The sad situation that is Xbox Live Indie Games has been a topic I've addressed before, and its marginalized position as the red-headed stepchild of Xbox Live has been frustrating for creators and consumers alike. It looks like Microsoft is in a festive mood, considering there is a rather large update to NXE around the corner, and it looks like it has thrown a bone to all the indie kids in the XNA Creator's Club. Yeah, that's right, Indie Games is receiving a prett major update. While these changes are somewhat different from what I would expect, some of these changes could really go far to improving the service.
The most important update is a modification the the pricing structure of Indie Games. Whereas XNA developers could formerly price their games at 200, 400 or 800 points, any new games released will be priced at either 80, 240, or 400 points, with only games under 50 MB priced at 80 points. This price change is effective now, however current games will retain their original prices unless they are updated or changed during a price change event. Games can be priced to 800 points until October 22, and current 200 point games will drop automatically to 80 points then as well. October 22 is also the day that Microsoft forces all Indie Games to be developed on XNA Game Studio 3.1. For those wondering, the October 22 date, which is the same day as the release of Windows 7, is purely coincidental, as confirmed by an XNA rep.
Other major changes include the admission of Japanese and German XNA developers to the marketplace, with Japan receiving Indie Games for the first time on August 11. There is also a creator reputation system that might prove helpful in weeding out poorly developed games, and an auto-reminder for customers of Indie Games to be notified when a game has been updated. Finally, creators will be given 50 free Tokens to use for hyping their game or sending copies out to reviewers.
It's a little early to see if this is going to make a major change to the success of Indie Games. A much cheaper price, streamlined update system, and a reputation-system to make finding better developers easier is certainly helpful. Is this enough for you to pay attention to Indie Games?
[Thanks, power-glove!]
Contest:
10:00 AM on 07.24.2009
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As it stands now, I'm completely turned off by the community games. They're getting absolutely no money from me because of the high price point and lack of interest in the titles. With games priced at $1-5, I'm more than likely going to purchase several on a whim. That's money they wouldn't be getting from me otherwise... and I'm positive many people feel the same way.
If they were to do the same thing for retail games, I'd be spending far more money than I do now - where I buy ~3 new games a year, 5-10 used. $180 a year for publishers/developers for 3 new games. If games were $30 brand new, I'd definitely be buying 10+ games new each year. If the ESA were to champion for $20-30 games to be sold near registers at Wal-Mart/Target and the like, I'm positive new game sales would double across the country.
What price hit? the 800pt price is suicide for an XNA title. Games generally get released at 200pts, and go to 400 if fully featured or forced because the filesize is over 50mb.
Good point, it is likely that people will start buying indie games at the new price point. I know I probably will.
Also, where I live, $20-$20 games are already sold at the register in places like Walmart and Target. Everything from DS and PS2 games to old PS3 and 360 games.
Miner Dig Deep would like a word with you. Seriously, that's a great game, it's very addicting. It was only 200 points, but it looks like it should be dropping to 80 points soon. I recommend getting that.
I can't remember the names but there are a few other worth while indy games on there to check out.
CarneyVale Showtime was mentioned on here by Jim (I think), then Prismatic, which is a sweet little puzzler involving the use of mirrors to get light back into a castle (there's some nicely handrawn cutscenes in there to boot)...And I'm a big fan of Toxic. A simple puzzler that offers me the kind of puzzle action I adore. There's more, but these 3 are probably my favorites out of all the ones I bought.
I will say it would be nice if they allowed the larger XNA games to have a set amount of achievements (if applicable) because they would shine in CarneyVale. Discretion and smart choices would be key though.
And it never hurts to check out contest winner and IGN picks tabs, that way you wouldn't miss out on a cool artsy platformer like Artoon...
On the contrary: Before the price change, the minimum price for a 50MB+ game was 400 MSP (you had to be <50MB for 200 MSP).
After the price change, the minimum price for a 50MB+ game is now 240 MSP.
So it's not a "sneaky" 40 MSP increase, but instead a "friendly" 160 MSP *decrease*, actually...