Report: XBLA Has Approx. 35 Slots Per Year For Indies?
[UPDATE: Official Microsoft response in the extended news story.]
Over at Jason Hill's latest Screen Play column at the WA Today website, he brings word from local Australian independent developers trying to get their games on Xbox Live Arcade, who claim that they are having difficulties getting accepted for the main XBLA service.
It was only a month ago that Microsoft announced they were changing the name of Xbox Live Community Games to Indie Games instead, and some people commented that this could potentially be Microsoft's way of separating independent titles from the more mainstream XBLA downloads.
Jason Hill writes:
"Screen Play has been told there are now just 35 "slots" a year for independent games on Xbox Live Arcade, but local developers estimate there would be hundreds of titles in development around the world, so many frustrated independent studios will be unable to release their games on the popular service."
To be clear, Xbox Live Indie Games (formerly Community Games) will continue to be extremely accessible to amateur developers. but it does make you wonder what plans Microsoft have for the coming months. Will the name change spell a further separation of 'DIY' Xbox Live Indie Games releases from more carefully selected 'main' Xbox Live Arcade titles, or is this just down-on-their-luck indie developers having a good old moan?
[UPDATE: We asked Microsoft directly how games are accepted for Xbox Live Arcade vs. Xbox Live Indie Games nowadays, and whether there are there particular limits in numbers for certain styles of game to be accepted for 'main' XBLA release yearly, and here's the company's official reply - please make of this what you will re: answering the question:
"Xbox LIVE is a great supporter of independent game development. Xbox LIVE Arcade is home to some of the best games to come out of the IGF including "N+," "Braid" and "Castle Crashers." Our biggest annual program, Summer of Arcade, includes "Splosion Man" from the Twisted Pixel studio and we're releasing "Mad Balls in Babo: Invasion" this week."
"In addition to our support of indie games on Xbox LIVE Arcade, we've also drastically reduced the barriers for developers to distribute a game on Xbox 360 through Xbox LIVE Indie Games, and we've made development easier with XNA Game Studio. The result is that more and more independent developers are distributing their games to the Xbox LIVE community. There are currently hundreds of games available on Xbox LIVE Indie Games with more coming every week."]
Comments
That is complete (hopefully) rumor and actually makes no sense if you think about the community that XBox Indie Games is trying to create.
Posted by: Ivan | July 14, 2009 10:03 PM
I think 35 slots is pretty good. I mean, how many indie games a year (even if you like them a lot) justify a $5-$10 XBLA release? Do Steam or Greenhouse or any of the hardcore game portals that sell indie games have a higher number of indie titles? If the top 35 indie games (whatever that means) make it to live arcade every year that seems pretty good.
MS should invest into making XBIG a platform that is more attractive to indie developers and change its current perception as a ghetto version of XBLA that forces you to use crippled tools. That means supporting freeware, and seriously considering support of technologies that are commonly in use by indie game developers (Flash, Game Maker, Unity, etc.)
Posted by: Impossible | July 14, 2009 10:45 PM
@Impossible
MS will never allow (Flash, Game Maker, Unity, etc.)
Posted by: Grunt | July 14, 2009 10:48 PM
Pretty stock-standard response and frustrating dodge of providing any real information.
Posted by: Jonno | July 14, 2009 11:31 PM
@Grunt:
I know its highly unlikely. It depends on what MS' goals are. If their goal is to try to lock people into their platform, then they need to make both XNA and XBIG much more attractive. If their goal is to leverage a lot of existing and in development indie content then supporting other technologies would be the way to do.
Posted by: Impossible | July 14, 2009 11:52 PM
@ Impossible
By using C# they have already shown their colours.
They will never use Flash because they have Silverlight.
And they will never open up their closed system to authoring tools/engines like Gamemaker and Unity.
Why? Because that's the way MS operates.
If I were an indie I would stick to Kongregate/Newgrounds and the Appstore. In my opinion there is nothing to gain on XNA (if you are a small indie).
PS: Maybe the PSPgo will offer a better solution... but I doubt it.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 15, 2009 2:27 PM
35 slots out of 52 (one per week) is still the majority.
I do agree that it's much harder to get in now rather than a couple years ago (i.e before it became really popular), but that's just because there are so many more people competing for the same limited number of spaces.
Posted by: raigan | July 15, 2009 6:12 PM