Dream-Build-Play

Re: DBP initialising CG

RaVeN23 — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:41:32 GMT

Winterhell:
Kobingo:
The ZMan:
"invited to join"?? What does that mean - everyone can play in the community games space... seems like an odd thing to put.

I don't think it's odd at all. I live in Sweden and don't know when I will have the opportunity to release my game to CG, I would be extremly happy if I got to release it sooner.

my situation is similar,but here in Bulgaria there isn't even official Xbox Live support ,so i'm counting on explicit publishing from Microsoft :)

MS promised to add support and other countries. We wait.

I think contracts will be more than 10...

Re: DBP initialising CG

Winterhell — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:22:13 GMT

Kobingo:
The ZMan:
"invited to join"?? What does that mean - everyone can play in the community games space... seems like an odd thing to put.

I don't think it's odd at all. I live in Sweden and don't know when I will have the opportunity to release my game to CG, I would be extremly happy if I got to release it sooner.

my situation is similar,but here in Bulgaria there isn't even official Xbox Live support ,so i'm counting on explicit publishing from Microsoft :)

Re: DBP initialising CG

arrogancy — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:47:53 GMT

That's how I read it too. Basically, I expect them to send out emails that read, "Didn't win?! Don't worry you can still put your game on XBLCG and expose your games to MILLIONS!..." to whatever games that they place in a certain level of quality. They don't want to launch XBLCG with a bunch of bad games because it will then get bad press, so they'll probably try to help get the best of the bunch up for launch.

Re: DBP initialising CG

Matthew Doucette — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:19:52 GMT

I believe it shows they want to hand-pick CG launch titles, before CG gets underway on its own, to start it off on a good note. If some of us get to put our games on CG first, because of this, it's ok as we all eventually get our chance anyway, before turning away potential players/buyers of our game.

Re: DBP initialising CG

Catalin Zima — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:57:26 GMT

I believe this addition to the rules is to allow certain high quality games, made by people not living in CG countries to put their stuff on the service.

Re: DBP initialising CG

TCT — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:29:17 GMT

It is strange to see contest rules change during the final day of submition. I think its a great opportiunity, though, to be able to be beyond the first ones on CG. AS CG crowds up its gonna be a lot harder to have your game recognized. I hope they will make use of the addition to the rules :-)

Re: DBP initialising CG

CDarklock — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:18:25 GMT

Nick Gravelyn:
I'd highly doubt that. XNA GS 3 brings all the trial APIs so your game couldn't be made to work under their trial system.

That's a point I hadn't considered... but isn't the trial system designed to wrap your game, so you don't actually need to use that API? Maybe it works just fine with XNA2.

I do think you're probably right about the main concern being a full channel at launch, so there are actually good games there for people to buy. That initial window is critical for a new service.

Re: DBP initialising CG

Nick Gravelyn — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:56:45 GMT

CDarklock:
All CG submissions must be in XNA3. All DBP submissions are in XNA2. It sounds to me like they're saying they'll allow certain DBP entrants to submit an XNA2 build to CG, which is a nice little special consideration.

I'd highly doubt that. XNA GS 3 brings all the trial APIs so your game couldn't be made to work under their trial system. Not only that, but why would the team want to bother supporting two frameworks off the bat when they can only have to support one?

I'm guessing that it's partly to let the great looking games outside of the immediately allowed countries to play and, very doubtful but possible, somehow allowing those invited to deploy/test on their Xbox 360 earlier than others so that XBLCG has a set of high quality games right at launch. Considering peer review takes a minimum two days it seems (that "processing" part after everyone reviews your game), the team probably wants to get a head start so that they don't have an empty XBLCG channel for a couple of days.

Who knows exactly what it'll be. I just hope I get an invite. :)

Re: DBP initialising CG

CDarklock — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:50:55 GMT

The ZMan:
What does that mean - everyone can play in the community games space... seems like an odd thing to put.

All CG submissions must be in XNA3. All DBP submissions are in XNA2. It sounds to me like they're saying they'll allow certain DBP entrants to submit an XNA2 build to CG, which is a nice little special consideration.

I'm guessing they're concerned about the number of submissions for CG launch, and want to have a solid lineup, so they're looking at the general high quality of DBP submissions (many of these games look great) and mitigating risk by hand-selecting a few of the better ones. Another possibility: up to ten semi-finalists may be offered XBLA contracts, but they have more than ten games in the running that look saleable, so they want an ability to expand their support for these games.

In any case, I think the motivation for this probably comes from the sheer volume of high-quality games submitted to DBP this year. There are a lot of games in the gallery that I'd buy if they were up on the marketplace, and I don't think that's escaped anyone's attention.

Re: DBP initialising CG

arrogancy — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:48:46 GMT

The ZMan:
"invited to join"?? What does that mean - everyone can play in the community games space... seems like an odd thing to put.

There are a lot of countries that won't be able to participate in the launch.

Re: DBP initialising CG

Kobingo — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:45:51 GMT

The ZMan:
"invited to join"?? What does that mean - everyone can play in the community games space... seems like an odd thing to put.

I don't think it's odd at all. I live in Sweden and don't know when I will have the opportunity to release my game to CG, I would be extremly happy if I got to release it sooner.

Re: DBP initialising CG

The ZMan — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:29:35 GMT

"invited to join"?? What does that mean - everyone can play in the community games space... seems like an odd thing to put.

Re: DBP initialising CG

arrogancy — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:27:04 GMT

I'd say some of the smaller games would be ready for the push as well as other games like that "Weapons" game. I know mine isn't anywhere NEAR ready for release though - I need another 6 months of just working on the game and no job :) I'm sure it's that way for quite a few others!

Re: DBP initialising CG

conkerjo — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:16:35 GMT

Yeah i saw that too.

But i did wonder how many games would be wanting to push to CG so soon. Im just guessing but won't some of the games still either need work.. or the author just wants to add more first before submitting to CG

Having said that if we get 100 cool games at launch i wont be complaining :D

DBP initialising CG

CDarklock — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:08:43 GMT

Anybody else notice the new blurb on the DBP official rules, advertising that certain entries may be invited to join the CG space? Not a bad perk to throw into the mix at this late date.