don't post numbers and I would bet most on the top 10 don't. It's hard to tell people you are making full time income when they are getting $467. Personally I have not had to take on any flash contracts because the drum kit did well.

yea... yea... I hate you guys :)

Kris Steele:

While everyone can get a game out there and that's really cool (and thanks to Microsoft for that), there appears to be room for only so many people to succeed on XBLIG.

That's true of all markets. Were you really taken by surprise by that? Or did you honestly have expectations that everyone on the Xbox LIVE Indie Games service would be making equal amounts of money?

Big Daddio:

hamsteralliance:

I still post numbers for ezmuze. I just try not to post them too often cause it makes me feel like a douche. D:

This is also why I don't post numbers and I would bet most on the top 10 don't. It's hard to tell people you are making full time income when they are getting $467. Personally I have not had to take on any flash contracts because the drum kit did well.

I understand that, and it's nice that people don't want to look like they're bragging, but at the same time it might be useful if we had a better idea what the top end of sales looked like as well.  It seems like people only post sales when their game does worse than they anticipated, and that kind of skews the perception of what the business side of XBLIG is like.  Of course, no one is obligated to share sales figures, I just think it would be interesting to have a larger cross-section of the sales levels.

George Clingerman:

That's true of all markets. Were you really taken by surprise by that? Or did you honestly have expectations that everyone on the Xbox LIVE Indie Games service would be making equal amounts of money?

I was taken by surprize when my download numbers dropped from 600 a day to 6 a day. I never expected such an extreme change between new releases/top downloads and not. Because games can appear on multiple lists, that really leaves room for just 20-30 games to do well. I figured if I made a solid, polished, fun game I would do decently (expecially admist how many bad games/apps/massagers there are) but people simply aren't even playing my game. Conversion rates have actually been pretty darn good at least, even at 400 points... yesterday 14 people downloaded Nasty and 2 of them bought it (14% conversion rate) but that's not enough volume to make this a profitable venture.

I'm working on a smaller scale game right now targetted at 80 points... will be interesting in comparision how well this one does not only in downloads but also conversion rate. I think an 80 point game has a lot better chance to stay in the top downloads section than a 400 point game, though admittedly some of the more pricey games/apps have none the less.

From my point of view, although it is not likely to replace my day job, it is definitely worth the money for a few reasons: upside potential, continuing education, experience, and fun.

It's unlikely I'll be able to support myself and my family on XBLIG revenues.  There are a lot of programming jobs that pay multiples of the average American income.  To hit a minimum income level it makes more sense to go after those jobs/contracts than to write games.

However, the maximum income from those jobs is about the same as the minimum.  XBLIG offers a way to sell directly to a large market.  If a game clicks, the revenue potential is large.  The odds of developing a hit game are low, so it doesn't make sense to me as a main economic bet, but it makes a lot of sense as a side bet.

The potential income stream is dicey, but there are some sure benefits from developing for XBLIG.

It is a great way to get up to speed on developing for C#, .NET, and using Microsoft development environments.  These are highly marketable skills.  It's also a good way to learn other things like software engineering, object oriented programming, performance analysis and optimization, and graphics.  Graphics alone offers both a math development path leading in easy steps from high school algebra to PhD level work, and also a path into GPU architectures and serious realtime distributed processing.  The educational opportunities are enormous.

The project management and business side of XBLIG development are as important as the software aspects.  Many software developers have a narrow focus on computers and code, and aren't very aware of what it takes to actually deliver software and run a company.  If you can develop and publish an XBLIG game, you'll know more about project management, delivering, marketing, and making money than most developers.  Understanding these things makes one much more valuable than a developer who just knows how to code.

And finally, it's fun!  And tax deductible! (although you should check with local lawyers or taxing organizations on the differences between a hobby and a business enterprise).

Hey Kris, just wanted to let you know I shot you an email so look for it in you spam folder :)  I just wanted to share some thoughts with you and I didn't feel the forums were the appropriate place for them. 

I think that if you have positive sales numbers and you don't mind sharing them, you should do so, I think it would drive up competition and interest. It's people like me with dismal sales that should keep quiet.

I agree and have also shared my numbers. Really this is not much different than the app store. The consumers are not browsing, they are looking at whats new and the front pages. How bored would you have to be to drag through the 400 games via the xbox interface? Most of our customers do not go to xbox.com and browse, they don't go to xboxindies, they look at our stuff through the xbox interface. not conducive to really finding something cool.