Cthulhu Saves the World was kind of a big deal on the Xbox LIVE Indie Games channel. Well, it was supposed to be. Just one week after its recent Steam launch, the game had managed to make more cash than the previous seven months on XBLIG.
Creator Robert Boyd blames the service’s bad reputation.
“XBLIG is a great solution for new developers,” Boyd says. “It’s cheap, easy to learn, and has a great community of people that are willing to help each other,” he tells Edge.
“However, from a perspective of actually making good money, I do not believe it is a viable platform. The greatest strength and greatest weakness of the service is that it’s the most open platform we’ve ever seen on any home console. Just about anyone can release an XBLIG title, and just about anyone does. As a result, the service has got a reputation for being full of garbage.
“XBLIG basically has the low price expectations and flood of product that the Apple App Store has, combined with the low visibility of Nintendo’s digital stores – it’s no wonder most titles sell poorly. Greater visibility for the high-quality titles on the service would be a great help.
“I believe Microsoft always intended for XBLIG to be a stepping stone for new developers: prove yourself on XBLIG and then find real success on XBLA,” he adds. “The problem is that right now it is more of a stepping stone to finding success on other platforms like the PC and mobile markets, and not on the Xbox 360 itself. Microsoft should be doing more towards making Indie Games a scouting ground for future talent.”
Of course, some developers have been lucky. I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 dev Ska Studios pushed over 308 000 sales of its Crimsonland clone, banking a pretty cool $215 000.
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