Xbox Live Indie Games Struggle For Profitability

An article at the Opposable Thumbs blog examines the Xbox Live Indie Games economy, finding that developers are having trouble making enough money to justify continued work with the platform. Quoting: "If you want to publish a console video game, there's no easier route than the Xbox Live Indie Games program. But while it's relatively easy to get your game on the service, it's hard to get it noticed. There's a lot of junk on XBLIG, so much so that a group of developers banded together at the end of last year to promote quality indie titles. There have been success stories—like the recently released FortressCraft, which managed to sell 16,000 units on the day of release—but they're not exactly common. So with virtually no promotion, and with average earnings of just $3,800 per title, why do developers continue to create games for the platform? ...virtually all of the developers we spoke to are considering moving on from the platform. But all seem to view their experience as valuable, which in the end is part of the point of XBLIG: it's a place where virtually anyone can make a game that can be played on a console. Devs just need to know what they're getting into."

Comments

Profitable?

[Chrysocolla]

The whole purpose of the Indie game scene on the Xbox Live marketplace is for aspiring game developers and students to get their games out. I think it's perfect at doing that. If you're a developer and plan to generate large sums of cash, sadly you are deluded and are not seeing the point of the Indie marketplace.

Why? Well there are 2 parts to the picture. 1 is you get your talents known and have proof you can ship a game. 2 there is the Xbox Live Arcade. The XBLA is where you generate profits. Only developers who have proved themselves or already existing developers can create games and sell them. Their goal should be to create XBLA games not XBLIG.

I'd guess I would profit more on ~$10 a download, over $1.

Re:Profitable?

[DMFNR]

Well said. The $3,800 per title average is probably a hell of a lot more than they would be getting through any other release channel, and pretty much the only official outlet for an independent developer to get their game out on a console platform. As you said, it also give them a chance to get their name out there, and just maybe, if they can produce a quality product, generate some sort of buzz around themselves so they can start to make some ACTUAL money with their talents. They still have a hell of a lot better chance of doing it there than they do with a PC game drifting in the gigantic shitstorm that is the Internet.

What's the next obvious article Slashdot? "FOSS Developers Not Raking in Millions, Study Says?"