XBLAFANS

Speaking to VentureBeat, SpikySnail Games Studio founder, Niv Fisher, has commented about the struggles that indie developers encounter when marketing their games on XBLA.

In particular, the developer of XBLA game The Splatters claims that the marketplace has gotten “tougher in the last couple of years, with a few titles getting lots of promotion, exposure and sales, and the rest are getting hit pretty hard.”

Fisher argues that Microsoft can do much to address the issue, particularly with regard to the current dashboard. “I feel the current dashboard just doesn’t work well as a storefront, especially if you want to encourage discovery or diversity,” explains Fisher.

“Games are hard to find, there’s no friend-recommendation system, and lots of the store promotional space goes toward non-game applications – and now, also downloadable retail games. Sales are usually poorly promoted, and dashboard placement is sold and bartered with. Small developers like us have very little to offer here and are often left on their own.”

Although The Splatters reviewed fairly well, Fisher believes its moderate sales were reasonable “considering the circumstances.” Its inclusion in the 12 Days of Xbox sale saw The Splatters‘ best-selling day since its release, which Fisher says, “just goes to show the power in-dashboard promotion has over everything else, including reviews or media coverage.”

Fisher’s sentiments appear to echo those of Super Meat Boy developer, Team Meat, which famously expressed its disappointment with the dashboard treatment the game received at launch.

I don't doubt that XBLA could be handled better, but I also think that it's become overpopulated. The cream rises to the top with Summer of Arcade and some other promotions. But games like The Splatters are small games with small appeal. They look and feel like Android/iOS games that people don't even like paying a whole dollar for. Games like Shadow Complex and Quantum Conundrum have raised the bar for digital distro games. I think that's why games like The Splatters don't sell well. Get dashboard time would help The Splatters I don't think it could ever make as much money as the meatier games.

I'm sorry but a 74ish average is not good enough to sell well based on reviews alone. The way games get rated these days would mean anything below a 80 is not worth the money/time. This is not simply by my logic but by many peoples alone. Being a new title people are not going buy your game based on name alone. Multiply this by the fact that 1-3 arcade titles get released a week during the Fall/Winter period, your game is going to have to go at a lower price just to get noticed or have some strong advertising.

With that said I'd like for MS to have every XBLA title have It's own little window on the main dash board for the first few days of It's release at the least.

The best thing about XBLA titles is you can get a demo/trial of every single game released. As long as your game gets noticed chances are the viewer will give it a try unless they feel right off the bat that the game would suck.

Yeah for one the XBLA market is a bit oversaturated at the moment (and will likely stay like that in 2013). New titles need to be very good and mass appealing at the same time. I'm sure that Minecraft and Trials "stole" some sales of new releases as quite a few of them are underperforming.
It shouldn't be forgotten though that older retail games (of which there are a lot) can be found for $10-$15 and the longer the gen the more cheap games there are.
Would you rather get a game like The Splatters or Borderlands/Mass Effect/Assassins Creed 2 ?


I'm rather surprised that they're kind of pleased with the sales as I recall them to be very low (under 50k).