I am going to revive Nick's old thread and re-ask the same question: What do you think about Xbox LIVE Community Games (XBLCG)? What games do you like? What don't you like? For what it's worth, I am actively involved in developing an XBLCG game. And I plan on making at least a few more no matter the "success".

I can see the appeal in it; after all, it provides an easy means for people to produce games a damned sight quicker than they used to given that XNA covers a lot of the dirty work for you and provides you with a lot of bells and whistles, even though I don't really like XNA myself for varying reasons.

However, I'm not so keen on some of the games appearing on it. My 360 broke and I haven't had it repaired yet, but in my experience a lot of the games were obviously very amateur and basically total pony. There didn't seem to be much in the way of quality control and some of that stuff was absolutely abysmal. That's not to say there aren't any good games, it's just a gem hidden in a sea of turds.

Another deal breaker for me was to have to pay just to test my own code on my own 360. I'm well aware that you can test locally on PC with a USB adapter to hook up a 360 controller as I've done it myself, but I don't have to pay to test Windows Mobile Apps or iPhone apps so why this? I suppose that, in itself, is partly the quality control I'm looking for as only the serious developers will want to pay but even so it's a bit of a liberty considering I'm already paying £40 per year for Xbox LIVE (which, correct me if I'm wrong, you need to be a Gold member of to even use XNACC in the first place - or at least I thought you did).

So, in a nutshell; nice concept, flawed execution with a few creases needing ironed out, namely in quality control.

There is no quality control beyond the absolute minimal no crashing, no illegal content, no copyright infringements, etc. There is room to reject games based on confusion and bad controls, but this hardly ever stops anyone.

Quality control will be solved with ratings, not rejections. Everyone wants it, and as far as I know it's in the makings.

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
...I don't have to pay to test Windows Mobile Apps or iPhone apps so why this?

I believe you *do* have to pay to test iPhone apps on the hardware itself. Only running through the emulator is free. I still haven't figured out how to test multi-touch stuff through the emulator.

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
Another deal breaker for me was to have to pay just to test my own code on my own 360. I'm well aware that you can test locally on PC with a USB adapter to hook up a 360 controller as I've done it myself, but I don't have to pay to test Windows Mobile Apps or iPhone apps so why this? I suppose that, in itself, is partly the quality control I'm looking for as only the serious developers will want to pay but even so it's a bit of a liberty considering I'm already paying £40 per year for Xbox LIVE (which, correct me if I'm wrong, you need to be a Gold member of to even use XNACC in the first place - or at least I thought you did).

Nope, you can use XNACC with a Silver membership.

And you can enter the Dream Build Play 2009 contest, and get a 12-month CC trial membership just for entering. The trial membership is sufficient for deploying to your own Xbox.

Since they've been holding the contest for a few years now, you can pretty much have a continuous trial membership until you're ready to take the plunge and release your work.

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
...I don't have to pay to test Windows Mobile Apps or iPhone apps so why this?

I believe you *do* have to pay to test iPhone apps on the hardware itself.

No, you can create an ad-hoc copy of the game and copy it over to your iPhone/iPod Touch for testing. This is what happened with latest iPhone game I worked on.

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
Another deal breaker for me was to have to pay just to test my own code on my own 360.

I agree with you there. It's backwards. You shoudl pay to list your finished game in the shop, not the other way around. I've posted as much on the XNA forums.

Prior to 3.0 There was nothing else to sell. Just being allowed to get your game running on the xbox at all (for fun), was what the 99$ was for. Things should change a bit now.

Quote: Original post by Obscure

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
...I don't have to pay to test Windows Mobile Apps or iPhone apps so why this?

I believe you *do* have to pay to test iPhone apps on the hardware itself.

No, you can create an ad-hoc copy of the game and copy it over to your iPhone/iPod Touch for testing. This is what happened with latest iPhone game I worked on.

Really? - without paying the $99 enrollment fee? Link please.

I've currently got a game selling on XBLCG. It's called NextWar: The Quest for Earth. (

">Trailer)

My opinion? Don't quit your day job. NextWar (much to my surprise) is selling relatively well compared to a lot of other Community Games. But even so, the money simply isn't there. The game has been on sale for 16 full days so far, and these are my stats to date:

Trial downloads: 11885
Sales: 1891
Conversion Rate: 15.91%
Total revenue (USD): $3203.35

The game is still selling at a healthy rate, but I'd be surprised if I sold over 3000 copies. ~2500 copies is a more realistic estimate as game sales tend to drop off a cliff after some time.

As you can see, it's not nearly enough to fund any sort of professional development. And remember, NextWar is one of the better selling games on the service - it was ranked #2 in XBLCG sales for the week of March 30th and so far has spent the majority of its life in the top 3 of the popularity charts. Word on the grapevine is that an average XBLA game makes ~$300,000 in lifetime revenue. I think XBLCG is fine for hobbyist development and to make a little money on the side, but like I said - don't quit your day job.

Sc4Freak, good job with NextWar: The Quest for Earth!