He made some broad (but mostly accurate) statements about Xbox Live Arcade, without delving into the reasons as to why self-publishers do poorly on Xbox Live Arcade.
I'll give you a hint: inexperience
Not the kind of inexperience (developing a game) your thinking of, but another kind: Marketing and brand name.
There is no difference between XBLA and PSN in that regard. The reason self-published games choke on XBLA is not because XBLA is a slaughterhouse, but because these studios do not understand how to promote their game properly, and studios like EA or the other big boys do.
By his own admission, there is a certain percentage of self-published games that do well. I'll even give you a hint: 2 of the top 3 best-selling XBLA titles are self-published. One of which happens to be another motorcycle game (hint hint).
Look at the games that crash on XBLA - they either suck, or are poorly promoted. XBLA is not a market place (just like PSN or Steam) that users just randomly go on, and purchase games simply because its there. Users must be drawn to the title, and have some interest in trying it out...Brand and title awareness are very key in promoting a product. Likewise, most XBLA games convert into purchases at >10%, so if no one goes to the game, no one buys it.
Problem is, self-published studios don't understand that. If you look at promotions for these failed games...You usually find the common thread that no one is talking about the stated game. I don't know their marketing budgets, but I would imagine they are non-existent or very meager by comparison to the better-selling titles. Compare that to the big boys like EA, Konami, Microsoft, Atari, and the rest which have marketing staff and can cross-promote title libraries, and you understand why publishers do it. In fact, I had a discussion with one of PSN's best development studios about this very issue - self publishing doesn't work when you don't understand the market.
Now, I have to ask....Why didn't this developer cite comparative statistics for PSN to show that a larger number of self-published titles do better?
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
