Project: That Really Hot Chick [XNA]
| Project Started: |
4th July, 2011 |
Last Update: |
27th August, 2011 |
| Project Owner: |
 HorrendousGames |
Project Members: |
Strife |
| Project Type: |
XBLIG Music |
Project Progress: |
|
|
Review take 2
|
Posted 29th Jul 11, by HorrendousGames
|
|
All the bugs are fixed and it's going out to the Review phase again! Yaaaay!
I'll take this time to write some more complaints about the App Hub, and some food for thought if you're considering wasting your money on a membership to it. To do this, I'm going to compare XBLIG to another similar media outlet for small indie developers, the android market.
1)Review:
XBLIG
XBLIG has a very strict review system, if the game crashes, has restricted content, etc, it can be failed. The review process is done by other App Hub community members, if a game gets a flag for a fail, then someone else has to confirm it (I think someone on the Microsoft staff, could be wrong.) And if it fails, the game is pulled, you must correct the error and you can try again in a week. This is actually quite reasonable and it might even be necessary as if you're going to put out a game that crashes every 10 minutes, then no one will buy your game. However, some of the fail-able items are ridiculous. For instance, I mentioned earlier that if the user pulls their Memory Unit out of the system while selecting it at the same time and it crashes, you get a fail, so instead of just ignoring it, Microsoft would rather cater to moronic users that would do something so stupid (though, it's only the developers that ever do that).
Android
If no one complains directly to Google, Google doesn't care whats in your game, even if it violates any rules. This leaves it up to the developer to ensure a good quality product that doesn't crash.
2)Memberships
XBLIG
99 bucks for a year, not bad, but if you don't have it, you can't test on the XBox. This has to do with Microsoft taking ridiculous measures to ensure people don't give out their XNA creations for free. This has made development on this game extremely difficult as the Programmer has and Xbox, but does not have a membership, and I have a membership but I do not have an Xbox
Android
Free, and you don't need one to test on any device.
3)Sales
XBLIG
If you do not sell 150 games, you do not get anything. This is very easy to do within the first few weeks, but after your game falls off the list and you only get 0 to 2 sales a day, odds are you won't make it. 50 bucks is better than nothing.
If your game is less than 50MBs, you can sell your game for 1USD, 3USD or 5USD/80MSPoints, 240MSPoints or 400MSPoints respectively. If it is over 50MBs, you can sell it for 3USD or 5USD. Your game cannot be more than 150MBs (I think). You cannot opt to sell your game for free at all.
Microsoft takes 30% of whatever you make.
Android
No required amount of sales, whatever money you make you keep.
You can sell your game for whatever you want to sell it for, or you can choose to give it out for free with ads.
If you choose to do adds, Google gives you 100% of what you make. If you chose to do a payment, Google takes 30%. (I think there is a way around that, however).
4)Payments
XBLIG
Microsoft pays "quarterly" they are very vague with when they say you will get paid. They'll say "we'll pay you between July 24th and August 31st, if we don't pay you by the 31st, then you can start asking us where your money is".
Android
Google pays every month, and they pay ON TIME.
Now, obviously the xbox has more processing power, which allows you to create more impressive works than on the andriod, but if you take a look at either markets, the xbox users aren't really stretching their capabilities.
My conclusion is that XBLIG is geared towards small time independents and hobbyists, but there are better markets out there that treat their users with a little more respect. Obviously Xbox has XBLA, which is for the more prominant developers, which is on the level with Steam, PSNetwork and WiiWare, so why they have to over-regulate the XBLIG section while not even bothering to be a little more fair with the way they handle the monetary side of it. About the only redeeming quality about it is that it sounds much better to say "I have a game on the XBox" than it does to say "I made a cell phone game", although, it does sound better than "I made a game on my graphing calculator."
It would be pretty cool to hear this communities thoughts on this, while this is a great avenue for venting, it's always nice to hear other thoughts, and maybe even some thoughts from someone who's had to deal with a similar process.
|
|
No comments have been posted for this post.
|
Is this worth a look? Let others know!  Favourite
|
Advertisement
