Oct 4, 2011

World of Goo

World of Goo developer 2D Boy believes Xbox Live Arcade "peaked" last year (2010) and that "Microsoft is not yet aware of this".

Studio co-founder Ron Carmel surveyed 200 independent game makers, some of which are responsible for significant - but undisclosed - XBLA titles.

He discovered that more developers want to make PSN games now than titles for XBLA. He also found PSN and XBLA seventh and eighth in a list of target platforms for 2011. The most popular was Windows, followed closely by Mac, iOS, Linux, Flash/browser and Android platforms.

Nearly three quarters of the developers surveyed said ease of working with a platform holder was paramount - followed by installed base and platform suitability.

When asked about specific platform holders, the majority deemed Steam, Facebook and Apple "very easy" to work with. Sony's PSN majority, like Google's Android, was "so-so". Most people found WiiWare "difficult", whereas Microsoft's XBLA was "excruciating".

"Given that ease of working with the platform owner was voted the most important factor in choice of platforms, it becomes perfectly clear why XBLA, despite being a very strong channel with a large audience and huge earning potential, is dropping in popularity among these developers," observed Carmel.

"But if things keep going the way they are, and XBLA keeps losing talented developers, I believe the diversity of games available on XBLA will diminish, quality will suffer, and revenue numbers will drop as players start to move away from an unremarkable portfolio of games. We will see a lot more 'genrefication' and big publisher franchises."

"XBLA is no longer the king it used to be. Microsoft is no longer in a position to demand exclusivity now that PSN has more developers and is growing."

Ron Carmel, co-founder, 2D Boy

"Once players start to leave in large numbers it will be too late to turn things around," he added. "Given that it takes at least a year or two to make an XBLA game, no developer would want to start working on one knowing that XBLA is declining in popularity and could be significantly weaker by the time the game is ready.

Carmel believes full-scale gamer "migration" away from XBLA is "a few years away", which allows "more than enough time for XBLA to change course".

To this end, Carmel shared "10 Things Microsoft Can Do To Improve XBLA".

Create a fair contract that doesn't require negotiation. "It's the most exploitative, one-sided distribution contract I've seen. We each waste months of our time and Microsoft's time negotiating the same stuff out of the contract, over, and over again."
Solve the content discovery problem. "The platform owner needs to make it super easy for their users to buy software."
Stop requiring independent developers to publish through MGS. "Every other distribution channel allows independent developers to self publish, without a producer, and I see no evidence that having a producer on a game makes it better."
Drop the TCRs, make updating easy. "TCRs add months to a game's development time that could be better used polishing the game."
Get rid of the exclusivity requirement for independent developers. "XBLA is no longer the king it used to be. Microsoft is no longer in a position to demand exclusivity now that PSN has more developers and is growing."
Drop the greenlight process and open up development to everyone. "Players judge the quality of a platform by the quality and quantity of the best games available on it, not by the average quality of all games."
Make every console a dev kit. "It may require a lot of work, but there is nothing stopping Microsoft from doing this as well. This is actually one of the reasons Microsoft is the console maker best-poised to undergo this transformation."
Automate everything. "With the App Store, everything is automated and a developer can release a game without ever talking to a human."
Drop the ESRB in favor of a self administered rating system. "It takes weeks, and thousands of dollars, to get a game rated by all the domestic and international ratings agencies needed to launch a game globally. The ESRB in particular is a nightmare to deal with."
Make avatar related requirements optional. "I don't know a single developer who wants to make toys for avatars. It's not fun and it inflates the game's budget."

"XBLA played a pivotal role in the popularisation of independent games," concluded Carmel, name-checking N+, Castle Crashers, Braid, Limbo and Super Meat Boy.

"Microsoft proved that indie games can be million sellers on consoles, and then sat on its laurels for half a decade as more nimble and innovative companies like Valve and Apple took the lead.

"I would love to see Microsoft rise to the challenge of adapting to new digital distribution landscapes," he wrote. "More healthy platforms means more interesting, creative games that push the limits of our medium."

Video: World of Goo.

Sep 9, 2011

Pinball FX dev stands up for Microsoft

Braid

Pinball FX developer Zen Studios has jumped to Microsoft's defence after Super Meat Boy maker Team Meat savaged the Xbox 360 manufacturer.

In a podcast published on Gamasutra, Team Meat recounted its difficult experience with Microsoft and doubted it would ever work with the company again.

Zen Studios, however, feels the Microsoft bashing isn't fair, and told Eurogamer not all developers feel the same way about the company.

"They [Team Meat] totally have the right to talk about it," Mel Kirk, Zen Studios Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations told Eurogamer this morning. "It's terrible they had a bad experience like that. Where we're coming from is, when is enough enough? Let it go already.

"There are good things happening there and we're a company willing to stand up and stick by Microsoft. They were a great partner for us. They've done wonderful things with helping us with Pinball FX 2. If we can just get a message out there that we're willing to stick up for them, that's really what I'm trying to do."

A Twitter row of sorts erupted after Kirk sent press an email questioning Team Meat's motivation for speaking out about its experience with Microsoft. Braid developer Jonathan Blow waded in, telling Zen Studios directly: "trying to discredit Team Meat's negative experience is not cool."

Kirk rejected this accusation, however. "I'm really not trying to discredit their experience," he said. "The email left our press box without the 'not for publish' on it. It was meant to get inbound requests to do controlled interviews and control the message. Obviously this turned into something totally different. I'm not trying to discredit it. I'm just trying to put it in perspective. I'm not saying they're lying. I'm not trying to say they're making it up."

Zen Studios' experience with the Microsoft Game Studios' published Pinball FX paints a different picture.

"It's not evidence of a trend," Kirk continued. "I'm at liberty to speak for [Gunstringer developer] Twisted Pixel. They absolutely had the same type of experience as us and have a great working relationship with Microsoft. They would totally second our sentiments and echo what we have to say. There are a bunch of other studios as well. We've maybe broken the ice here. Hopefully there will be others.

"There are a few companies that had a bad time, and then there are a whole bunch of us over here who are having a great time and will continue working with Microsoft."

Kirk concluded: "Game politics are notoriously messy. We're a very negative industry at times towards each other. I don't want to be negative to Team Meat. I don't want to belittle their experience. I just want to simply say, Zen Studios has had a very good experience with Xbox Live Arcade, with our producers, with our team there. We're grateful for that experience. We feel like we owe it to them to stand up and just say, hey, we had a good time with you."

Video:

Jul 22, 2011

This week’s best free PC games

Super Meat Boy

In this week's collection of free PC games, we explain how you can play Super Meat Boy for free! Well, sort of - and in a way that's well worth checking out. Elsewhere, we've got snakes, robots, werewolves and disgusting, lazy students. Computer games are awesome...

Line Bender

Increpare. Play it on the website.

The latest title from renowned indie studio Increpare is Line Bender - a small but smart twist on Snake. You know, that game you played on your enormous Nokia brick phone ten or eleven years ago. Yes, it's still going strong.

The idea here is that the middle section of the play area makes your 'snake' skip across to the other half of the screen. It's a wormhole, if you like - a big, blank space in the centre where nothing can exist.

It's a minor twist, certainly, but it completely transforms the way you play, as you learn to re-evaluate the game space. The simple presentation could have done to be spruced up a bit, being a straight-forward black-and-white job, but it at least allows you to focus entirely on the game's smart hook.

MFA Prep Course

John Bruneau, Marek Kapolka. Play it on the LudoGenesis website.

A very strange 'game', MFA Prep Course plonks you into the lazy boots of a filthy student. You're sitting at your desk. You should be doing work. However, because you're a student, you're looking for any possible reason to procrastinate.

You can drink coffee. You can spark up a cigarette. You can play with your phone a little. But that's it. Alongside the blocky, MS Paint-style visuals, it should be a recipe for disaster.

It's interesting, though, because of the control input. In order to perform these mundane actions, you've to control each of your protagonist's hands separately. One hand's mouse-controlled, the other keyboard-controlled, and it's surprisingly taxing to try to manipulate each limb in the manner in which it needs to be manipulated. It's a game that's worth playing for its form, then, rather than for the extremely limited content.

Super Meat Boy

Terry Cavanagh. Play it on his website.

This is just a quick one, but it's well worth playing. Basically, it's Super Meat Boy remade by VVVVVV developer Terry Cavanagh, vaguely in the visual style of his own brutal platform game.

In a blog post, Cavanagh explains that Team Meat asked him to draw a title screen Easter Egg for last year's famously challenging indie game - which Tyler Wilde very correctly score 90%. In the end, though, he ended up making his own version - and when he came across it again recently, he decided to throw it online.

There are only a few levels, and they're relatively easy to navigate. It would be great to see this expanded into a fuller product, though I suspect such a game is unlikely. Nevertheless, the combination of Meat Boy's platforming style and Cavanagh's visual touches make for a really interesting few minutes.

Zombotron

Ant Karlov. Play it on Armor Games.

This is a surprisingly adept side-scrolling shooter, which hopefully won't become lost in the sea of slightly inept side-scrolling shooters that frequently dominate the free PC gaming space. It's another zombie game, but it stands above the rest for its excellent use of physics and distinctive visual style.

It's a sort of hand-drawn, cartoon look, but one with some impressive attention to detail and some often beautiful depth to the images. And some neat physics enable you to take out the zombie hordes in new and interesting ways, mainly involving crushing them with boxes, barrels and suchlike.

If there's a complaint it'll be about the controls, which are a little wayward and floaty in that way that PS3 hit LittleBigPlanet became famous for. Personally, I don't think it's a problem, but you might. Either way, you get to shoot and crush zombies in a very pretty environment. Oh, and you play as a robot, which is awesome.

Where I Go At Night

Pat Kemp. Play it on Pat's website.

Two players. One human, one wolf, both part of the same body. By day the man searches a town for an elixir. By night the wolf takes over and goes on a rampage.

This is a really interesting take on a two-player game, asking players to work against each other in intervals. The daytime player's job is to build barricades to stop his nighttime alter-ago from chomping on the lovely townsfolk, while collecting elixirs to hopefully cure his ailment. Then the nighttime player must tear down those barriers and, y'know, aggressively murder people. During the switchover period it's a frantic fight for those few seconds where both forms are lucid. It's clever stuff.

While the game looks blocky and basic, it still manages to paint quite a lovely picture. People appear to go about their business in town, and the nighttime scenes take on a lovely glow that transcends the pixelated image. Well worth a look.