Pid developer renting XBLA release slot from mystery publisher
Will share profits.
Pid developer Might and Delight is renting a slot on Xbox Live Arcade to sell the game.
Might and Delight, formed by former Grin (Bionic Commando) developers, is able to release its game without a publisher's help on PC and PlayStation 3, but under Microsoft's rules it must seek a publisher if it wants to release Pid on Xbox Live Arcade.
Might and Delight's workaround was, according to the Penny Arcade Report, to rent a slot already secured by a publisher. It's able to do this because publishers sometimes do not use all their allocated XBLA slots, so have taken to seeking revenue from them.
In the case of Pid, Might and Delight is renting a slot from an unnamed publisher and in return will share profits. This fee is on top of the cut, estimated to be 30 per cent, Microsoft takes from all XBLA sales.
Eurogamer investigated what it takes to make an Xbox Live Arcade game in November last year, and discovered a number of hoops Microsoft forces developers to jump through in order to launch games on its digital platform.
