Calling all garage-game developers: How'd you like a piece of the Xbox 360 market?
Small-time gamemakers who create games using Microsoft's XNA development framework and port them to the Xbox 360's community games service will soon be able to sell their creations to other Xbox owners, Microsoft said Tuesday. Speaking Tuesday at the company's GameFest technology conference in Seattle, Microsoft exec Chris Satchell said that games that pass a peer-review process can be sold on the company's Xbox Live Marketplace downloadable game service.
"Not only are we democratizing game development with
Xbox Live Community Games later this year, but we're creating an
opportunity for aspiring developers to start their careers on the world
stage," Satchell said in a statement following his address.
Microsoft said that hobbyist gamemakers would be able to price their creations between 200 and 800 Microsoft Points, from $2.50 to $10. Of that, Satchell said that the creators would receive "up to" 70 percent of the revenue.
A FAQ available on the XNA Creators Club page today clarifies some of the details on the revenue split.
The pricing for a creator's game will be partially determined by the
file size. Games up to 50 MB will be priced at $2.50. Games between 50
and 150 MB can be set at either $5 or $10.
While Microsoft's share of the profits will start at 30 percent across the board,
the company said that it would choose certain community games to
promote via prominent placement on the online service and through ads
on Xbox.com. During the promotional period, Microsoft will take a
"promotional fee" totaling an additional 10 to 30 percent, meaning that
Redmond's share could slide up as high as 60 percent temporarily.
Microsoft said it would send payout checks to developers every quarter.
Developers will not be able to release free games, Microsoft said. All
games on the service must be priced.
Microsoft introduced the XNA Creators Club to the Xbox 360 this year, allowing developers to port their PC games to the console and share them with other users. Wired.com went hands-on with some of the works in progress last month.
Amusingly, one of the questions in the FAQ was taken verbatim from that Wired.com piece:
With Microsoft saying that it will begin to "delist" underperforming games from its flagship Xbox LIVE Arcade download service, what are the guarantees that players' favorite Creators Club games will be allowed to suck up bandwidth on Microsoft's servers?
We currently have no plans to de-list or remove any game successfully approved by the community and listed in our catalog. Inappropriate games can still get removed of course through our abuse reporting mechanisms.
Satchell did not say whether the peer-review process for commercial games would be different than the one for the creations currently online, which can be played freely by anyone who pays the $100-a-year Creators Club fee.
Rival Sony is also expanding into the pay-for-play field for user-generated content. Earlier this week, an executive said that users who create game levels using the upcoming PlayStation 3 software LittleBigPlanet would be able to sell them to other players.
Microsoft said the Community Games channel would launch in the United States, Canada and parts of Europe this fall, and in other territories starting in 2009.
It expects that the launch will fully double the Xbox 360's library of games.
Wired.com will be speaking with Satchell later today to learn more about the service. If you have any questions, the comments thread is open and awaiting your input.
Note: This story was updated from a previous version.
Image: Microsoft
See also:
- Microsoft: XNA Will Help Us Leapfrog The Competition
- Sell Your LittleBigPlanet Levels, Get Money
- Hands-On: User-Gen Xbox Games Rough But Promising
