Xbox Indie Games - Dream-Build-Play 2009 winners! p18

PostRe: Xbox LIVE Indie Games by **Garth** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:05 am

Welcome to Xbox LIVE Indie Games!
Welcome to Xbox LIVE Indie Games! In addition to our name change reflected all around the site, we have several more exciting new features and additions to XNA Creators Club Online to share with you. There’s a lot of new information; please take a moment to become familiar with the new changes to ensure you’re an informed Creator!

New Countries
We have two new additions to our family of Creators – welcome Japan and Germany! Additionally, we have an update for Singapore and Sweden…
* Japanese and German Creators can now submit Indie Games (as of July 23, 2009)
o Japanese-specific forums are now available here on CCO!
* Localized versions of XNA Creators Club Online in Japanese and German.
* Creators can now submit their Indie Games into Japanese, German, Singapore and Swedish Xbox LIVE Marketplaces!
* Note: In Japan the Xbox LIVE Indie Games Marketplace will be available to consumers on August 11, 2009.

Reputation
Ever wonder who’s a seasoned Creator and who’s just dropping by? With our new Reputation system, Creators receive points and levels based on their activity on XNA Creators Club Online. Your profile and reputation may reflect items such as MVP or XNA Team badges, reputation score, and more. Learn more about how you earned and how to keep your Reputation high in this article.

Tokens
Help media outlets help you - Premium Creators now have the ability to give out tokens for their games! Each game title will receive a maximum of 50 tokens, and you decide how to distribute them. Tokens are a great way for media outlets to easily review and potentially increase awareness of your game, and will be available to all creators beginning July 30th on the My Business page.

Servicing Your Game
Today, when a Creator has an update to their game, they notify users via the Xbox.com forums…not anymore! As of August 11, 2009, if Creators have an approved update to their game, customers who’ve already purchased the game will automatically be asked if they want to download the most updated version of that game.
* Submitting XNA Game Studio 3.1 games: Starting today, Creators can submit games updated or created in XNA Game Studio 3.1! Be aware that even after passing Playtest and Peer Review your 3.1 games will not appear on Xbox LIVE Marketplace until the new Xbox LIVE Dashboard launches on August 11, 2009. We will also continue to accept XNA Game Studio 3.0 versions of games until October 22, 2009. After October 22, 2009 if you want to submit or service your Indie Game, you will need to provide XNA Game Studio 3.1 .ccgame files.

Price Changes
Indie Games will have three price points to choose from, to keep them more in-line with other products available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Games can be sold at 80, 240, or 400 Microsoft Points. Only games 50 MB and under can be priced at 80 Microsoft Points. How does this affect currently priced games?
* Games currently at 400 Points: Will retain current price point, but have the option to change to one of the new price points during an update or price change event.
* Games currently at 800 Points: Can remain at 800 points for the life of the game unless an update needs to be submitted, at which time one of the new price points will need to be chosen. The option to price your game at 800 Microsoft Points will remain until October 22, 2009.
* Games currently at 200 Points: Will remain at 200 points until October 22, 2009. At that point, XNA will automatically change these games to 80 Microsoft Points. For price changes, game updates, and new games the 200 price point is no longer available.
* Only Games less than 50MB are eligible to be sold at 80 points.
* Between now and October 22, 2009 a game can be updated as often as the user wants just like they can today (excluding the seven day submission jail)
* As ever, price changes to a game can only be made every 90 days.

Name Change
We began the change from Xbox LIVE Community Games to Xbox LIVE Indie Games with the launch of XNA Game Studio 3.1. Our roll out of this change continues today, in the following places:
* XNA Creators Club Online
* Xbox LIVE Community Games channel now is called Xbox LIVE Indie Games
* Xbox LIVE Indie Games box art both in dash on and Xbox.com Marketplace
The name change to Xbox LIVE Indie Games will be reflected on Xbox.com, the remainder of the console and in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace later this summer!

We hope you enjoy the improvements we’ve made around XNA Creators Club Online and we’re excited to see what you create! As ever, if you have questions – you should visit our forums or email us at creators@microsoft.com.

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/news/newfeatures_s14

PostRe: Xbox LIVE Indie Games by **HSH28** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:34 am

* Games currently at 200 Points: Will remain at 200 points until October 22, 2009. At that point, XNA will automatically change these games to 80 Microsoft Points. For price changes, game updates, and new games the 200 price point is no longer available.
* Only Games less than 50MB are eligible to be sold at 80 points.

How does that work then.

80 points is not much, but would be a price that I would actually pay for some of the stuff on there. Perhaps they should 'give' away the game and sell extra maps etc as a way of revenue building?

Looks like they've looked at the iPhone App Store and noticed the biggest sales are always the 99c buys where people are willing to buy something that seems fun for five minutes when it costs less than a snack.

I'm pretty sure this will actually make me buy a few.

But if only sub 50MB games are eligible to be 80 points, how can they automatically set all 200 point games to 80...or are they all under the limit at the moment anyway?

HSH28 wrote:But if only sub 50MB games are eligible to be 80 points, how can they automatically set all 200 point games to 80...or are they all under the limit at the moment anyway?

Yup, 200 point games have a size limit of 50MB.

I'd definitely be interested in buying a few titles on 'Indy Games' if they're only charging 80 MSPs. It definitely seems like they've taken note of how things are working on the iPhone apps store which is a good thing.

At 80 points there are a few games I'd bite for.

The Japanese games are on the way, first one out now

Crescendo Symphony

http://xboxindies.com/game/nakfiv-R0v

and this game looks like it could be fun

Aesops Garden

If anyone is bothered I may go through some of the games I think are worth at least trialing later in the week.

I agree with the price changes. Instead of pushing the developers to make better games, something nearly impossible to do with the influx of new developers daily, allowing the sub-par games to have low prices is the perfect solution. I will certainly buy more Indie Games (love the name change, too) for 80/240/400 points. I can now buy a lot of games and not feel like I am ripped off, even if the game doesn't meet my expectations. For $1, I can risk it. I am betting this applies to a lot of gamers out there.

Matthew Doucette wrote:I agree with the price changes. Instead of pushing the developers to make better games, something nearly impossible to do with the influx of new developers daily, allowing the sub-par games to have low prices is the perfect solution. I will certainly buy more Indie Games (love the name change, too) for 80/240/400 points. I can now buy a lot of games and not feel like I am ripped off, even if the game doesn't meet my expectations. For $1, I can risk it. I am betting this applies to a lot of gamers out there.

I like the price reductions too, altho we will get even more rubbish which is a shame.

Games I reckon that people should trial from the ones I have played so far.

80pts

Zoomaroom
Bricks4Ever
Beatblox
Penga's Peril (my daughter likes this)

200 pts

Pocoro
Miner Dig Deep
Halfbrick Echoes
Johnnys Platform Biscuit Romp (altho think this would be perfect at 80pts)
Artoon
Pegzo

240

Halfbrick Blastoff
EasyGolf
Hexothermic

400

Biology Battle (grown on me hugely this has, nice pick up and play game)
Blow
Carneyvale Showtime
Trino
Weapon of Choice
Orbyx

I'll leave it there for now as those are games I have played.

This is a link for this years dreamplay entries, look at the videos for Magnetic Mind, looks impressive visually.

http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/31341.aspx

and here is a video for Echoes+ coming soon

I'm not seeing any mention of Ireland getting Indie games in that update.... :fp:

You should email them, Crim. I can't think why they haven't already done it so you should see what they say. Microsoft's European HQ is in Ireland too, which make it even more ridiculous.

The Alchemist Penguin wrote:You should email them, Crim. I can't think why they haven't already done it so you should see what they say. Microsoft's European HQ is in Ireland too, which make it even more ridiculous.

I would if I could find an email address for Indie games, MS never reply to ones sent to their normal customer support.

I think Holland doesn't have the games either Crimson.

qupe wrote:I think Holland doesn't have the games either Crimson.

That's odd as well but not quite as odd as with Ireland, because generally if the UK marketplace has it so does the Irish.

Maybe they just forgot to flip a switch? :lol:

I'm fairly certain Irish people can add games to the service though which is pretty odd.

The Crimson Clown wrote:
The Alchemist Penguin wrote:You should email them, Crim. I can't think why they haven't already done it so you should see what they say. Microsoft's European HQ is in Ireland too, which make it even more ridiculous.

I would if I could find an email address for Indie games, MS never reply to ones sent to their normal customer support.

Try sending an Email to Kotaku or some site like that! They might be able to poke an official response out of them.

The Alchemist Penguin wrote:
The Crimson Clown wrote:
The Alchemist Penguin wrote:You should email them, Crim. I can't think why they haven't already done it so you should see what they say. Microsoft's European HQ is in Ireland too, which make it even more ridiculous.

I would if I could find an email address for Indie games, MS never reply to ones sent to their normal customer support.

Try sending an Email to Kotaku or some site like that! They might be able to poke an official response out of them.

Email sent to Kotaku.

Some of this years Dreambuild 2009 entries - spoilered as a fair few videos

Xbox Indie Games - Dream-Build-Play 2009 winners! p18

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