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Microsoft Details XNA Community Games Pricing, Schedule
by Brandon Boyer
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July 22, 2008
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At its ongoing Gamefest conference, Microsoft has detailed its official plans for the forthcoming XNA-based Xbox Live Community Games initiative, saying hobbyist and newcomer developers will be able to sell games on the service for 200 to 800 Microsoft Points and receive 70 percent of the title's revenues.
Microsoft again notes that all games eventually released to the service will be required to first undergo a "rigorous peer-review system" from other XNA Community Club members. Once passed, developers can choose a price level from between 200 to 800 Microsoft Points ($2.50 to $10).
The Xbox Live Community Games initiative will officially launch alongside the majorly redesigned Xbox 360 dashboard update this fall in North America and select European territories, and, says Microsoft, will move to other regions throughout 2009.
Said XNA general manager Boyd Multerer, "Since first launching XNA Game Studio in 2006, we have been working hard on improving the toolset and building resources for the community, and the response has been amazing. To date, we've had more than 1 million downloads of XNA Game Studio and adoption in more than 700 universities. For some perspective, the incredible creative community we've unleashed worldwide is more than 25 times the number of professional developers in the industry."
[UPDATE: An official XNA Creators Club FAQ has explained a plethora of additional details, in particular explaining some further details on pricing as follows:
"Creators will receive 70 percent of the total revenue from their game sales as a baseline. We will additionally invest in and feature a handful of games at a time by promoting them both on the console as well as on Xbox.com. During this promotional period where games are showcased along with a handful of others, we will deduct 10-30 percent promotional fee based on performance in exchange for driving increased exposure and sales."
Also, intriguingly, price appears to be partly based on application size: "Creators can chose to sell their 50 MB games for 200 Microsoft Points, or sell their larger 150 MB games for either 400 or 800 Microsoft Points."]
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Maybe this is a first step towards raising chances for students and independent studios to break into the industry and get a title "published".
The system seems pretty good, but Microsoft seems intent on keeping out anything too adult from it.