So, say I write a game in XNA with hopes of getting it on Live Arcade.

If it isnt picked up, what do I do with my code to sell it to the PC market?


XNA currently requires 3 seperate installs for PC users to even get game code running.  That means 'no way in hell' for portals selling downloadable games.  It also means even if you sell the product yourself, users have to jump through serious hoops just to get a working demo on their PC.




Any idea if and when this will be addressed?  I would love to get my property on the X360, but if it doesn't happen(I'm trying to be realistic) the PC side of things needs to be brought up to speed or XNA will be niche and nothing more.

Anyone else have these fears about their product?

We've been telling Microsoft that Managed DirectX (and now XNA) has too much of a download burden for years now. I raised it again at the MVP summit this year... I'm really hoping that something changes in the next release of XNA GSE but I have to say at the time I didn't get a good vibe back from the DirectX or the XNA GSE teams... I hope things have changed since then.

XNA only requires 3 downloads if you decide to tell a user to do the downloads - just like any PC game in reality its your job to include the runtimes with your game. How to do this is really not MS place to document since most people use 3rd party installers - but its possible to do. Now there is a different problem - the size of your game is probably only feasible to ship on CD.

I have suggested that MS provides (or allows us to use the one on ms.com) an incremental downloader - sure the 1st XNA game has a big burden of download but after that its like flash... everyone will have the runtimes and our tiny .Net games will be fast.

Getting things on Live Arcade is really up to the live arcade team and outside the realms of discussion here... the process is no different to a native game.

See also this FAQ and rant... http://forums.xna.com/thread/9927.aspx and please create an entry on connect.microsoft.com - the more people who complain the more likely MS will do something.

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The ZBuffer - News and information for XNA and Managed DirectX

I suppose it's always worth exploring the option of porting your game to C/C++ and DirectX/OpenGL?

If you have enough practical experience wit the language then it shouldn't be too dufficult to do and even if you don't then the hardest part will be learning it but it shouldn't really take too long if you're motivated enough..

I know that's what i'd do without a doubt if I was seriously considering Windows based distribution..

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My Game Blog: http://houseofsmash.blogspot.com
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https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=290253&SiteID=226

Submitted.  I realy hope this is addressed soon.  I would LOVE to get my game working with the upcomig networking framework, but if this isnt addressed soon XNA on the PC will stall bigtime.

maybe one thing that Microsoft could do is provide a landing page on the xna.com site that would provide download links for whatever an end user has to install to play XNA games.  That way, everyone that distributes XNA games could link to that page and say, "if you want to play an XNA game, make sure you install this".

If the XNA community puts on a unified front, this all becomes a non-issue.  A gamer just has to visit that page once and install various components, and then they can play any XNA game out there.

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Joel Martinez
Blog: http://codecube.net
Play Videos on an XNA Texture: Scurvy Media

Joel Martinez:

maybe one thing that Microsoft could do is provide a landing page on the xna.com site that would provide download links for whatever an end user has to install to play XNA games.  That way, everyone that distributes XNA games could link to that page and say, "if you want to play an XNA game, make sure you install this".

If the XNA community puts on a unified front, this all becomes a non-issue.  A gamer just has to visit that page once and install various components, and then they can play any XNA game out there.

That is not a fix to this issue.  They need to make it as simple as POSSIBLE for a potential customer to get their machine 'XNA ready'.   And there are a number of ways of doing this.  I really like Z's idea, I really hope MS addresses this soon..

While I agree 100%, PC gamers have been dealing with directX updates for over a decade now.

Does it need to get fixed?  Totally.

Will it hinder your credibility over this?  Probably not to most people.

Just my $.02 but this wouldn't be some huge shock to gamers to have to download a few files initially if it could be worked so that you could link to a download site.

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http://www.freewebs.com/campelmxna/ - C# and XNA tutorials
The only stupid mistake is the one you make twice

Aren't there redistributable installers that you can package with your game for .NET, DirectX, and XNA? Couldn't you simply put those with your installer, check if they are installed, and then install them?

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Nick Gravelyn -- Microsoft XNA MVP
XNA Wiki | Zune Games

The issue here isn't that its not possible to do it, its that the size of the runtimes dwarfs the size of a casual game. Given that most casual games today are either flash, some popcap library (small download) or a DX8 games (guaranteed to be on 99% of computers) then XNA and MDX cannot compete in that market.

Since there are no incremental installers available for packaging you have to include

1.  .Net 2.0 runtime 22Mb
2. DirectX runtime (full is 53Mb but I think this can be pruned down to 20Mb or so)
3. XNA runtime 2Mb

No there is no way to 'officially' check for these things - at least not documented. Microsoft position is that you include them and call them and each installer will decide what to do. This was a great position to take when things shipped on CD or DVD but not in the downloadable casual game.

So we accept that there needs to be runtimes - that is a fact of life. However we should not have to accept that we need to package close to 50Mb with each download 'just in case'.

Of course in the world of xbox then all these runtimes or gone so the download is small - but we are not allowed to make commercial games on the 360 and all consumers need to be members of the creators club.

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The ZBuffer - News and information for XNA and Managed DirectX

Personally I think that all three ought to have been pushed through Windows Update, at least as recommended updates. Arguably, they're all key parts of the Windows platform and strategy, and thus they shouldn't be the job of third parties or the end user to provide.

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Several of us hang out on #xna on EFNet, why don't you?
www.bortreist.com - My blog - XNA, programming, general geekery

The only way to get past this is to have one runtime + game downloadable and one stand alone game downloadable.

Speaking of runtimes it gets better with physics now, must have the physx runtimes installed to run physx on computers.

It's like the world is moving into the runtime world nowadays... 

The ZMan:

Since there are no incremental installers available for packaging you have to include

1.  .Net 2.0 runtime 22Mb
2. DirectX runtime (full is 53Mb but I think this can be pruned down to 20Mb or so)
3. XNA runtime 2Mb

And it's not just the size of the .Net runtime, it also takes FOREVER to install, a half hour or more on some machines. And you have to be an Administrator to install it. I wonder if they could do a micro-CLR like Silverlight has and only include the namespaces that are supported on the 360 as well (maybe include the XNA Framework in the same install?). I guess you would still have the large DirectX runtime requirement though.

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Bill Reiss - XNA Tutorials for Beginners at bluerosegames.com

Since everyone is putting in their $0.02 I thought I would jump in and give mine. I think it would be best if Mircsoft created some sort of Live Arcade style program exclusively for windows machines. A Live Arcade style program that already comes with the required run times. It can even provide a market place where people can put up their games for sale/rent/free. This way developers can distribute their games through Microsoft, cut down on publishing costs and make it easier for consumers to get what they wants. Basically provide what we have with XBOX but without all the paperwork and approval steps for windows. A complete free for all where everyone can publish, sell and download their games.

 

 

 

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My Blog

Just to play devils advocate on that:

what happens when someone puts up something highly controversial (adult, bigotry, violence, etc.)?  how is microsoft going to protect themselves?

Do they just say "enter at your own risk", or do they provide a QA/Approval process before something goes up?  if option #2, that would be a huge cost center for MS, so where's the ROI for them?

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Joel Martinez
Blog: http://codecube.net
Play Videos on an XNA Texture: Scurvy Media

Joel Martinez:

Just to play devils advocate on that:

what happens when someone puts up something highly controversial (adult, bigotry, violence, etc.)?  how is microsoft going to protect themselves?

Do they just say "enter at your own risk", or do they provide a QA/Approval process before something goes up?  if option #2, that would be a huge cost center for MS, so where's the ROI for them?

Exactly why such a free and open environment from Microsoft probably won't exist. I would love for a Windows Live Arcade, but I would not only expect, but appreciate some QA on the games. I wouldn't want to see a list of 10,000 broken Breakout clones. There would need to be some sort of oversight over the games that get put into such a thing.

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Nick Gravelyn -- Microsoft XNA MVP
XNA Wiki | Zune Games

"Arguably, they're all key parts of the Windows platform and strategy, and thus they shouldn't be the job of third parties or the end user to provide."

 

It was thinking like this that got MS into legal trouble several years ago.  I think it's a pipe dream that MS will come in and save the day.

What about making an downloadable installer outside of the game that's an optional download?  If someone has the bandwidth for it why not just do it that way.

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http://www.freewebs.com/campelmxna/ - C# and XNA tutorials
The only stupid mistake is the one you make twice

The problem is that the average user will not understand "why" they need to download these components.  For them, it's just another hassle and a discouragement.

When I was working on an XNA game for a school project, I constantly had friends asking me if they could try it out.  I would send them the binaries and tell them where to go to get the XNA and .NET runtimes.  They'd always whine about having to download the extra stuff, and inevitably something would go wrong with the installs.  A few of them even said "oh, it's probably not worth the bother" after being told to install these things first.  And these are people that do play other games!

Don't get me started on the PhysX runtimes.

"The problem is that the average user will not understand "why" they need to download these components.  For them, it's just another hassle and a discouragement."

Exactly - and thats why its the game developers job to ensure these are installed. This applies to any game. The big difference is that Adobe/Macromedia (and other web game platforms) realised that web download was their #1 scenario so their runtime is not only small it can be 'bootstrapped' pretty easy by the writer of the web page.

Web download games are NOT (it appears) a priority for the DirectX or the XNA team which is why the only current solution is to stick a huge bunch of extra runtimes into your installer.

If this is a scenario you need/want then keep putting your requests into http://connect.microsoft.com 

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The ZBuffer - News and information for XNA and Managed DirectX

An incremental installer is a must, ideally including the ability to use .ccgame files.

Agree. I think it's hassle enough just to install .NET

If i send a program to a friend and say that they need .NET 2.0 they will in 8 of 10 cases ignore me and say that the program just "doesn't work".  1 of 10 might click the link and say "22megs?! what crap is this? " and then they throw my program away. The last one of the ten might finally install it and say "hell that took long!" . Telling him "oh, and you'll need the xna-runtime aswell"  is just asking for a punch in the face.

Vista that comes preinstalled with both .net 2 and 3 solves some of the issues but there is still tons of people left with xp and we still need the latest directx and xna-redist.

I agree with cryovat, push these things through windowsupdate.
IIRC .NET 2.0 is there as an optional update with the description "Framework to help developers" or something similar. The average windowsuser doesn't even run windowsupdate at all, why should they go dig in optional updates and install something which in their eyes is for developers.

What we need is a XNA update page that we can direct people to.  It would work just like Windows Update but it would only provide the downloads needed to play an XNA game.  It should work just like Windows Update, scanning the users PC and only providing the downloads needed.  Also when a new version of XNA (say 2.0) comes out they can just go to this page for the downloads.  This would work great, and would also help get the great .net framework installed in more places, Microsoft should look into this, ASAP.  Also if we find that some PCs require additional downloads that can be provided as well.  If compact versions of .net 2.0 would work they could be provided instead (like Silverlight does, only 4.2 megs).

https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=197668&SiteID=226

 

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Jim Perry
Here's what I'm up to.

Well, it would be nice if I didn't have to distribute that 50MB, but as a first step I'd be happy if XNA would come with the tools to build an installer package that includes and handles all the required runtimes.  I shouldn't have to go through InstallShield hell just to distribute a bog-standard XNA game for Windows.

As others have said, you just can't require the user to install more than one thing, and you don't ever want them knowing what technologies are involved in your product either.

For now I think I can deal with making my users download a 50+MB executable, as long as the I don't have to spend more time developing and supporting the installer than I do the game itself.

Heck, the Bioshock demo is nearly two freaking gigabytes :-)

F.

Zenfar:

What we need is a XNA update page that we can direct people to.  It would work just like Windows Update but it would only provide the downloads needed to play an XNA game.  It should work just like Windows Update, scanning the users PC and only providing the downloads needed.  Also when a new version of XNA (say 2.0) comes out they can just go to this page for the downloads.  This would work great, and would also help get the great .net framework installed in more places, Microsoft should look into this, ASAP.  Also if we find that some PCs require additional downloads that can be provided as well.  If compact versions of .net 2.0 would work they could be provided instead (like Silverlight does, only 4.2 megs).

Are you talking about some kind of activeX-control? In that case i would say no, people are more afraid of activex-controls than they are of exe-files. Providing an autodownloader in exe-format would be nice however.
And why clutter things up in two different pages when windowsupdate does its job well?

 

Btw,  IE7(and maybe other browsers too) will add a string to it's browseragent-header telling the server that you have .net(and what versions) installed on your computer. That way you can warn your users that they don't have .net installed before they even download your game. XNA is still a problem though.