Hey Running Pixel,

Let's hope the lacrosse community shows up once CL10 is released!!

So you think the 400mp is a better fit for CL10?

Lacrosse players have been dieing for this game for so long that the initial wave of people would have gladly paid $10. Then I thought once we dropped CL10 to $5 it would have got some non-lacrosse players into the game...

Thanks for the feedback and words of encouragement.

Carlo

Have you had talks with MS people directly, to discuss your options? Don't see how that could hurt.

I've emailed the basic addresses around but haven't heard much back yet. If anyone knows someone I could contact, that would be amazing!

Your price options are 80 (if your game is under 50MB), 240, or 400. Contacting them won't change things; they aren't going to make exceptions.

If you mean contacting about XBLA, go to http://www.xbox.com/en-US/dev and follow the instructions.

You really don't have any option other than submit to XBLIG at one of the available prices or try for XBLA. People have already asked about exception to pricing and were told "No."

Exactly "other people" asked. But he did not. There is nothing wrong with trying. If 1,000 people asked and they said "no 1,000 times, that doesn't mean that "yes" is an impossibility.

Nostic111:

Exactly "other people" asked. But he did not. There is nothing wrong with trying. If 1,000 people asked and they said "no 1,000 times, that doesn't mean that "yes" is an impossibility.

Yes it does. They can't give preferential treatment to anyone, so if 1,000 people got a 'no' he will as well. Trust us. Feel free to ask; there is nothing fundamentally wrong with trying. We're simply saying that he won't get an exception on pricing so contacting them isn't going to do any good.

Nick Gravelyn:

Feel free to ask; there is nothing fundamentally wrong with trying.

We agree!

Personally, I think that a Lacrosse game is such a niche thing that you're unlikely to make any money with the current XBLIG price points. It seems like precisely the kind of game where you'd be better off following Spiderweb Software's business plan: charge a relatively high amount for your indie game (they charge $28 for the RPGs) because you know that only a small number of people are going to be interested but the people who are interested are likely to buy it regardless of the price.

That's a great point RainbowDespair. I did some basic market research before we started the game and the majority of people said they would be willing to pay $50 for "a downloadable lacrosse video game". Also, the market research had a CTR of 80% and received over 3,000 responses in 3 days.

I'm not sure why MS won't make exceptions on their pricing structure for Indie Games? I can understand that they are trying to distinguish XBLA from XBLIG but maybe a little business oversight would be helpful to the platform?

Possibly a process or form where you could make a plea for why your Indie Game deserves to be a higher price? They could attempt to analyze the demand for the game by looking at web traffic, trailer views, facebook fans, press coverage, similar games on the market and then make a decision...

Who knows though, maybe CL10 isn't worth $10. But I can you tell you this, it's going to be much more difficult for me to fund another game at the current price point. Hopefully CL2010 will sell considering it's the fist lacrosse game out since Blast Lacrosse for PS2 in 2001.

Thanks for your input.

Carlo

 

I would like to put out an option:

Episodic Content.

Breaking a single, lengthy, polished game into multiple polished games for $5 each would help offset the cost differences.
You could even add in a password system to carry over information across multiple episodes.

The way I see it, you're automatically advertising for your other games.

Thank you Chris. That is a very very good idea.

Chris Kitsch:

I would like to put out an option:

Episodic Content.

Breaking a single, lengthy, polished game into multiple polished games for $5 each would help offset the cost differences.
You could even add in a password system to carry over information across multiple episodes.

The way I see it, you're automatically advertising for your other games.

... and breaking content up like this simply to seek out more money from your audience can result in some very, VERY angry gamers... look at the recent Dragon Age: Origins DLC 'fiasco'.

Also keep in mind people's expectations of the service. People have been trained to expect $10 XBLA games and $1-5 Indie games. If your game is more expensive than the other games on the service it's on, you could get quite a nasty backlash from consumers.

That's why I'm thinking that if you want to charge more than $5 for your indie game (and if you have a high quality product that caters to a small niche, I can see why you might want to), you might be better off making a PC game than an XBox 360 game.

Alright everyone. This is treading way off topic. If you want to discuss the theory of pricing or what to price a specific game, please start a new thread.

George Clingerman:

Currently there are only a few XNA games on XBLA. ... (Did I miss any?)

Those are the only games which have been advertised as such. These days, pretty much any registered Xbox 360 developer can use XNA Game Studio if they like. I'm nearly certain that you haven't listed all of the games on XBLA that were made with XNA Game Studio, but whether a developer chooses to disclose that or not is up to them.

I feel your pain Carlo. There's a niche for people who spend nothing but their own time on XBLI, and a niche for the established developers on XBLA, but nothing in between. I'm still trying to figure out what the benefit of deleting the $10 price point is.

Stephen Styrchak:

George Clingerman:

Currently there are only a few XNA games on XBLA. ... (Did I miss any?)

Those are the only games which have been advertised as such. These days, pretty much any registered Xbox 360 developer can use XNA Game Studio if they like. I'm nearly certain that you haven't listed all of the games on XBLA that were made with XNA Game Studio, but whether a developer chooses to disclose that or not is up to them.

XNA is a great framework, and c# a wonderfull language to build games. I hope it will become the standard in the industry. Good job guys!

OK, nothing to see here, move along. These aren't the droids you're looking for.