XBLC games not "financially viable"

By Robert Purchese Published 24 June, 2009

"Market is too small," says Clover dev.

Clover developer Binary Tweed believes the Xbox Live Community Games market is too small to be "financially viable", and that the service's only use is as an "arena for proving concepts".

"It's a shame to say that Clover has not sold as many copies as we'd hoped for. As it stands, through Community Games alone, we definitely won't recoup costs," Binary Tweed boss Daniel Jones told Digital Spy.

"Frustratingly enough, the critical reception to the game has been good," he added, as if reading Eurogamer's Clover review aloud. "The size of the XBLCG market is prohibitively small to be financially viable, so I can only see it being of use to Binary Tweed as an arena for proving concepts."

The Xbox Live Community Games channel arrived last November as part of the New Xbox Experience. The idea is to let XNA-tooled community developers create games, share them and vote the best examples to the top and to release. The goal was to democratise game development.

But Daniels argues that all this has produced is a glut of Xbox 360 applications, and that people don't head to the channel looking for games at all.

"The problem is that the Community Games market is just too small," said Daniels, "and the people buying titles via the service don't seem at all interested in games.

"In the first week of Clover's release, the top 10 CG titles were made [up] of eight applications, RC-Airsim (which seems to be having a self-fulfilling prophecy at the top) and one edutainment game," Daniels offered.

Clover costs 400 Microsoft Points (GBP 3.40 / EUR 4.80) and is available to download now. You can find out more about making a game for the Community Games Channel on the XNA Creators Club website.

Check out our Xbox Live Community Game roundup to see what the world has been making.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (47) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • lambtron #1 3 years ago

    Well it's still a fledgling service. Also with only word-of-mouth and zero marketing (as far as I'm aware) it's always going to be tough generating sales.

  • Wastelander #2 3 years ago

    Maybe it never sold because no-one knows what the hell 'Clover' is...

  • Psychotext #3 3 years ago

    The whole situation is fairly broken. There's some excellent titles on the service, but the overwhelmingly crap titles have put people off even trying demos.

    Hopefully the user ratings will help. At least people will have an idea of what's worth trying.

  • b00n #4 3 years ago

    The new NXE doesn't do anything to push this part of XBL. It's only normal people don't buy anything if they can't find it on their console and if nobody is reporting on it in the games media.

  • Bigglesworth #5 3 years ago

    Not wishing to turn fantard about this, but I remember reading somewhere a while back that, despite MS's attempts to the contrary, it was actually PSN that was turning out to be the most rewarding path for small developers.

  • kestral #6 3 years ago

    Microsoft has difficulty with creating online stores. They can't get the approach right - not sure why because a well implemented store idea would work alot bettter than the playground approach it currently has.

  • notorious_roy #7 3 years ago

    I really wanted to buy Clover, but since it's not available in Holland I couldn't... They can't complain about sales when not everyone can buy it. F*** that.

  • miiiguel #8 3 years ago

    " I really wanted to buy Clover, but since it's not available in Holland"

    Create an UK account, buy it. It will then be available to all accounts which logs on that 360.

  • Arwin #9 3 years ago

    I can't even find this channel in The Netherlands ... which considering notorious_roy's comments isn't a surprise then. I thought I was a bit thick for a moment last time I checked.

  • Inquisitor #10 3 years ago

    It's full of these strange applications because they're a bit of a novelty that don't exist at all on the 360 outside of the community games. Plus '3D Aquarium screensaver' or 'Massage 360' are much easier for people to understand than 'Clover'. It's not the place many go looking for good games, they expect crap so look for curios.

    I'm guilty of that myself, I've hunted downand played the demos of plenty of weird games on there. An adventure game with no gameplay, a game with no graphics, only sound and a few music creators and screensavers.

    It'll be hard for decent products to get recognition on there. The good games don't get enough exposure, they're hardly reviewed at all on most sites. Microsoft need to allow developers to 'gift' games to reviewers, at the moment if you want to review a game on there you have to buy it. They need a better system of community ratings too, plus maybe something like a ratio of people who played the demo to bought the full game.

  • Psychotext #11 3 years ago

    Oh, and I pimp this site a lot... but it really is the best place for seeing what's worth playing out of the community games: http://xblcg.info/games/

  • Darren #12 3 years ago

    I've never downloaded a single XBLC game mainly because the picture icons for the games look so uninspiring that I'm put off even trying the demo. I know it's a poor excuse but from what I've heard from friends and reading forums there is an awful lot of sub-par shovelware on there.

    I personally feel that XBLA has only come "good" in the last six months or so, prior to that I was very unimpressed with the quality of most of the games I tried. There was the odd gem but the impact was diluted by the sheer amount of dross, mainly naff ancient arcade ports and an excessive of samey puzzle games. Now though I'm finding myself buying more and more games especially with the likes of Wallace & Gromit, Sam & Max, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, OutRun Online Arcade, The Maw and so on. All of those meet the standards I expect from a boxed release so I'm more than happy to buy them. Can't wait to play the Secret of Monkey Island redux either. Good times. :)

    Is there any quality control at all with XBLC games or does anything get published?

  • Bigglesworth #13 3 years ago

    I really wanted to buy Clover,

    I felt the same, but then I tried it and realised I preferred Utterly Butterly after all.

  • Monkey_Puncher #14 3 years ago

    Community games is really a novelty right now. I don't think it's gonna ever be a viable platform for real developers as there's always going to be so much shovelware on the system made by one guy in his spare time, the real games are always going to get lost in the pack.

    Also it's sad to say it, but the lack of achievements is another thing that will put people off buying.

  • Xerx3s #15 3 years ago

    Aren't about to enlarge the country pool with the european countries?

    Also, I reckon that the rating system will help a lot.

    That said, we have set our target for xbla with xblcg as backup. Money is definitely an issue for us as we had to put our game in the fridge and start working on something smaller because of it. Still great fun but far from ideal.

  • miiiguel #16 3 years ago

    Agreed. I think the system suffers from being "too free". Too much crap, which shouldn't be allowed in. Feels like the "internet".

    Still, I've bought several, good titles. Groov is realy relaxing (can't figure out if the guy's a good musician or programer).
    Edited by 2 at 24/06/09 @ 15:31

  • GreyBeard #17 3 years ago

    The fundamental issue is the signal-to-noise ratio. The major failing of all online distribution systems is that with basically unlimited shelf-life the more titles there are on offer, the more effort it takes for would-be buyers to zero-in on the best products.

  • cyacomini #18 3 years ago

    Since when have 'bedroom coders' had to be financially viable?

    I thought the whole point of community games was that they were cheap and had no baring on development houses.

    Edited by 1 at 24/06/09 @ 16:07

  • Spekingur #19 3 years ago

    One thing I like about XBLCG are the screenshots you can view of the game before actually commiting to a download (although I wish there was a streaming preview video as well). This is something that you don't get in XBLA.
    Ratings should help Community Games though.
    I also think that what MS charges for selling them for you can seem pretty silly.

    I would love an XBL web interface on my computer though, being able to view XBLA and XBLCG in a proper store website, buying them and then have them available for download next time I sign in onto XBL on my X360.

  • smirny #20 3 years ago

    @Psychotext not seen that site before, very handy to know!

  • seasidebaz #21 3 years ago

    Not wishing to turn fantard about this, but I remember reading somewhere a while back that, despite MS's attempts to the contrary, it was actually PSN that was turning out to be the most rewarding path for small developers.

    It's a different angle though: a Playstation devkit is quite cheap compared to an Xbox360 one (which is required for a full-blown XBLA game), and as far as I know Sony don't have you jumping through hoops with regard to what you NEED to do in your games to pass certification.

    Back on topic: while XBLC games might not be "financially viable", they're probably still more financially viable than an equivalent XBLA game. And if your game is good enough, that XBLA contract may just come along anyway.

  • Toothball #22 3 years ago

    Oh yeah, I was going to check that one out but forgot about it.

  • captain_luggage #23 3 years ago

    Devkits for either machine are comparable in price. And yes, Sony has you jumping through as many hoops as MS (and Nintendo) for certification.

    Regarding Clover, well... it just wasn't very good. The main character was like something out of South Park and animated awkwardly, the backgrounds were nice but the menus, buttons, popups etc were very very rough. The gameplay and collision were just ropey.

    When someone puts a very good game on the system and complains about lack of income then I sit up. But you have to wonder 'did it not sell because it just wasn't a good game?'

  • lennon #24 3 years ago

    I really liked the look of this one but when I downloaded it all I got was an error message. Now ive been reminded might have to try again.

  • paulf #25 3 years ago

    does anyone else think the price point is wrong for these games, if they were say 1 quid (what ever that is in ms points) they might shift more. There was an interesting article in edge that had sales figures and iirc even the most successful had only shifted around 4k units

  • captain_luggage #26 3 years ago

    The most successful titles made about $30k but I think RC Air Sim has probably beaten that.

    And as for making games for a £1, that'd be okay if the effort needed to develop a game was about the same as putting together a ring tone. You have to ship a lot of volume to make it worthwhile at that price.

  • penhalion #27 3 years ago

    Community games needs marketing. Without it, people are simply ignoring or are actually unaware of what the heck it is. Games like clover, which may be good, lack polish and so people are reluctant to invest time and money into them.

    Hopefully things will change once Microsoft create the new ratings system and make the channels more like an app store than a navigation nightmare.

  • kingdumpalot #28 3 years ago

    I'm still not sure how to get to the community games section on my xbox!

    Also, OF COURSE it's not commercially viable! I thought the whole point was to give individuals a chance to publish their work, rather than businesses trying to make money!

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #29 3 years ago

    It's very annoying when I hear people gripe about not recouping costs via XBLC. If you're incurring any kinds of significant costs then you shouldn't be publishing your game on it. Certainly not yet anyway.

    This is for people who want to make games themselves with the only cost being their time and hardwork.

    I'm sorry, but as with the Weapons of Desctruction guy complaining about how much the wages cost for 2 years of development, if the game has required that much effort then it needs to go the XBLA route. Unless of course, it's not good enough. ;)

    It does need a ratings system certainly, and it would help if more websites reviewed the quality releases every month. Maybe then it would be more viable as a business for a team of programmers who are incurring costs.

  • miiiguel #30 3 years ago

    " I'm still not sure how to get to the community games section on my xbox! "

    It's not available in every Live-enabled country. Can do the "work arround" I posted above, though.

  • frycrayola #31 3 years ago

    It's a shame of XBLC isn't working out for people, because an open platform with a large potential market (i.e. people who actually own a machine) on a console is an attractive proposition. XBLA, PSN and Wii Ware are all well and good but the costs are prohibitive - costs that don't exist in the PC market where indie development is always strong.

    A problem, nice as it is to have for consumers, is that the games are cheap and expected to be cheap. Pick the best titles on the system and if they were developed for the PC, they'd be going for two to three times that price and folk wouldn't bat an eyelid. $19.99 a game is pretty much expected (and the developer will tend to get a larger cut if selling direct). If you could price a game at 2000 MSP on XBLC, you'd struggle for sales.

    Slightly ironic, given that the big releases are traditionally cheaper on PC than console.

  • MARKIV #32 3 years ago

    I have to say after looking at the trailer ( http://ca talog.xna.com/en-GB/GameDetails... ), this game looks hardly mainstream. Come on someone invent a new original idea like the days of days of Donkey Kong, Space Invaders or Pacman!! Easier said than done I know, but the key is, the games don't need to be big, just polished and replayable..

  • WinterSnowblind #33 3 years ago

    Well I think the problem is simply that nobody really knows anything about any of the games on there.. The only one that ever got any real amount of hype was Dishwasher, which became a full XBLA game because of that. Beyond that, I've not heard of any must play titles on the service, and I don't feel like wading through the crap to find something that might be not bad.

    I think it's mainly up to the community to change that, but it would also help if we had some kind of rating and filtering system.

    But even so, I don't think these developers should be expecting their games to make any real money, or anything like that. I was always under the impression that the point of the community games was to get your name and your work out there. I mean, if you can show an employer that you already have an indy game up on Xbox Live, and it's at least made some amount of money or is kind of popular, then that's a huge advantage. But if these guys are only releasing their games on here to try and make money, I think they're being a little niave.

  • seasidebaz #34 3 years ago

    -3 Karma for knowing about programming?

    Comments really is full of 'tards :/

  • SuperBas #35 3 years ago

    I didn't even know it was out. How the hell are we supposed to know when to buy it?

  • Psychotext #36 3 years ago

    @WinterSnowblind: I post mini reviews here and on NeoGAF every month or so. It's just that the gamers are too busy complaining that there's not enough good games to play that they don't have time to look at the good games. :D

  • Ryze #37 3 years ago

    Well... no one knows about your game, number one.

    Number two - there's (still) no voting system on XBL.

    Number three - there's no recommend a friend option on XBL

    Number four - the apps and edutainment titles offer 'something new', as opposed to more of what we get in terms of games that can be found elsewhere on XBL. For example, most games on the service just can't compete with Outrun for 800pts, and Mega Drive games for 400.

    Number five - there's little visibility of the XBLCG service from the 'top' of the NXE interface. you have to hunt for it.

    Normal people aren't even aware that it exists, and I forget about it until I read an article like this. Even so, I've not yet purchased anything from the service, and I'm not spending my points on anything but the best stuff. The 360 simply has TONNES of quality games content, and I don't have time to play everything I've bought so far. This is probably why they should release it on PS3 - their fanboys will appreciate it more.

  • onyxbox #38 3 years ago

    can you make free games for XBLC?

    That might be a way of stimulating some interest in a game you develop, then charge for a followup. Or make it free for a short time, bit like iPhone games.

  • lucky_jim #39 3 years ago

    I've actually bought quite a few Community Games, including Clover. There's some really good stuff there, and most of it is 200 or 400 points: basically what I was paying for Spectrum games from the budget rack at my local newsagents nearly 20 years ago, and a damn sight better value for money in most cases. Easy Golf, Weapon of Choice, Xeno Arena, Carneyvale Showtime and Clover have all taken up far more than (approx) £1.80- £3.80's worth of my time.

    Renaming it Indie Games is a good move ("Community Games" sounds like something that takes place in a village hall), but I think the main problem is that a lot of people are really narrow-minded in their tastes and won't consider anything that isn't in 3d with lots of 'splosions.

    I think someone said in the Community Games thread in the forum that it's a shame your friends can't see what you're playing when it's one of these games, which I have to agree with: I think that'd have a pretty big impact.

  • seasidebaz #40 3 years ago

    I think someone said in the Community Games thread in the forum that it's a shame your friends can't see what you're playing when it's one of these games, which I have to agree with: I think that'd have a pretty big impact.

    They can see, though. Assuming the game's been released and is approved, I think the rich presence info is something like:

    Community Game
    Shawns Cat Simulator
    Score: 23
    Online - Joinable

    [edit: the above taken direct from Shawn Hargreaves' blog]
    Edited by 1 at 25/06/09 @ 09:13

  • TheJuriel #41 3 years ago

    Ngh. Their primitive platformer doesn't sell, big surprise, so the whole service is unsatisfactory?

    Yeah, sure.

  • WinterSnowblind #42 3 years ago

    @Psychotext

    I've been away from this site for a while, but I'll definitely check out those reviews.
    I think giving achievement points is another thing that would help.. but that would probably create the problem of "buy my game for an easy 200 points".

  • Chazmeister #43 3 years ago

    @ TheJuriel

    I totally agree with you there. It all just sounds like sour grapes on their part. Perhaps next time they should try making a game people will want to buy.

    There are some great little games on there and I've bought a few myself. All the game pages feature screen shots and you can trial them all, so it's fairly easy to seperate the wheat from the chaff.

    Johnny Platforms Biscuit Romp is a firm favourite of mine, and Orbyx - Mystic Orbs of Chaos is a very good Peggle clone.

  • sneetch #44 3 years ago

    @seasidebaz
    It's a different angle though: a Playstation devkit is quite cheap compared to an Xbox360 one (which is required for a full-blown XBLA game), and as far as I know Sony don't have you jumping through hoops with regard to what you NEED to do in your games to pass certification.

    I'd read (on the internet so add salt as required) that they were much the same, mind you that was about a year ago. What do they cost?

  • seasidebaz #45 3 years ago

    @sneetch:

    No idea but Sony cut the price by half and I think the actual requirements to be able to buy one in the first place are far more relaxed. I know for Xbox360 development you NEED to be on the registered developer programme to even be allowed to buy the machine in the first place. I too got all my info from the 'net.

  • metalangel #46 3 years ago

    Dock It fucking rocks- it's Flight Control with ships, has more fun and better production values than many XBLA games and yet based on the Hi Score list perhaps 20 people have bought it. Shame. (and while I'm here, why the hell does its hi score list allow multiple entries from the same person?)

  • InternetRed #47 3 years ago

    I thought the whole point of the XBLC was to give wannabie companies a start in the right direction. If people like their games, then they know they have something they can work with, and start turning it into something more commercial, like a PSN/XBLA/WiiWare game.