I managed to make it to the great keynote, but one thing has been bothering me since then. The peer review process will catch the games which breach copyright, and those which have inappropriate content and obvious bugs/errors. My concern is with general playability and consistency. This is taken care of professionally with the TCR process and it would probably be logistically impossible to do so with the community games. However, would it be possible to put out a suitable set of TCR-like guidelines for community game developers? Obviously, people won't have to follow them, but I suspect that many would at least try to adhere to the design and implementation principles within the guidelines.

Adam Miles:

I'm curious why there should be a download limit in the 150MB range given that (at least according to the creators club game launcher) it'll be hard drive only? Of course, if this is just a temporary thing and memory card users are included come the beta/full release then it's more understandable. Demos appear to be allowed to be as big as necessary, I've seen some over 1.3GB, and arguably you'd get less gameplay from such a demo than you would from Dishwasher or Little Gamers. Is this limit set in stone, or is it going to track with the XBLA limit?

Bandwidth isn't free.

Rockzilla:

So what is to stop professional game companies making games with XNA, and avoiding the whole costly submission / extensive testing processes etc.

For starters: achievements. These games won't have achievements which is a BIG selling point. Are you going to pay $10 for decent arcade-style game A or $10 for decent arcade-style game with achievements B? You are more likely to go with B. Sure quality still matters to a degree, but for some people those achievements alone are worth the money. And not getting them makes it much more important that you have a good game.

Another thing is online leaderboards. With a publishing contract those are provided to you. With the XNA Community Games route you don't have them. And since you can't do custom internet connections on the Xbox, there's no way for you to host a database elsewhere and use that.

Admittedly not, but the $99 a year for CC will more than cover the bandwidth costs for the vast majority of developers whose relatively small games get downloaded very infrequently. Those titles that do end up getting downloaded thousands, or potentially hundreds of thousands of times are doing Microsoft a big enough service I think that bandwidth costs are going to be insignificant. The free PR (and small boost in 360 sales) a *REAL* hit community game would generate (think Goldeneye levels of excitement) would be sufficient that I don't imagine bandwidth costs really being the reason behind a filesize cap...

Also, when eventually it comes to the point where developers get to choose a price for their game, I hope we finally get to see microtransactions done properly, rather the 400/800 scheme we have now, let the developers truly choose the price, so perhaps increments of 10 from 0 to 100, then 50 point increments there on.

Perhaps a reasonable cap on free titles and a much higher cap (~ 2 GB) on non-free titles would work.  With revenue sharing on the non-free titles, that could help offset the bandwidth costs, if that is indeed the issue.  I would agree that requiring a HDD for larger titles is perfectly reasonable.


Have there been any announcements on XNA Framework/runtime changes/additions for 3.0?

This is the most utterly incredible news I have heard, so good I feel like quiting my job and devoting my life to becoming a better programmer.  Why do I think that having this ability will make me miraculously better at producing games, because I do. Why do I think that getting a game on this service will solve all my problems, don't know. I am just excited.

I think that this must affect Xbox live, there are some games that I think are bog standard in execution or design and I can't see these titles being too successful in future. If Aquaria came out on Live Arcade or this new service I would buy it(I want to buy it), I am not interested in achievements or rankings on a game like that. There doesn't seem to be much of an advantage having the game on live arcade.

I love wiki and youtube because sometimes I will be reminded of something from my past and will search forit and usually find something, or find something that I would have otherwise not been able to see(model aeroplane exhibitions) and I believe the same will occur with games, there are many Japanese type shooter that I like and with links to similar things this could be incredible.

Games which aren't so marketable, more games, more variety. This is just so good, the more I think about it the more I disbelieve it. 

 

I would agree that achievements are a big deal and will swing a fair few consumers....

Are you allowing (or even forcing) the demo system that surrently operates with all XBLA titles?

I guess the intention is to have litterally thousands of games on there? once again seperatitng the XBLA from the XNA. Perhaps it's like - would you rent a DVD? or spend all night messing around on youtube? there is a place for both.

There is a lot of good stuff on Youtube and Wikipedia, which I don't think I would be able to get elsewhere and certainly not easily and with both of them you can kind of get sucked in to finding interesting things that you hadn't thought of and wouldn't have searched for.

This is kind of going on the assumption that there will be a nice interface and lots of searching and link features like youtube.

Will a connection to Xbox Live still be required to play published XNA games once they have been downloaded?

This seems to be the case for the released samples, though I'm hoping this is not the case for the final released version.

Chris Covington:

I managed to make it to the great keynote, but one thing has been bothering me since then. The peer review process will catch the games which breach copyright, and those which have inappropriate content and obvious bugs/errors. My concern is with general playability and consistency. This is taken care of professionally with the TCR process and it would probably be logistically impossible to do so with the community games. However, would it be possible to put out a suitable set of TCR-like guidelines for community game developers? Obviously, people won't have to follow them, but I suspect that many would at least try to adhere to the design and implementation principles within the guidelines.

There's lots of places where you can find guidance on good game design on the internet.  TCRs don't take care of that.  TCRs give you requirements on safe screen areas, multiplayer gaming, leaderboards, achievements, storage requirements, etc.  Yes, you can say that some of those issues touch on playability and consistency, but I don't think we're going to take a stance of requiring something like that.  However, I think your suggestion is a good one regarding publishing a design guide.  We will consider this in the coming months.

I wonder, will users need to pay for an XNA CC subscription if a game has the XNA networking implemented?  Or will it be possible to release a game with networking for no cost to the end user?

BIG JG 1:

Hopefully this the correct thread for this. I assume this new system is for Original Games only. So  that joe blow couldnt make a game based off mario or halo characters and then have it published on xbox live. I would assume that the original developers of those characters would go after you.

The peer reviewers would hopefully catch that and prevent such a game being published in the first place. If they missed it (maybe the copied thing was very obscure so none of the reviewers recognised it) then anyone could complain after the game was published. If we investigated the complaint and found it was valid, we'd take the game down from Marketplace.

Nothing we are doing here changes anything about how copyright law works. If a character, world, model, sound, texture, etc, belongs to someone else, you cannot use it in your game.

barkers crest:

Will it be possible to upload newer ( Patched ) versions of a game?  Such as in a situation that a critical bug slips through the peer review process and is found by users?

I don't know this one for sure (I work on the framework itself, and there's a whole parallel team building this peer review system) but I suspect we'll have something along those lines. You'd have to go through the peer review again for your updated version, though, to make sure people didn't cheat and just upload something totally different as their "1.1" release!

barkers crest:

Will there be a connect system for users to file bugs found in our games?

I don't believe we have any plans to host such a thing specifically for Community Arcade, but there are many existing sites that offer this (Codeplex for one).

Chris Covington:

However, would it be possible to put out a suitable set of TCR-like guidelines for community game developers? Obviously, people won't have to follow them, but I suspect that many would at least try to adhere to the design and implementation principles within the guidelines.

If you have specific ideas about areas you'd like to see guidence, or how you would like that information presented, I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

So far we've mostly tackled this sort of thing through our samples and articles. For instance the Game State Management and Network State Management try to steer people into a way of doing things that will give their game a nice structure with a loading screen, pause menu, somewhat standard network lobby behavior, etc.

Do you find that kind of "here's an example of how we think this should look" approach useful, or would you be more interested in a checklist format?

I don't know if you've ever seen the native Xbox TCR list, but it's pretty intimidating :-)

I'll try to post more on this after I recover from GDC (pretty wiped out right now). Off the top of my head, I am thinking that it might be beneficial, at least initially, to have some form of simple "common sense" or "rules of thumb" checklist. Right now, the samples and articles do a wonderful job of covering certain key topics. Forums like this one are great for people having trouble with specific things or even if someone wants to just absorb knowledge.

The problem comes down to what we take for granted as programmers and game designers. I have a heavy background in human-computer interaction and I am constantly forced to step back and look at problems from the point of view of a novice or outsider. Something as simple as "the player should be able to pause the game" is something that we may instinctively put into a game because we know we should, but someone with little or no game design background may not realize that players expect to be able to pause the game if they need to. I know that the Xbox TCR has a lot of things that seem like common sense to some, but there will always be someone new that may not have the same level of knowledge.

Having said that, things that come to mind (what's left of it) right now:

• Players should be able to pause a game that is currently in progress
• Players should be able to end a game that is currently in progress and return to the main menu
  
• Players should be able to exit the game completely without having to use the Xbox Guide
• A screen with instructions should be available, possibly as a main menu option
• If your game or levels take a long time to load, display something that lets the player know that something is being loaded (e.g. "Loading...", a progress bar, etc.)
  
• Not everyone uses the same resolution (480i/p, 720p, 1080i/p, SVGA, etc.)
• ...
  

Of course, these are open to debate or refinement, but I think that it demonstrates the kind of guidelines I think could be very beneficial to new designers. As guidelines, they can be bent or broken from time to time, but it is always a good idea to have some sort of reflection on our design since sometimes we just forget the blindingly obvious.

Is the game "The Dishwasher" going to be a full Live Arcade game? I loved it, and would gladly pay for a full version of it. Also, is there plans in the future for a "rate this game" system on the Xbox Live Community Games part of Xbox Live's dashboard? Like, for example: I play a game like "The Dishwasher" and love it, and want to give it a good rating, so that Microsoft or other gamer recognize it as a good game. Thanks in advance for taking the time to address my questions. It's nice to finally see something become of the XNA system for those of of who play rather than just program.

What sorts of content will be permitted in games published using this service?  Are there requirements for disclosing mature content before it is presented to the user?

TL;DR version:  are XNA Creator's Club members allowed to publish a game with M-rated content, such as violence and female frontal nudity found in a game like God of War (rated M by the ESRB and published as a retail game on the PS2,) on appropriately-declared XNA projects?

For example, published and shrink-wrapped games could be rated CERO D, ESRB M, CERO Z, or ESRB AO, and those ratings describe (to a degree) the types of content which can be included in the game.  A game rated ESRB M could include realistic depictions of violence, or even nudity.  (For example, the retail game God of War had both graphic violence and depictions of female frontal nudity, and was rated ESRB M.)

To rephrase the original question:  is it permitted for an XNA Creator's Club member to publish a game which includes content that would necessitate an ESRB M, CERO Z, or ESRB AO rating, if content warnings are presented to the user both prior to download and on execution prior to display of objectionable content?

If such content is permitted (conditionally) what guidelines will be presented to peer reviewers on which types of content are appropriate in which situations?  It seems plausible that a member could publish a violent game with 2D sprites with gory death animations.  While some reviewers may believe that type of gore is acceptable, others may vote that the game contains unacceptable content. 

These subjective decisions could undermine the reviewer trust model described above, and make someone's reviews less important to the system because the reviewer is a moral minority.

Maybe you have to pay attention to

5) Press Y to download XNA games!

Is not very intuitive!

That's really a shame about no Windows game support; I can imagine that this is the platform that would have the most widespread support amongst hobbyist developers.

I really hope that Microsoft doesn't give up on Windows gaming, especially considering it's a far superior platform in so many ways.

What do you mean no Windows game support? You can already distribute your game to the whole world if you want to on Windows... It's not the same thing on Xbox 360, that's why they are creating this community platform.

I just love it, I think it's great news!

Nick Gravelyn:

Rockzilla:

So what is to stop professional game companies making games with XNA, and avoiding the whole costly submission / extensive testing processes etc.

For starters: achievements. These games won't have achievements which is a BIG selling point. Are you going to pay $10 for decent arcade-style game A or $10 for decent arcade-style game with achievements B? You are more likely to go with B. Sure quality still matters to a degree, but for some people those achievements alone are worth the money. And not getting them makes it much more important that you have a good game.

Another thing is online leaderboards. With a publishing contract those are provided to you. With the XNA Community Games route you don't have them. And since you can't do custom internet connections on the Xbox, there's no way for you to host a database elsewhere and use that.

Don't forget that all Community Game must pass a peer review. How many pro studios are going to want a group of indies peer reviewing their games? :)

Kobingo:

What do you mean no Windows game support? You can already distribute your game to the whole world if you want to on Windows... It's not the same thing on Xbox 360, that's why they are creating this community platform.

Distribution is still problematic though. The player has to ensure he has all the required runtimes. There's also no centralized location to go to for Game Studio games.

David "LetsKillDave" Weller:

Chris Covington:

I managed to make it to the great keynote, but one thing has been bothering me since then. The peer review process will catch the games which breach copyright, and those which have inappropriate content and obvious bugs/errors. My concern is with general playability and consistency. This is taken care of professionally with the TCR process and it would probably be logistically impossible to do so with the community games. However, would it be possible to put out a suitable set of TCR-like guidelines for community game developers? Obviously, people won't have to follow them, but I suspect that many would at least try to adhere to the design and implementation principles within the guidelines.

There's lots of places where you can find guidance on good game design on the internet.  TCRs don't take care of that.  TCRs give you requirements on safe screen areas, multiplayer gaming, leaderboards, achievements, storage requirements, etc.  Yes, you can say that some of those issues touch on playability and consistency, but I don't think we're going to take a stance of requiring something like that.  However, I think your suggestion is a good one regarding publishing a design guide.  We will consider this in the coming months.

I think that a rating system will quickly serve to get developers to not just toss crappy games into the pool. Perhaps along with the peer review an initial rating could be included to kick things off for the game.

Machaira:

Distribution is still problematic though.

Not if you compare to Xbox 360...

Who knows, maybe they will create a windows community game platform as well (that would be cool too). My personal opinion is that it's more important for the Xbox 360 at this time.

How does this announcement affect networking in XNA, specifically the requirements for interfacing over Xbox Live?  Does the end-user need a creators club subscription to play the game over Live?  Is a creators club subscription required at all for the end-user?  What about on the PC; is a creators club subscription required for Live anymore?

I think that it's ok for requiring a creators club subscription for developers, considering how it's not that expensive anyway.  The prospect of being able to sell games on the Marketplace is very appealing, too.  But I have always thought that a big barrier to getting XNA games out into the wild was the fact that interfacing the game over Live required a creators club subscription in ADDITION to Gold, no matter what platform.  If this has changed, I am one very happy puppy! :)