Indie studios who launched titles via Community Games last November don't know how their games are selling; as we reported Tuesday, Microsoft has not released sales data to creators but promised it by March, news that prompted vocal and public responses -- both for and against -- from developers.
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Community Games developers don't know how many people have bought their game. Though Xbox 360 evangelist Major Nelson released top ten lists of popular Community Games, the amount of people buying them could range from 1 to 10,000 -- there's no hard sales data available for developers.
MTV Multiplayer broke that news earlier this week, prompting developers to respond through the official XNA Creators Club message boards. While most were upset the numbers weren't coming until March, others suggested that angrily pointing the finger at Microsoft wasn't appropriate, either.
Below are a few developer responses that stuck out to us:
"Crystal Crush" creator Alfio Lo Castro on how this affects his future projects…
"we [developers] want to know if developing CG [Community Games] games is a way to put something to eat on the table or just an hobby, what is the budget to assign to a CG project and which priority assign internally to it. Everybody here tried the new thing with a tiltle [sic] but now everybody is asking: "What's next? How much efforts and budget on the next game?"
I had a thought: maybe CG games are meant to be pure hobbist [sic] games and this is a way to descourage [sic] professionale [sic] developers? Just a doubt I have."
"Artoon" developer Oscar Kozlowski, however, questioned the viability of Community Games releases making money this early on…
"Of course I realise [sic] that some people here are annoyed as this is now their business venture, but I must question the business saviness [sic] of these people for investing into an unproven market where the cost of entry is so low that market forces will crush 95% of products. Yes, Community Games could use better promotion from Microsoft, but the real issue is that the community has shifted away from viewing CG as a portal for independent games to a business opportunity.
It is also important to realise [sic] that we are not being paid any less frequently than professional developers; equally sales tracking services are not free to professional developers either. We are not being screwed considering the barrier to entry is so low."
"Bloc" creator Nick Gravelyn is temporarily working other platforms…
"I've been waiting since launch to see how Bloc is doing. That's exactly why I'm focusing on the iPhone right now; without knowing how well XBLCG [Xbox Live Community Games] is doing financially, I feel hesitant to continue focusing on it as a market when there are platforms like the iPhone where detailed stats and trend tracking are available for developers and the financial viability of the platform is already known. I hope the reports come in and I'm under-estimating the popularity of XBLCG because I do love XNA, C#, and making games for the Xbox 360. But sadly I'm trying to start a business so money tends to be priority one for me right now."
Yet another Community Games developer, Alex Darby, said fellow creators need to reconsider what Community Games can actually do for them as creators…
"If you're looking to use XNA as a base for a business to put food on your table, I can't help but think that putting all your eggs into XBCG is slightly the wrong idea. I wouldn't expect it to put food on my table, but rather a chocolate cake. Some extra cash to help you along and to give you a fully functional prototype to present to publishers to try to get a full XBLA or even retail deal. In my opinion XNA and XBCG are a means to an end, not the end itself."
Have you downloaded any Community Games releases? Which ones?
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