xBox-live-games-hub
According to a recent post on pocketgamer.biz lot of developers are not very happy with their game sales on windows phone 7. Its not sure what games these devs have released but there seems to be lot of un-happy game developers. Here are a few developers statements
“We had expected more of the platform, to be honest. Our feeling is that WP7 isn’t selling that well, which would explain our lower than expected sales.”
One dev who has an xBox Live game
“We are seeing a conversion rate of 10 percent, and the sales are still far from the numbers we are seeing on iOS,”“I think the fear is that Windows Phone Marketplace is going to end up like the old carrier decks where only the top 10 publishers gain any visibility and, therefore, revenue.”
“There are certainly big risks on iOS and Android, but at least there’s an upside – or the perception of an upside. If there’s an upside on WP7, no one’s talking about it, which means it probably doesn’t exist at this point.”
“I know some developers, after hearing the initial sales numbers, who decided not to jump onto the platform yet, which makes sense,”
We reached out to a few game developers to see what they thought about their sales on Windows Phone 7.
Jeff Weber from Farseer Games, who is the dev behind the amazing Krashlander ( Download )
“Given the early state of the wp7 ecosystem, I was satisfied with my sales”
Elbert Perez from Occasional Gamer, the guy behind so many great free WP7 games like Qudra ( Download ) , Impossible Shoota ( download )
“Not as happy because it is hard to discover free games in the marketplace, not until mango is released”
Now there is no doubt Microsoft is pushing xbox live games to the front, some of these game are great games which is why they end up being xBox live games in the first place. I know there are exceptions ( hello super Monkey ball ), but games like Fable Coin Golf, Harbor Master are excellent games that deserve to be pushed to the front. But is Microsoft’s pushing of xBox Live games hurting the sales of Indie games on Windows Phone 7 ? What do the game developers in here think ?
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{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
Promoting the Live! titles as MS are is certainly hurting the indie games. When I published my game, it did relatively well in comparison to other indie games. It was (and indeed on some markets still is) the leading indie game in its section – but just being the ‘leader of the indie’ titles means that you are still defaulted behind the 50+ live! titles, and of course with every new Live! release – whether its a ‘good’ or ‘poor’ game, it automatically knocks me back a position. Come Christmas and my game will be defaulted so far down the list it wont be worth the time scrolling to it to check the current reviews.
Also, I’m pretty disappointed the default marketplace filter hides all indie games – we are already at the bottom. What difference does it make.
@ Jtanks for sharing your experience, do you believe having an indie games tab along with the xblg titles will help the indie games get noticed ?
Gotta admit, after christmas, sales of TouchMeQuick went through the floor.
I may be able to boast over 33,000 downloads over the first 2 months, but Ive only had about 3,000 since then.
@Cris : that is a massive drop , did your game get featured on the Marketplace during the initial months ?
Brand new platform with fast growing marketplace = irrelevant article. You’re citing < 10 developers with unreasonable expectations.
@adam : Like I said at the start of the article , we dont know what games these devs have released ( and at what price ), the idea behind this post is to get some indie game dev feedback regarding the situation :)
Unreasonable expectations? With the marketplace favoring Xbox live games over Indie games I don’t find these developer’s expectations unreasonable.
Yes, I would say unreasonable expectations as well. This is a brand new system, there are bound to be bugs in the initial release, and microsoft are bound to favour xbox live games. People do have the option to search for the type of app they want and also select categories, Xbox Live, top, new, etc etc. the mango update should sort these issues out, but as I see it, if you make a good game it will get to the top of the ‘top’ list.
Unfortunately, no it will not. A good game can’t overcome all the XBL marketing.
-Jeff
I’m pretty happy with my game Space Tube. It’s my first “big” release so I’ cant compare it but overal responses and also sales are pretty good:-P
@Phippu The game looks nice , its a shame I haven’t come across this game until now, which kinda shows there is a real need to have a indie game tab and perhaps in the related games section after the description , the 4 game logo which is most of the time xblg games ( I have seen Chick,n Vixens come up there as well ) there could be 3 xblg and one indie game.
Hey on a side note… does anyone know why the screen shots are STILL displaying in portrait mode on the desktop? Is this some kind of avant-garde artsy thing that Im just not getting? Seriously? Wouldnt it make sense to be able to see the screenshots the way you would see it on the phone?
Is this the same as the one on Android? I actually bought that app and found it to be a great game. If its the same developer Ill be surely buying it again for WP7.
Is no dev taking the fact that the other Mobile OS have been out longer, and the fact the dev’s have disclosed what applications they have made and the price. there is so many rubbish applications , loads by some Handheld_culter that all do very little, yet there is 12 of them, there some 8*8 jigsaw puzzle and like 10 different applications all do the same things its no wonder dev’s are having a hard time getting there application noticed !
@Matthew Badsey : Games that are for lack of a better word lame will have no chance to get noticed even if the xblg / indie games are promoted equally .. but the issue I would like to get addressed is there are some nice indie games out there that dont get the same attention that some of the less worthy xblg games get.
I have to say that I really only buy Live titles…call me an achievement whore, but I do seem to find that the Live enabled games have more polish. Then again, I haven’t tried a lot of “Indie” games yet.
Consider a Live game to be a big fish in a small pond and an “Indie” game a small fish in a big pond. With the amount of games that come out, I need to look to the Live least to weed out the best games for me.
@ Brian : I am one too, the lure to earn achievement is a strong one :)
I’m very dissapointed with sales of my game on WP7, having had #1 paid app spot for almost 2 weeks I was extremely dissapointed with the download numbers the game was posting, this despite a high conversion rate of 30% from trial to paid.
I am very suspicious of MSs practices. They claim they have XBL titles to seperate quality from crap but my game, along with dozens of other great indie games, are rated consistantly higher by gamers than XBL titles. Our games are the quality ones and we’re being stepped over.
I realy, really wanted to be an exclusive WP7 developer, but if I have to basically get my game in the top 10 paid apps every time so that the cost of the investment I put into the game pays itself off then I’m sorry, unless I have XBL support in my game I’m out.
Microsoft should stop with the XBL nonesense, it’s a failed idea, it’s hurting indie developers and top XBL games don’t even rate that highly. If MS really cares about giving quality titles an extra heads up then maybe they should be actively looking to indie developers to make XBL games. As it stands the easiest way for an indie developer to have their game become XBL is by making their game first for iOS.
I feel for you, Jabberworx. Your game is excellent and the only reason that MS won’t consider it for XBL is because of Angry Birds.
It is MS’s prerogative to protect their XBL title developers. They are guaranteed exposure (given the 1 or 2 title release per week) and they can charge a premium on WP7 as opposed to iOS – and punters will pay for it.
The marketplace definitely needs to be modified to make it easy for users to find indie games. Once Mango is released, and Nokia handsets become available, WP7 will reach a critical mass and I imagine that app purchases will increase at the same time.
The problem is no matter how many people own WP7 devices proper indie devs will still be fighting over scraps compared to XBL titles.
If my app reaches #1 for iPhone that’s it, it’s #1 now and has more exposure than any other game. I am rewarded for the effort I put in.
If my app reaches #1 on WP7 I’m still getting less exposure than XBL games released in the past three to four weeks.
What really irks me is that XBL games are making a tonne of money. Makes sense really, every bloody time you open up the games page you have XBL titles, you have to go out of your way to see indie games. Monkey Balls has made more money than pretty much every indie developers game, and it was just a horrid port from iOS. That about says it all really.
thanks for voicing your opinion here JabberWorxs :)
I got a Windows Phone 7 to play Xbox Live games on a phone. I would imagine that this is fairly common.
I have purchased a grand total of zero indie games. I have played Chickens’N'Vixens – which is an impressive game. But if I’m going to purchase games, I want to earn achievements.
So, going back to the headline. LOL. Of course there are no sales. It is a fledgling OS, with few users and a Marketplace that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to navigate and find what you are looking for. Indie Games should have their own section, separate from XBL, and the popularity leaderboards should be accurate.
As for comments re: Indie games “rate” higher than XBL games. Seriously, most of the ratings for XBL games are put down based on price (because it’s not $1 like on the iPhone). I’m guilty of this too, giving the last two Game Room XBL titles (Centipede & Asteroid) a single star because they are basically crap when up against other titles of similar price. This doesn’t make the games bad, it makes them very poor value (and TBH there are many of these XBL games)
MS needs to improve the layout of the marketplace. Let’s concentrate on that as a core issue and discuss that rather than baseless, anecdotal commentary regarding “my indie game has got a 5 star rating” and compare it to the rating of on XBL game that is $9 (which is almost unprecedented in the mobile segment), then concluding that it must be better.
@barrymoves : The issue is regarding the visibility of the indie games . At least in Mango there will be filters within the subcategories of games and they might get some visibility. A dedicated Indie Tab would be a great addition ( at least in my opinion ) towards this cause
I’m honestly surprised XBL games do so well considering there prices. The harvest is the only XBL tittle I’ve purchused so far that i didn’t fell swindled after playing. To be honest though I’m a little disapointed by both sides game offerings. These are powerful phones and yet no one on either side has really delivered anything that can really even compete with outdated handheld console games. How about making some really epic games the quilty and depth of say pokemon for example. If indie developers want to kick microsoft off the high horse its going have to go for the throat and show gamers and microsoft themselfs what these phones are really capable of.
Remember, most phones are not used for long gaming experiences. I’ve had a few long RPGs for my iPhone, but never got close to finishing them because when I was in a spot to invest time in such a game, I had other options such as a 360/PC etc to spend my time.
Personally, I have had a ton of fun with the XBL games on my phone. Yah, I had Harbour Master and Flight Control on my iPhone, but I bought them again and spent more money for them on my WPhone. I don’t mind though, considering the hours of fun I’ve already had playing them and hunting down the achievements is a mini-game in itself.
Looking at my phone, I have 13 XBL games and 6 Indie games. Haven’t felt disappointed by any or slighted by the higher price of XBL games which are still about as expensive as a latte from Starbucks.
The only reason cell phones aren’t used for long term gameplay is the games. There are many games on portable systems that i play at home even though i can play my 360 instead. Cell phones are currently a bastard step child in the video game community and will continue to be so until all game developers start making games that live up to hardware specs.
I would not cite that as the only reason. For me, the main reasons are battery life and better alternatives. If I want to play a long game, I have a PC and an XBOX 360 for that. I use my phone to play short games that keep me entertained for 15-30 minutes at a time. I do not want to drain my battery away while playing a 2-3 hour game.
Here are some Marketing Ideas for WP7 Indie App & Game Developers: http://www.improvisoft.com/blog/?p=232
My company will soon be releasing our fist game on the WP7 platform. Time will tell, but if the sales are lackluster we will start focusing on other platforms. I have already noticed that MS will not give us the time of day when inquiring about XBL partnerships. I am saddened that Microsoft feels a need to create a major separation between their coveted XBL developers and the indie developers, by only allowing the chosen few to provide Achievements and Leaderboards connected to the XBL profile.
I think they are killing indie apps, just so they could push xbox live games. They are collecting money from indie developers and not pushing their apps. Not saying that all of our apps are the best but how would we really know if we aren’t given a fair shot.
My first WP7 game is going through the certification process.
But, unless sales are just magically magnificent, it will probably be my last on the platform specifically due to the existence of the XBL titles and how they are marketed. Doesnt matter how good the game is, without XBL you are always a second class citizen.
There is XBL and then “Other games” down in the corner. The first time I went to the marketplace I didn’t even realize there WERE “other games”.
I wouldn’t even mind if we had a running shot at XBL integration based on the quality of the game. But its an invitation-only club of big-name developers.
I really prefer developing for WP7 over the other platforms, but ultimately I need a platform that lets me compete head-on with the big dogs.
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