Xbox 360 Indie games

[toythatkills]

Ah the patronising is back, given how many XBLIG developers moaned about the same thing and haven't looked back after switching to PC development I am not the only one under the misconception that games should have a chance of becoming popular.

Obviously the games should be popular and I've done more than most to try and get the service noticed by people so that games get the sales they deserve. It depresses me when excellent games get ignored for **** like Fortress Craft.

None of that means that that's what the service was conceived for, though, and it's helped many devs in many ways beyond just sales. It's a great stepping-stone to Steam, for example, look at Sequence. Without XBLIG it probably wouldn't have even been made, but with the press he generated from the XBLIG release he was able to get Steam to take notice and release it there. Without XBLIGs? Nothing. There's more to it than just "I'll only sell x copies so the service is ****," and there was always supposed to be.

But we've been through this before!

[bcass]

To be fair the Atari Jaguar has been an open source home console for many years now, it's just a bit harder to program for.

OK, now I know you're just being blinkered. You can't possibly be comparing the Atari Jaguar to the Xbox 360 as a serious prospect for modern games development. Also, amateur Jag dev was never officially supported by Atari in the way that Microsoft have with XNA.

I also like the XNA toolset a lot but I think that forcing people down the C# route was a mistake myself, it's a major problem for people porting from other platforms. With Windows Phone in the case of porting from Android and Qt you basicly have to rewrite the entire game from scratch and it's just not worth it, if they'd provided a C++ API I think we'd have seen a much larger uptake on that particular platform.

You really don't need a full rewrite. Have you never heard of the mono project (http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page)? C#/XNA can be run on numerous devices now. XNA games have been released on the iPhone, Android and PC. Microsoft themselves used mono recently to make Kinectimals on the iPhone.

[bcass]

I'd be pretty suspicious of any degrees doing this though. The bulk of the work is in using their APIs and tool chains with true core game programming fundamentals hidden within the framework that you never touch.

I said that they promote it at universities, I didn't say that courses actually use it, although many degree courses do use C#. Why wouldn't they? It's used significantly in software development around the world (especially for business applications). There's a huge jobs market out there for C# developers. Also, I think you'll find that most university computer science courses assume no prior programming experience. They don't just throw you in at the deep end with C++. The first language you encounter will usually be a managed language.

[averybluemonkey]

Obviously the games should be popular and I've done more than most to try and get the service noticed by people so that games get the sales they deserve. It depresses me when excellent games get ignored for **** like Fortress Craft.

None of that means that that's what the service was conceived for, though, and it's helped many devs in many ways beyond just sales. It's a great stepping-stone to Steam, for example, look at Sequence. Without XBLIG it probably wouldn't have even been made, but with the press he generated from the XBLIG release he was able to get Steam to take notice and release it there. Without XBLIGs? Nothing. There's more to it than just "I'll only sell x copies so the service is ****," and there was always supposed to be.

But we've been through this before!

Exactly which is why I find it so surprising that you have decided to reiterate this old discussion - you have gone wildly off course. Let's go over it again but I'll keep it simple this time:

Sketcz: Questions the economic viability of XBLIG's continued operation.
toythatkills: Claims it easily pays for itself.
averybluemonkey: Points towards numerous costs associated with running the service that toythatkills missed and gives a very conservative estimate of costs.
toythatkills: Highlights the sales figures of a small number of flash in the pan cash-ins.
averybluemonkey: Explains that this is not sustainable enough to necessarily justify work to a project manager and highlights the poor cashflow outside of these titles. And:

Mentions his previous experience of developing for the system to back up his statements about the cost of developing the frameworks.

toythatkills: Picks up on this one statement, takes it out of context and misses the point of why it was mentioned entirely.

I think that just about covers it.

[averybluemonkey]

I said that they promote it at universities, I didn't say that courses actually use it, although many degree courses do use C#. Why wouldn't they? It's used significantly in software development around the world (especially for business applications). There's a huge jobs market out there for C# developers. Also, I think you'll find that most university computer science courses assume no prior programming experience. They don't just throw you in at the deep end with C++. The first language you encounter will usually be a managed language.

Well I have heard of some universities using it and it makes me crings. The point is that going from C++ to C# is easy, but many struggle the other way round. A good computer scientist has to understand what a managed language is doing under the hood. C++ is important because it allows you to teach fundamental data structures and algorithms that sometimes aren't even possible to express in a managed language. I'm not saying C++ needs to be taught as part of a university course as a good student can pick up a new language to a high ability within a couple of weeks of their spare time no problems, but they need to have a much more solid understanding of the subject than a few APIs . I've seen lots of people get destroyed at interviews because they don't even have basic knowledge of what their Java code is doing under the hood.

My issue wasn't particularly with the C++/C# divide anyway. My course only spent an hour teaching C++, but everywhere else we were taught the fundamentals inherent to any language like it. My issue was that learning to use XNA doesn't teach you how to make games in general. I had a far better understanding of game design from being taught how to build polygon scan conversion algorithm implementations and ray tracers than anyone who spent ten times as much time tinkering with XNA.

[averybluemonkey]

You don't have to "switch" to PC development. Games developed using XNA will run on PC with absolutely minimal changes to the code. In fact, to get stuff running on PC you're just essentially commenting/regioning out the console-specific code segments (which is a 5 minute job). There's a number of XNA games on Steam.

Poor choice of words, switched to PC distribution. You will see in that post I made no mention of XNA, only XBLIG. My reference was the distribution platform with regards this post, not the technology. Although piping in Steam achievements is a little more than a 5 minute job.

[averybluemonkey]

OK, now I know you're just being blinkered. You can't possibly be comparing the Atari Jaguar to the Xbox 360 as a serious prospect for modern games development. Also, amateur Jag dev was never officially supported by Atari in the way that Microsoft have with XNA.

Well they released the entire official development package to the people so the Jag homebrew community have access to the same resources that the professionals did.

You really don't need a full rewrite. Have you never heard of the mono project (http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page)? C#/XNA can be run on numerous devices now. XNA games have been released on the iPhone, Android and PC. Microsoft themselves used mono recently to make Kinectimals on the iPhone.

I have, I've used Mono at work numerous times. Which is why I know that Mono has issues that can be painful to work with, nothing like having a bug in a managed runtime whose development is community driven. I didn't know it ran on the iPhone though.

Again though I highlight my actual post:

"I also like the XNA toolset a lot but I think that forcing people down the C# route was a mistake myself, it's a major problem for people porting from other platforms"

You'll see I wasn't talking about porting to other platforms but from them. These platforms had a massive developer base before WinPhone 7 came along, the Qt developer base were livid when they started to be shuffled out of the mobile developer space. I have a Qt game, it would be an absolute nightmare to port it to XNA.

[toythatkills]

averybluemonkey: Points towards numerous costs associated with running the service that toythatkills missed and gives a very conservative estimate of costs.

Including some costs that don't even exist.

averybluemonkey: Explains that this is not sustainable enough to necessarily justify work to a project manager and highlights the poor cashflow outside of these titles.

Even at your estimates, the Minecraft titles have paid for the entire few years existence of the service just in the few months they've been out. FortressCraft has sold 700,000 copies at $3, the others are hovering around half a million each. Obviously that's not sustainable forever, but they're not the only games that have sold. IMAGWZ has sold 200k+, the Zeboyd games have made about $100,000 between them, and there are loads of titles that have sold 10,000 copies plus. Alongside the subscription fees, Microsoft are picking up money to cover this service.

It's not making megabucks, but it's generating enough.

Mentions his previous experience of developing for the system to back up his statements about the cost of developing the frameworks.

Oh, you tried to make a game? I bow down to your superior knowledge of the intricate workings of the system and Microsoft's cash flow, then.

toythatkills: Picks up on this one statement, takes it out of context and misses the point of why it was mentioned entirely.

Why was that, again?

[toythatkills]

Sorry for sounding like a ****, I'm not trying to have a go.

I just don't like this implication that just because I don't know C#, I therefore don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I've never had a trial at Arsenal Football Club either but I could tell you plenty about them. It's completely irrelevant.

This is a service I've been following and monitoring for years. I've been an active member in the community. I've playtested games. I've peer reviewed games. I've engaged with developers about their hopes/thoughts on the service. I've investigated sales figures. I've watched the community and the service evolve. I haven't just read the news bits on Eurogamer every other week about how a developer is pissed off and formed opinions based on that. I know what I'm talking about, and for you to imply that I don't just because you know more code than I do is irritating, which I'm sure you can see if you imagine yourself in that position.

[bcass]

Poor choice of words, switched to PC distribution. You will see in that post I made no mention of XNA, only XBLIG. My reference was the distribution platform with regards this post, not the technology. Although piping in Steam achievements is a little more than a 5 minute job.

Now you're just grasping at straws. Steam achievements aren't mandatory. My point stands, you can get an XNA game runnng on a PC very quickly with very little fuss.

Well they released the entire official development package to the people so the Jag homebrew community have access to the same resources that the professionals did.

Not while the console was on shop shelves they didn't. It's just daft to compare the two anyway. Jag dev is in no way comparable to what Microsoft has done with XNA.

[averybluemonkey]

Now you're just grasping at straws. Steam achievements aren't mandatory. My point stands, you can get an XNA game runnng on a PC very quickly with very little fuss.

I repeat, I did not say anything about XNA as a development platform in that comment you quoted, I compared XBLIG profits versus Steam ones. I actually agreed with you by saying that I had put the word development when I meant distribution.

[averybluemonkey]

TTK I've done most of the things you mentioned too mate, the thing is a good number of other people share the same viewpoint regarding this old argument, which you were the one to bring up again, not me. You are the one who everytime iterates your opinion as the only fact. Whenever someone else mentions that some people feel the other way, you are the one who says we are wrong and that we don't understand.

I never said I had superior knowledge but some of the things you mention clearly indicate your niavety about the business world and I highlighted some of the costs you hadn't included. Also the only cost I mentioned you claimed that wasn't real was the community manager. Are you telling me David Weller and Kathleen Saunders are in fact imaginary people?

[averybluemonkey]

Oh and one more thing, for companies these days, making "enough" isn't always satisfactory.

I mean I know my only knowledge is based on Eurogamer articles of course, but I assume you are aware that Microsoft made 5,000 redundant people from the EMEA region alone a few years back despite making extremely high profits anyway.

[toythatkills]

TTK I've done most of the things you mentioned too mate, the thing is a good number of other people share the same viewpoint regarding this old argument, which you were the one to bring up again, not me. You are the one who everytime iterates your opinion as the only fact. Whenever someone else mentions that some people feel the other way, you are the one who says we are wrong and that we don't understand.

I never said I had superior knowledge but some of the things you mention clearly indicate your niavety about the business world and I highlighted some of the costs you hadn't included. Also the only cost I mentioned you claimed that wasn't real was the community manager. Are you telling me David Weller and Kathleen Saunders are in fact imaginary people?

I don't think we're going to be able to agree on owt, because to you the service is a business, and to me the service was never intended as such. It was supposed to be a way for anyone to release a game on Xbox, to tempt people into development. Not that it was meant to be a charity, just that I don't think Microsoft expected it to be hugely profitable, and so I see no reason why it wouldn't continue as it is. It helps with the publicity around things like DBP, too.

Until Microsoft release actual sales/costing figures or say what their intentions are, we'll never know what'll happen. Either they'll close it because it's not profitable and you'll be right, or they'll keep it going because it was never meant to be that profitable, and I'll be right. Until then, it's all conjecture, and both of us are as likely to be correct, it really could go either way, it's impossible to know what Microsoft are thinking.

So, until then, why don't we just talk about how awesome Little Racers STREET is?

(And yeah, I know they had community managers in the past, my point was that they don't anymore.)

[charlesr]

I have a sub to this thread. I keep coming in here thinking I'll get some decent recommends to try