Xbox Live Indie Games - Game Development

Game Development

Xbox Live Indie Games are developed under certain distribution restrictions:

• The binary distribution package must be no larger than 500 MB, upgraded from the original 150 MB, as of January 4, 2012.
• The games are priced at 80, 240, or 400 Microsoft Points (approximately US$1, $3, and $5, respectively). Games larger than 150 MB (previously larger than 50 MB) must be priced at least 240 Microsoft Points as of the January 4, 2012 update. Prior to the August 2009 update, the pricing structure was set at 200, 400, or 800 Microsoft Points (approximately US$2.50, $5, and $10, respectively).
• An eight-minute trial period is enforced for Indie Games, after which, if the player has not yet purchased the game, the game will end and inform them they need to purchase the full version to keep playing. The developers have no control over this trial period. This limit was initially four minutes but feedback from players and developers extended the trial period.
• XBLIG titles lack some of the features found in XBLA games. XBLIG games do not have achievements or leaderboards, nor are they listed on a player's "Gamer Card". However, such games can be integrated with other parts of the Xbox Live Experience, including using multiplayer support, game invitations, and game information on friend lists. XNA also includes support for party chat and Xbox Live Avatars.
• XBLIG developers were only allowed to publish up to eight titles, but as of January 4, 2012, the limit has been raised to twenty.

Indie Games are created and added to the Xbox Live service by a four-step process:

• Create – Games are written in C# or Visual Basic .NET using the XNA Game Studio framework, allowing the developers to debug and test their game internally before release. The final code is compiled into a single binary package.
• Submission – The developer uploads their binary to the App Hub website, during which they can specify metadata for the game such as the target region for release, the cost they wish to offer the game, media for the game that can be displayed in the Marketplace screens, and suggested content ratings for the game.
• Playtest – Initially not part of the beta program for Indie Games, the playtest phase allows for developers to allow the game to be played by Premium members of the App Hub for a week, giving them feedback which they can use to revise their submissions prior to the peer review process.
• Peer Review – Indie Games must undergo peer review before they are released to the service. These are performed by other developers on the Indie Games service, who review the game for unacceptable content, game instability, and other factors that would be detrimental for wide release on the service, though these reviewers do not attempt to qualify the quality of the game itself. Reviewers also provided suggested content ratings for the games, similar to the submission phase. Games require multiple trusted reviews before they are released. Rejected games can be resubmitted using feedback provided by the reviewers. When the program moved out of beta phase, which was limited to the United States, and into wide distribution, covering both North America and Western Europe, the peer review process was amended to include additional review for games that support multiple languages.
• Release – Games that pass the Peer Review are released onto the service. Developers receive 70% of sales of the game, with Microsoft retaining the right to an additional 10–30% of the sales if they have decided to market the game further. However, until they have worked out how to factor in the benefits of the marketing efforts, Microsoft has promised to maintain the 70/30 split for all games.

With an August 11, 2009 update to the Xbox Live system, Xbox Live Indie Games supported user ratings, a feature which was also applied to other content in the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Most XBLIG games have been developed by students or hobbyist developers, who have invested a minimal amount of money, including the yearly fee for the App Hub membership, to develop their games. However, at least one game has incurred much larger development costs: Biology Battle by Novaleaf, developed by Novaleaf Software, took eleven months to complete the game with development costs just under $100,000. The game was originally planned as a standard Xbox Live Arcade title, but was rejected by Microsoft about seven months into the project; Novaleaf decided to press forward and release the game as an Indie Game. Another game, Techno Kitten Adventure, was developed by a smaller developer, XMONOX, who then partnered with design studio Elite Gudz to relaunch the game with gameplay improvements and ports to mobile devices.

Recent reviews suggest that, while distributing for XBLIG is relatively easy, games on the platform often make very small earnings, compared to other platforms, prompting many indie developers to move on from the Xbox 360 platform. Zeboyd Games, who developed Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World for XBLIG, ported the games to Microsoft Windows about a year and a half later; within six days of their release on the Steam platform, the Windows-version sales, roughly $100,000, had surpassed the previous year-and-a-half sales from XBLIG.