Make Games (and Money) On Xbox Live this Fall

[bapenguin]

Microsoft has officially announced that their Community Games initiative will launch this fall on Xbox Live. What is it? It's a way for budding game developers and hobbyists to showcase their games on a console...something that's never been done before.

Ok, ok...so how do you make money? The first step is buying an XNA subscription ($99 a year) and downloading the tools (which are free regardless of subscription). After completing your gaming masterpiece you'll then submit it for peer review; if enough people approve of the title you can then set a price (between 200 and 800 MS Points) and away you go! Microsoft is going to skim a cool 30% off the top and send you monthly checks, but it's a small price to pay for such mainstream exposure.

Of course, you can also compile your game to run on a PC and distribute it for free...no XNA Subscription required.

[bapenguin]

Join the Community: Make Games, Make Money on Xbox LIVE

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Key Points:
• Xbox 360 is the first platform to democratize game development by allowing developers to distribute their games to more than 12 million Xbox LIVE members and offering them the opportunity to benefit financially from their creations.
• Xbox LIVE Community Games is a new gaming service that is complementary to blockbuster retail games and Xbox LIVE Arcade, and ultimately provides consumers with the best and broadest selection of gaming content available on any console platform to date.
• Xbox LIVE Community Games provides the opportunity for members of the community to participate in the global game economy.
• Xbox 360 is the first video game console to invite everyone to create their own games and share the fun with millions of people online through Xbox LIVE Community Games.
• The ability to share community-created games on Xbox 360 will usher in a new era of creativity in games when it is launched for consumers on Xbox LIVE later this year.


Announcement:
You’ve played Xbox 360 games with the millions of gamers on Xbox LIVE. You’ve chatted, shared, and dominated in games of all kinds. But what if those millions could be playing your game?

Better still – what if you were getting paid for it?

Starting holiday 08, Xbox LIVE Community Games is your ticket to fame – and possibly fortune as millions of Xbox LIVE users now have the opportunity to view, buy, and play games that you create.

How it Works
The setup? Simple. The payments? Cash.


As a Premium member in the XNA Creators Club, you’ll be able to submit any complete Xbox 360 game you’ve created in XNA Game Studio to the Creators Club community at http://creators.xna.com, for peer review. Other Premium Creators will check to make sure your game is safe to play. If it is, you’ll set a price point – between 200 and 800 Points – that people will pay to download your game.

Once the game is reviewed and the price point set, you’re done. The game is listed on Xbox LIVE Marketplace, and you’ll get a check every quarter, for up to 70% of the game’s total revenue in your own currency. Depending on your game’s success, you may even have your game advertised on Xbox 360 and other Microsoft online properties.

Just imagine - your game in the hands of millions of Xbox 360 gamers around the world: that’s the power of Community Games.


How to Get Started
While the official launch of Xbox LIVE Community Games won’t be until later this year, you can start working on that great game right now with XNA Game Studio and the XNA Creators Club Online community!

First, download XNA Game Studio, the free game development tool from Microsoft. It’s free and works with Visual Studio or Visual C# Express Edition. If you’ve never made a game before, the XNA Creators Club website has tons of samples, tutorials, even whole video guides to game creation. Jump right in and start coding your dream game!

Next, join the XNA Creator’s Club at http://creators.xna.com. It’s a community of game creators just like you. If you’re going to develop games for Xbox 360 and want to sell your game on Xbox LIVE Community Games, you’ll need a Premium membership. It’s just $99 per year or $49 for four months.

Finally, submit your finished game to the XNA Creators Club and watch the money roll in!


Questions?
If you’ve got a question about Community Games, XNA Game Studio, and all of the details in between, please read the handy FAQ (http://creators.xna.com/en-us/XboxLIVECommunityGames) to get your answers.

[LarsenNET]

Pretty cool for those that have talent.

[shunoshi]

This sounds awesome and is something that should have happened a long time ago.

[digitalErich]

They're finally going to deliver on this, huh? I'm looking forward to seeing what people can do with this.

[Mr.Green]

Pretty cool for those that have talent.

Those bastards!

[oldjadedgamer]

This sounds awesome and is something that should have happened a long time ago.

It did. Sony mainstreamed it with the Net Yaroze but at the time there was no way to distribute your games.

http://www.spong.com/news/p/h/philharris237644.jpg

Of course, you can also compile your game to run on a PC and distribute it for free...no XNA Subscription required.

Yup, distribute it for free and make zero money off of it.

[WaltJay]

But I still can't design t-shirts and sell them on XBLM? VelocityGirl does not approve! ;)

On a serious note, it's cool to see independent developers get another outlet for their games.

[Mr. Lake]

Yay! Now I can sell my Asteroids/Arkkonoid clone and make millions!

[cppcrusader]

Yup, distribute it for free and make zero money off of it.

I do believe bap was referring to not having to pay for a Creator's Club subscription. There's nothing to stop you from building a PC game using XNA and selling.

[mkelehan]

30%? Not bad at all.

[MosBen]

Color me skeptical. Also, chances are that once this is released we won't start seeing really good games for at least six months. Still, if I hear that there's a great game out there, I'll go grab it up.

[Norse]

It's cool, but I doubt we'll see many great titles. BUT, if there are couple of games as good as that Dishwasher game I'll be happy.

[GabeCube]

Yup, distribute it for free and make zero money off of it.

Yeah, like those stupid Narbacular Drop and Counter-Strike developers who later got hired by Valve.

Oh wait...

[Wraith]

As for developing for PC or XBL Community Games - despite the costs and content review process of XBL, you are getting your game in front of a pretty huge audience. And all the payment processing, hosting and bandwidth is on Microsoft's end. And I assume that there's really no way for someone to pirate your game from XBL (or if there are ways, at least it's a higher barrier than for PC games). So while it's not free, I'd think the costs are really pretty reasonable for what you're getting.

There's certainly big potential here.

[Disgustipated]

It's cool, but I doubt we'll see many great titles. BUT, if there are couple of games as good as that Dishwasher game I'll be happy.

So agreed. Can't wait for the Dishwasher, what an insane beat 'em up.

[ElfShotTheFood]

Yup, distribute it for free and make zero money off of it.

I hear you can make a website and sell your games from there. ;)

[shunoshi]

I hear you can make a website and sell your games from there. ;)

Yeah, and it'll almost have the distribution capability of the 360. :rolleyes:

[MosBen]

All I hope is that they have some kind of mechanism to sort these games so that I only ever have to see the creme of the crop. I don't have time to sift through the 99% of crap that people will produce to find the one or two games that are actually good.

[Demo_Boy]

This is great for customers and democratizes the game development process, however existing XBLA devs will get marginalized in the flood of titles.
Probably <800 point games in XBLA will go away, replaced by >1200 bigger experiences. This will put pressure on retail games, wiping out the $40 price point, and establishing the mega publishers as the only people at $60.

Certainly an interesting time to be an indie developer

[midrael]

Hmmmm how very interesting. Yeah I think I remember this being a big plus for Xbox Live way back. I'm glad it's finally coming out.

[f1sh3r]

This is great for customers and democratizes the game development process, however existing XBLA devs will get marginalized in the flood of titles.
Probably <800 point games in XBLA will go away, replaced by >1200 bigger experiences. This will put pressure on retail games, wiping out the $40 price point, and establishing the mega publishers as the only people at $60.

Certainly an interesting time to be an indie developer

after playing the double d dodgeball demo, i'm ready for some indie action, even if it means still not buying the existing devs work.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

Yeah, and it'll almost have the distribution capability of the 360. :rolleyes:

Yeah, we all know that indy developers never sell and distribute PC titles. :rolleyes:


Are you guys serious?

[Wraith]

I didn't see any mention of it, but hopefully developers can make demos for Community Games, just like full XBL titles.

[shunoshi]

Yeah, we all know that indy developers never sell and distribute PC titles. :rolleyes:


Are you guys serious?

I'm not just talking about indie game studios. Sure, they can make games and sell them via PC and have been doing so for years. I'm excited for the average Joe who has some great ideas and programming skills, but doesn't necessarily have the PR skills or connections in the industry to sell a game. MS is basically creating a way for you to have a guaranteed massive distribution chain, should your game be good enough.

Just because I own a PC and game on it doesn't mean I'm going to come across your game in an endless sea of sites shelling out shovelware either. XBLM has one location and everyone who plays XBLA games go there. The visibility via XBLM is WAY higher.

I didn't see any mention of it, but hopefully developers can make demos for Community Games, just like full XBL titles.

I think this would help. Not many folks will be willing to shell out $10 on a game that could be a complete flop....and there will be complete garbage out there. That is certain.

[Wraith]

I think this would help. Not many folks will be willing to shell out $10 on a game that could be a complete flop....and there will be complete garbage out there. That is certain.And even if there's a minimum level of quality, being able to try a game should mean more potential customers - especially for games like this that may not have previews, reviews or gameplay videos, as we've come to expect from the professionally-developed titles out there. If you just see a game's name, a logo, some text about it, and a price, there really isn't much to compel people to buy into it, apart from word-of-mouth (or some compulsion to spend a few bucks on an unknown game).

[Ondo]

Also, chances are that once this is released we won't start seeing really good games for at least six months.
The tools to make these games have been out since December 2006. The only new thing is the distribution mechanism, so I wouldn't expect a delay.

Also, it's worth noting that registering for the Dream Build Play contest gets you a one-year trial membership to the Creator's Club (which lets you run your games on the 360), and submitting a game to the contest will get you a 4-month premium membership.

[Ondo]

I didn't see any mention of it, but hopefully developers can make demos for Community Games, just like full XBL titles.
There's a FAQ here (http://creators.xna.com/en-us/XboxLIVECommunityGames), and it does state that you'll be able to "play a trial of each game".

I'm wondering how they'll do this, since I don't think they'll be requiring a trial version programmed in to each game. Maybe they'll have time-limited trials that requires no additional coding by the programmer.

Also noteworthy is the pricing info: "Creators can chose to sell their 50 MB games for 200 Microsoft Points, or sell their larger 150 MB games for either 400 or 800 Microsoft Points."

[Wraith]

There's a FAQ here (http://creators.xna.com/en-us/XboxLIVECommunityGames), and it does state that you'll be able to "play a trial of each game".Ah, that's good to know. (I was searching for "demo" when I should have tried "trial." Ah well.)I'm wondering how they'll do this, since I don't think they'll be requiring a trial version programmed in to each game. Maybe they'll have time-limited trials that requires no additional coding by the programmer.

Also noteworthy is the pricing info: "Creators can chose to sell their 50 MB games for 200 Microsoft Points, or sell their larger 150 MB games for either 400 or 800 Microsoft Points."I wonder why a 50MB game is limited to 200 MSP. While that's a nice price point for simple, limited games, couldn't someone make a game under 50MB that's worth more? Or, conversely, will some devs just waste some space to push them over the 50MB threshold?

[Ondo]

I wonder why a 50MB game is limited to 200 MSP. While that's a nice price point for simple, limited games, couldn't someone make a game under 50MB that's worth more? Or, conversely, will some devs just waste some space to push them over the 50MB threshold?
There's even more info on the GameFest press site here (http://creators.xna.com/en-us/press/gamefest), including info on 10 games.

Notably, in the community games fact sheet it implies the sizes are just maximums - that is, 50MB maximum for 200 point games, and 150MB for all games. Hopefully that's the case, since it would be silly to prevent small games from charging higher prices.

[Ondo]

Maybe they'll have time-limited trials that requires no additional coding by the programmer.
Wired confirms this is how it will work here (http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/07/xbox-community.html).

[Ondo]

1up has an interview with Chris Satchell about this news here (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3168964).

[midrael]

1up has an interview with Chris Satchell about this news here (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3168964).

An interesting read. It's certainly notable that they take an extra 10-30% as a marketing fee when they highlight your game. So when it's actually selling the best, you're more likely getting 40%, but I suppose that's the trade-off for having easy distribution.

[Gpig]

An interesting read. It's certainly notable that they take an extra 10-30% as a marketing fee when they highlight your game. So when it's actually selling the best, you're more likely getting 40%, but I suppose that's the trade-off for having easy distribution.

Yeah but as soon as it's not being advertised (or displayed on the main page of the store front) then you immediately go back to 70% which is cool. That means you might only be getting 40% for the week you're highlighted as a latest release but as soon as you're no longer highlighted you'll be getting 70%. I thought they would still take off at least another 10% in the weeks following since you would still have increased sales from being advertised.