link : http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/121/1217024p1.html

"Suppressing creativity could be the end of it.

IGN held an impromptu funeral to mourn the failure of Xbox Live indie game a couple years back, and Microsoft's small-time venture has been left for dead once again. If we analyze what the indie initiative set out to accomplish in 2007 -- to become comparable to YouTube -- versus its present state, the unfortunate reality is the failing market isn't a concern for Microsoft anymore. That is, if it ever truly was. The new Xbox 360 interface makes it difficult to find the indie channel, and the absence of exposure could mean the end of independent developers' careers. 

Cthulhu Saves the World was born on the indie channel, but found life on PC.

Zeboyd Games' Robert Boyd, who worked on the Xbox Live indie game Cthulhu Saves the World, talked to Edge about the market's viability. "As far as sales go," Boyd said, "October was OK thanks to the promotions we got around Halloween – around $5,000 total revenue for the month – but our XBLIG revenue hit an all-time low last month with only about $1,500 in revenue on XBLIG between all of our games. We're not too worried, though, since we're making drastically more money on the PC these days." Boyd's dismissal of the indie channel's reliability isn't exactly reassuring. 

After The Adventures of Shuggy failed on Xbox Live Arcade, developer David Johnston created an XBLIG called Growing Pains, which sold a lousy 40 copies. Now Johnston is wondering if he should leave the game-making business altogether. He says it isn't just developers dismissing the market, either, claimng the dev community gets the impression Microsoft "would rather be finished with indie games." Rather than cause a riot within the community by shutting down the indie avenue, Johnston speculates Microsoft will continue to bury the channel beneath Dashboard menus. (Another XBL indie creator, Mommy's Best Games, published asatirical game commenting on exactly this.) 

There's some political unrest within the Xbox Live indie scene, it seems, and it's no wonder. This was where ideas were supposed to be born, not buried. Whether this spells doom for developers or a tactical response from Microsoft remains to be seen, but no matter how you slice it this isn't a great place for indie development to be in on consoles. 

Via Edge"

thats at odds with what i've been hearing about it thriving, guess i was mistaken

The new dashboard needs major reoganizing

its not especially difficult to find the indie games compared to finding anything else. so at least its being treated fairly.

Yet every week there are at least 3 games added to the library.....

Xbox Indie isn't really meant for money, its meant to build up your resume if your looking for a career in the field.

What's xbox 360 indie games? XBLA?

Oh. I remember hearing about that now ages ago. Never thought that came to fruition.

I have a number of problems with the Xbox Indie section however they are almost all to do with the developers themselves. Firstly it is an indie section, not professional. If they want to make a living off it then make a game for XBLA. The indie section is for hobbyists etc. A place to get some experience.

Also a lot of people compare it to PC and Steam. However this isn't a fair comparison. If you look at the actual games on steam's indie section they are mostly games that are on PSN or XBLA or would be if ported to consoles. Bastion and things of similar quality. You won't find the ridiculous amount of ''Are you smarter than a cheerleader?'' or other small games etc on Steam. The only time you find xbox indie games on steam is when they have managed to make a name for themselves on XBLA, i,e. Call Of Cthulu. It was only once they had proven themselves on the indie section that Valve would accept them.

You also hear some ridiculous complaints about how they want Indie games mixed in with XBLA and Games on Demand in new releases. As an actual user of the 360 I say good grief no. The new releases is already crowded and I don't need 5 indie games clogging it up every few days. Keep them separate. They are still easy enough to find as it is. Heck on xbox.com they have a section right next to GoD and Demos.

The XBLIG section is fine as it is. It's an INDIE! section. Yet people constantly complain that the games on it don't get the same attention and visibility as Call Of Duty, Shadow Complex etc. It's an indie section, you can't complain about it being indie.

this makes sense, and its good to hear from an actual 360 user, I dont have one myself and ill be honest, I didnt even know there was a seperate section for indie games on LIVE, I thought it was thrown in with the Arcade games. So it sounds similar to PSN minis and if it is, its never going to blow up people. not with Limbos, Castle Crashers, etc. out there.

Yea the section is very easy to find. Like I said on Xbox.com it's even right next to Demos, Xbla, GoD. With as big a list. On the xbox itself it is still easy to find it just isn't mixed in with professional games, which I think well really it shouldn't be. 

I decided to look up Shuggy since that is mentioned in the article even though it was an XBLA game. So it was a finalist in the Dream play build contest in 2007. This was August 2007 and the game was nigh on finished it seems. He didn't get a contract from this but got a contract with Sierra Online later that year. So sometime between September-December 2007. The contract was lost when Sierra was absorbed into Activision, this was July 2008. So basically in 11 months he couldn't finish developing an indie game. Had he simply finished it within that time (which I think most would agree is a VERY long time) it would have been published. 

He didn't find another publisher until October 2009, quite a while however this is kind of self inflicted since he lost his last publisher through not pushing the game out quick enough. So the new publisher he went with? Valcon games...... ever heard of them? No didn't think so. Despite this being October 2009 the game wasn't finished and submitted for certification until........ early 2011. Finally getting published in June 2011. So nearly 4 years after it had received publicity in the competition. 

It seems to me the lesson to learn there was that an indie developer took too long on his game and needed some business skills. Why didn't he get it out in early 2008? 

I also decided to look up growing pains. It's 240 MS points (quite expensive for XBLIG). It's a VERY simple 2d platformer, with pretty poor graphics and awful art. It has 9 levels which the developer describes as MASSIVE yet the video walkthrough for one level takes 3minutes 32 seconds. You can see yourself here http://www.smudgedcat.com/growingpains.html Although the developer themself has decided not to bother uploading the videos in HD. I mean are we meant to be surprised this didn't sell? The type of thing where there are similar games for free on newgrounds etc? Is this game meant to be next to the new Alan wake?

The simple fact is most games on XBLIG are things you would find on Newgrounds etc. When you get developers releasing higher quality things such as with Cthulu they do get more attention. Even with Zeboyd games they have 2 games on XBLIG, one released in April 2010 and one in December 2010. In October of 2011 they made $5,000 in revenue from XBLIG. In December they made $1,500 for the month. For an indie game that seems pretty great. Surely they made enough a long time ago to start doing XBLA releases etc. 

This is exactly my thoughts. These indie developers need to stop bitching.