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Forums - Microsoft - XBLA is a "slaughterhouse" for smaller developers

mrstickball on 13 July 2010
Lafiel said:
Barozi said:

Obviously they want money, so it's their fault for not releasing it on XBLA.with a publisher.

Trials HD sold over 500k digital copies for example. Even with a third party publisher Hello Games would have made tons of money from an XBLA release.


Yea, compare it to a run-away success, because it also has bikes so it must be able to match that success *facepalm*

Hello games definitely favored security over possible success here and in their view there was a higher chance to break even (to not die after their first game for fucks sake) on PSN - who are you to criticize them for that decision?

...The fact his venom is mis-placed?

He never praised the PSN market...Only attacked XBLA. He wasn't arguing from a position of strength by explaining 'PSN is better because of X, Y and Z', only that XBLA was bad because of A, B and C.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

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steverhcp02 on 13 July 2010

Oh well. 4 People on the team, cant fault them for just wanting to develop the game and sell it. We all know XBLA and XBL in general has far more hoops to jump through for content. I dont know all of them, but from UT3, Steam, FF14....etc. , maybe they just wanted to not deal with it.

If they game was mediocre then id say it was a cop out, but it seems the game is a pretty successful hit so we cant fault them on the quality front. I think they just should have said it was easier to not have a publisher.




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mrstickball on 13 July 2010
steverhcp02 said:

Oh well. 4 People on the team, cant fault them for just wanting to develop the game and sell it. We all know XBLA and XBL in general has far more hoops to jump through for content. I dont know all of them, but from UT3, Steam, FF14....etc. , maybe they just wanted to not deal with it.

If they game was mediocre then id say it was a cop out, but it seems the game is a pretty successful hit so we cant fault them on the quality front. I think they just should have said it was easier to not have a publisher.


On the other end, its possible they knew that Joe Danger would be seen as a copy of Trials on XBLA, and get hammered by users as being inferior, thus not selling well.

Putting the game on PSN first was a brilliant move, as Trials is not there - it could sell very well and be the Trials HD of PSN. However, I don't think that makes for a valid reason to bash XBLA. You never know if you'd want to make a game on both PSN and XBLA..



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Lafiel on 13 July 2010
mrstickball said:

...The fact his venom is mis-placed?

He never praised the PSN market...Only attacked XBLA. He wasn't arguing from a position of strength by explaining 'PSN is better because of X, Y and Z', only that XBLA was bad because of A, B and C.

venom?

he (probably) was asked "why not on XBLA?" and he gave his/his teams reasoning why going with PSN was the better decision - I don't know where he pulled his stats from and whether or not they are correct and it doesn't even matter, for all that matters is, that in his view they are "realistic" and that is his reason for going for PSN.

I don't know where you want to see "venom" in that.

Out of 3 possible routes he/they chose the one that seemed the least risky, because they invested 2 years and undoubtedly a lot of money to realize this project and if it failed who knows what would have happened to the guys?

 

 

 



Reasonable on 13 July 2010
Reach said:

So they are afraid of the better games that Xbox users can choose ... On Psn there´s no competition so people will buy this... because they wont have much more choices...

So is this right ?


No.  He's pointing out that PSN, beacuse you can self publish which you can't on Live, allows very small developers to take the least risk.

On Live (and PSN too I'm sure) only a small number of titles sell well, most don't as he points out.

If you have to have a publisher then your odds are worse as you need to sell more to make the same amount.  Or you get MS to publish but have to commit to exclusivity - timed rather than full so far as I know.

Rather like the way MMO's seem to be struggling with Live at the moment it's down to differing terms which for certain developers/genres seem to favour PSN.  I've no doubt there are plenty of developers/genres which favour Live so it's simply a case of horses for courses.

 



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

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mrstickball on 13 July 2010
Lafiel said:
mrstickball said:

...The fact his venom is mis-placed?

He never praised the PSN market...Only attacked XBLA. He wasn't arguing from a position of strength by explaining 'PSN is better because of X, Y and Z', only that XBLA was bad because of A, B and C.

venom?

he (probably) was asked "why not on XBLA?" and he gave his/his teams reasoning why going with PSN was the better decision - I don't know where he pulled his stats from and whether or not they are correct and it doesn't even matter, for all that matters is, that in his view they are "realistic" and that is his reason for going for PSN.

I don't know where you want to see "venom" in that.

Out of 3 possible routes he/they chose the one that seemed the least risky, because they invested 2 years and undoubtedly a lot of money to realize this project and if it failed who knows what would have happened to the guys?

I'd say there is some venom when you argue that XBLA is a slaughterhouse for small development studios...That doesn't seem very friendly to a service you could be publishing on :-p

I'm not arguing that going with PSN was the wrong route to go - given his choices, I would of gone with PSN first as well. Not because of being against XBLA, but because there is no comparible game in the PSN space...Had Trials not existed, then that would be very different. However, given any choice, I would of self-published on both PSN and XBLA, and sell about 300,000 copies on PSN (which is where its trending in the near term) and 150,000 copies on XBLA.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

ImJustBayuum on 13 July 2010
TRios_Zen said:
shio said:

In which case, people have been saying that he made a mistake and meant "up to", because otherwise it would mean that no game is selling at 40k, 50k, 75k, 130k, 150k, 170k, etc...

either way it means that only 30% sold more than "around" 100k. And since many developers only break even at 100k, you figure it out.

Wait I'm confused. 

Is the argument that too much content on XBLA means developers don't have a chance, so the PSN is easier to succeed on (the implication being that there is less content on the PSN as competition)...  OR is there supposed to be some kind of indication that ALL games sell well on the PSN?

From what I read in OP, it seemed like the former.  But the discussions about sales percentage seem to be trying to prove a point, that frankly as we don't have PSN numbers to compare too, seems a bit myopic in scope.

Why is the OP ignoring this post?



Barozi on 13 July 2010
Lafiel said:
Barozi said:

Obviously they want money, so it's their fault for not releasing it on XBLA.with a publisher.

Trials HD sold over 500k digital copies for example. Even with a third party publisher Hello Games would have made tons of money from an XBLA release.


Yea, compare it to a run-away success, because it also has bikes so it must be able to match that success *facepalm*

Hello games definitely favored security over possible success here and in their view there was a higher chance to break even (to not die after their first game for fucks sake) on PSN - who are you to criticize them for that decision?

I do because

1. It's a comparable game (it's not a Trials copy and I never claimed that)

2. similar quality (same Metascore)

3. it sold very well for a PSN game, just like Trials sold very well for an XBLA game

sooo puhlease take your facepalm back or are you saying that Joe Danger has nothing in common with Trials, is worse and failed miserably on PSN ?

Fact of the matter is that great games also have great sales on PSN and XBLA. (at least I don't know a case were a truly great game failed sales wise)

The highest chance to break even is a multiplat release. I'm not criticizing that the developer decided to put it on PSN instead of XBLA, I just criticize the way they're talking about XBLA, because like I said earlier, XBLA is way bigger games wise and even with a third party publisher, they would have made tons of money.
Sean Murray talks about the chances of a self published breakthrough game on XBLA, but he fails to see that his game would definitely count towards the "few" efforts of 200k plus sales.

So what exactly is he bitching about ?
"OMG we could have made some 200k extra sales with a XBLA release, thank god we didn't do that ! Now let's hate the XBLA platform, because other, less capable developers can't make millions of dollars with their mediocre games"

and for the last part... who are you to defend them for that decision ? Ah right, just what I thought....



MrBubbles on 13 July 2010

ninjabee is a small team(3 employees according to their wiki page) and have made a number of good games for xbla(including the recently released Ancients of Ooga[go buy it]).  they dont feel that need to work in less competitive environment just because they are a small team and clearly dont feel that theyve been slaughtered...



"I like my steaks how i like my women.  Bloody and all over my face"

"Its like sex, but with a winner!"

MrBubbles Review Threads: Bill Gates, Jak II, Kingdom Hearts II, The Strangers, Sly 2, Crackdown, Zohan, Quarantine, Klungo Sssavesss Teh World, MS@E3'08, WATCHMEN(movie), Shadow of the Colossus, The Saboteur

steverhcp02 on 13 July 2010
ImJustBayuum said:
TRios_Zen said:
shio said:

In which case, people have been saying that he made a mistake and meant "up to", because otherwise it would mean that no game is selling at 40k, 50k, 75k, 130k, 150k, 170k, etc...

either way it means that only 30% sold more than "around" 100k. And since many developers only break even at 100k, you figure it out.

Wait I'm confused. 

Is the argument that too much content on XBLA means developers don't have a chance, so the PSN is easier to succeed on (the implication being that there is less content on the PSN as competition)...  OR is there supposed to be some kind of indication that ALL games sell well on the PSN?

From what I read in OP, it seemed like the former.  But the discussions about sales percentage seem to be trying to prove a point, that frankly as we don't have PSN numbers to compare too, seems a bit myopic in scope.

Why is the OP ignoring this post?


My guess is because the person who said it isnt the OP and he probably isnt registered at VGChatz nor borwsing the forum anonymously.

but thats just a guess.....




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