Robert Boyd, the developer behind hit indie RPGs Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World, says he's made more revenue from the games in a week of Steam sales than in months of Xbox Live Indie Game sales.
Both titles were released last week on Steam as a bundled two-pack which briefly reached the No. 1 sales position on the digital download service, leading Boyd to call the launch a "tremendous success."
On the Zeboyd Games blog, Boyd shared the news that the titles are selling far better on Steam than they did on Xbox Live Indie Games.
"We are pleased to announce that Zeboyd Games has already made more revenue in less than a week on Steam than we have in over a year and a half on the XBox Live Indie Games service," he said.
Breath of Death VII launched on XBLIG last April, with Cthulhu Saves the World hitting the service late last December. Boyd revealed lifetime sales figures for the Xbox versions earlier this month, saying Breath of Death VII has sold 50,000 copies at $1 each, while Cthulhu Saves the World has sold between 16 and 17,000 at $3 each.
Those sales numbers would imply the $3 Steam bundle has brought in over $100,000 in the space of its first six days on sale, representing over 30,000 bundle purchases.
In a Gamasutra blog post last September, Boyd showed XBLIG sales of Breath of Death VII spiking after launch and surrounding media coverage before eventually tapering off to the neighborhood of 100 sales per day.
Hopefully Microsoft takes note of this. I think one of the reasons that the game has done so well on Steam is that it has been prominently visible on the front-page and not segregated off in a corner of the UI. Though I suppose the problems with the Xbox Live UI ruin beyond just the visibility of XBLIG.
There's also the difference in the audiences. Steam gamers probably don't overlap much with Xbox gamers for that genre. I'm not surprised he's sold more on the PC for that type of game.
Steam also does quality control of their games - you need a distribution agreement with them to sell your games on Steam, meaning that 99 cent programmed-in-a-weekend timewasters aren't going to make it on the service. I have a strong feeling that XBLIG would be far more successful if the average game was higher quality.
Actually, it was "I made a game with Zombies in it!" Which was done by a fairly well known developer. It also got a bunch of press because of it's comical song.
I think because Zombies are some of the most terrifying monsters. It treads on both what you know of death and what you know of the people you care about.
A lot of other humanoid monsters act with evil or malice, such as Werewolves and Vampires, or have some element of Humanity, like Frankenstein's monster. You can't romance a rotting corpse.
Though, that's kind of a broad reason. Why in games? That's just whats the current cultural touchstone.
Its also possible because its fun by being more of a call back to older games. More and more modern games are trying to aim for more realism (to a degree). Zombies in games are a remix of the older games we all grew up with. Its you vs an army of weaker enemies, like in Doom, Quake, Double Dragon, ect... Its not about working with the team (AI or whatnot) and having to deal with a storyline smacked together or dealing with a limit of who you can attack/what you have to do. Its just go in and start killing, pure adrenaline. Like you see in L4D2 and the Zombie maps for Call of Duty. And this is what I hear the most about from friends, how far they are able to survive or how much fun the game was, not how great the story was. Maybe its just me though.
In fact, something I have been wondering for some times now is, basically, has the XBLIG really been designed to be a good selling plateform? Or just a toy given to promote the XNA development tool - and eventually promote some talents?
If I had to think about a project on he XBLIG, I would certainly start with the idea that I won't earn money with it. But on the other hand, the community self reviewing system seems to provide enough enough interesting feedback to evaluate the ideas you put on what you can call "a prototype with a little work on art to make it look acceptable".
My point is, since products on this plateform don't have the consistent feature of achievements (that makes a game part of the "real Xbox Games" in the eyes of the mass consumer), and since this plateform is not available in every countries, this service is automatically out of business consideration. But as it is a way to publish faster, and to get playtesting-like feedback, this tool can still be a part of a development process (well, if you don't have any trouble to associate your brand with this service, too).
Seriously. The best selling game for a time was a game called: OMG I PUT ZOMBIES IN MY GAME!!!
*shakes head sadly.*
Outside of L4D series, which I play for coop, I avoid most zombie related entertainment.
Let me ask you. What's the deal with zombies?
A lot of other humanoid monsters act with evil or malice, such as Werewolves and Vampires, or have some element of Humanity, like Frankenstein's monster. You can't romance a rotting corpse.
Though, that's kind of a broad reason. Why in games? That's just whats the current cultural touchstone.
I do still wonder how much of a factor the population of steam has to do with it as well, I expect steam has very many more members than XBL.
XBL indy was something i couldn't find on XBL the last time i logged on and i made an effort to look for it.
It's nice reassuring news.
Though, IIRC, Super Meatboy made more over Steam then XBLA
If I had to think about a project on he XBLIG, I would certainly start with the idea that I won't earn money with it. But on the other hand, the community self reviewing system seems to provide enough enough interesting feedback to evaluate the ideas you put on what you can call "a prototype with a little work on art to make it look acceptable".
My point is, since products on this plateform don't have the consistent feature of achievements (that makes a game part of the "real Xbox Games" in the eyes of the mass consumer), and since this plateform is not available in every countries, this service is automatically out of business consideration. But as it is a way to publish faster, and to get playtesting-like feedback, this tool can still be a part of a development process (well, if you don't have any trouble to associate your brand with this service, too).