I'm into XNA from pure passion of making games. when i was young i made my first games on the commdore 64 in assembly. few years ago, me and my brother made checkers with java and opengl.

now, i'm stadding XNA, and i wanted to know, if it's possible to make money from it, since i read on this forum, that if you subscribe, you get money from every game sold on xbox live.

if that true, why microsoft don't sell those games, as any other arcade games on the market place, to the open public? this way, everyone will be earing money, and happy about it.

You might want to read around a little more. Currently, the only way you can make money by developing a game with the XNA framework is by creating one for the PC only and then selling it. There is no mechanisim in place for you to make money off developing games with the XNA framework for the XBox 360.

There has been talk of a "community games" portion coming to the XBox 360, but how it's going to work and if there will be any money to be made by releasing your games has not been officially released yet. It's been mentioned, but nothing set in stone yet.

So PC, yes, you could potentially sell your game and make money. XBox 360, currently no, future maybe.

The real power of the XNA framework however isn't to make you money, it's to put into your hands the power to develop games quickly and easily with C# and the XNA framework and to deploy those games not only to the PC but to the 360. This lets you prototype concepts and ideas quickly and easily. If you make a great game, you're going to get noticed by a publisher and that's where the real money comes into play.

When I first approached the XNA community, I was led to believe in one way or another that there was money to be made selling XNA Xbox Live Arcade games. 

I read articles about royalty amounts being changed, all kinds of things...

Why am I so confused right now about this?

If I understand correctly an XNA game can not make money on Xbox Live Arcade?  It can't be sold?

If this is correct, I am absolutly dropping out of XNA right now, and moving to a real platform.

KyleIvanBlake:

When I first approached the XNA community, I was led to believe in one way or another that there was money to be made selling XNA Xbox Live Arcade games. 

I read articles about royalty amounts being changed, all kinds of things...

Why am I so confused right now about this?

If I understand correctly an XNA game can not make money on Xbox Live Arcade?  It can't be sold?

If this is correct, I am absolutly dropping out of XNA right now, and moving to a real platform.

You are confusing Xbox LIVE Community Games with Xbox LIVE Arcade. If your XNA game gets onto Xbox LIVE Arcade you will make money. That's just how it works. However doing that requires a publisher and lots and lots of work.

Xbox LIVE Community Games on the other hand requires no publisher. From what we've been told it will be a peer-review system (any Creator's Club subscriber is considered a "peer") to get a game onto the service. What we don't know is how/if money making will work. It has been mentioned that they are looking into creating a business model, but we have nothing more than that. Keep in mind this service isn't in beta until summer and isn't even going public until the end of the year. So we are a long ways off from seeing what it allows.

There's a difference between writing games and selling them. If you write a great game in XNA, you have a very good chance of getting published because you actually have something to show a publisher.

You can develop on other platforms, but the XNA framework combined with the power of a .NET language really gives you that rapid prototype capabilities. If you're intersted in making money, there's nothing stopping you from doing that by using the XNA framework, you just need to change how you think about it.

Use the XNA framework to PROVE you have a good game. Show them how it works, get some fanbase built up with your releases, youtube videos, screenshots. Then get picked up.

You can go back to making games for a PC, but you're not going to be developing games for ANY console unless you follow a similar pattern (make a game, prove it's good, get picked up to re-write the game for that console). The XNA framework just lets you target the 360 in a VERY convenient way.

It's how it works and the XNA just makes it easier for you to get your foot in the door. But it's not instant money and it still takes work, in fact it takes more than work, it takes a completely finished game.

Thank you for not only bearing with me in that momen of confusion, but actually setting me straight.

Whew.

I have a pretty cool engine going here imo...

I was looking at porting it in the last 45 min, and I was not liking the days it would take to get the tool kits setup and back into the C++ mindset heh.

KyleIvanBlake:

I was looking at porting it in the last 45 min, and I was not liking the days it would take to get the tool kits setup and back into the C++ mindset heh.

Glad we could bring your good sense back to you. Nobody ever likes going back to C++... :)

I  wold be glad if the XNA could be programmed using c++.

but, thank you for your answer, and knowing that i coud develop and sell (some of the games - not all), it's great .

i'm really supprised of the new way microsoft is heading to. giving tools to the end user to learn and evelop. this way, will be good for you at the long range, when allot of new programmers will know how to work on your platforms.

c64days:

I  wold be glad if the XNA could be programmed using c++.

I think you actually mean "I would be glad if XNA Framework games could be programmed using C++". :)

I would have to ask "Why?" The whole point of the XNA Framework and XNA Game Studio is to make creating games easier. By using C++ you'd be taking a step backwards. C# is very easy to pick up if you know C++ and your coding productivity should increase several orders of magnitude.

 

Saying that C++ is taking a step back isn't very accurate. There are tons of higher-level libraries (physics, collision, rendering, animation, etc) that are available in C++ but not in C#. If I could use a physics library and an animation library with XNA GSE, my life would be a LOT easier.

Anyway, as for the orginal question: If you need to ask the question, then the answer is "no."

jwatte:

Saying that C++ is taking a step back isn't very accurate.

I meant that in terms of coding productivity. I'm at least 3 or 4 times more productive when coding in C# than I ever was in C++, even with the libraries available for C++.

There is at least one physics library that's out there for GS. Have you tried it?

There is no way to create games for 360 without having the permission of Microsoft as the concept of hobbyists making games for consoles not really widely spread and XNA is the first free tool ever to create games for a console , however you can create games for pc and sell them without having to worry about permissions but i think that in future XNA will allow people to sell their games at least its the right of microsoft now to have a level of control on its 360 platform.