What is economic justification for adopting XNA to publish a game?
I have been reading the forum with great interest but I don't believe this question has been posed quite this way. Looking at the historical costs/effort and time-to-market for a typical, worthy game title, are there any preliminary metrics that estimate how much XNA can actually shave off in terms of costs and effort? For instance, let's say a game in the FPS genre takes 2 years for a team of 10 talented developers to create (just a wild guess). Take that same team but use XNA how long would it take, feature for feature - what would the range be, e.g. reduced time by 50%, 75%? What would be the distribution of cost savings be in each phase of the game life cycle - design, develop, test, ship? Would a title be easier to publish and market by virtue of using XNA?
I have already had a strong interest in graphics, mathematics, artificial intelligence and cinematography (i.e. so I've got some skillz) but I've never ventured into gaming development since I knew you really had to be a pro to do it right - I mean eat, breathe, and sleep the code to write the engine and everything else. It would seem XNA is intended to lower the barrier to entry to allow new players in the gaming market to have a set of tools and processes to get their idea into some light and maybe generate some buzz by having a platform and community to do it in. I am considering developing some titles with a group of friends who are not professional game developers but we certainly have the skills to give this a decent go (that's not to say we won't learn any new lessons particuarly on the creative side of things).
So, beyond the technicalities, assume XNA gives you shorter time-to-market with reduced costs. Will you still have other barriers and criteria that would neutralize any benefit XNA provides? What really makes a game viable on both Windows and XBox 360 (Live) platforms? Will XNA address these challenges thru some built-in checks or prescriptive guidance to ease the process of actually selling the game for bona fide revenue? The bottom-line is will XNA make it easier to realize revenue from a concept made into a game title or does it just make it easier to write a game and share it with others? Will leveraging XNA give you better chance at being accepted into the XBox RDP? Will there be any intrinsic guidance in XNA that will be geared to easing the acceptance into RDP by virtue of the process and tools used to manufacture the game?
These are many questions I know but if there was ever a time to begin seriously contemplating a business venture in game publishing I believe now is the best time ever. Microsoft and XNA Team are to be lauded for their efforts to turn this industry into one that is more accessible to those who have an interest but have limited resources with which to pursue a viable business model for publishing games on Windows and XBox 360 (Live). I guess my only concern is building up a solid foundation upon which to gain positive visibility in the gaming space so as to have greater chances at success with minimal costs. However, who ultimately holds the key to selling games on XBox even if XNA is used to rapidly develop games? Will XNA deliver the knowledge, tools, and prescriptive guidance to improve the chances of being accepted as a publishable game on XBox to shorten the time-to-revenue?
Thanks in advance for any insights and information.
[3428 byte] By [
TheGame] at [2007-12-23]
 TheGame wrote: |
| are there any preliminary metrics that estimate how much XNA can actually shave off in terms of costs and effort? For instance, let's say a game in the FPS genre takes 2 years for a team of 10 talented developers to create (just a wild guess). Take that same team but use XNA how long would it take, feature for feature - what would the range be, e.g. reduced time by 50%, 75%? What would be the distribution of cost savings be in each phase of the game life cycle - design, develop, test, ship? |
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Well, since no one has used it yet to actually create a game, I'd say no, there are no metrics, just guesses. 
| TheGame wrote: |
| Would a title be easier to publish and market by virtue of using XNA? |
|
Doubtful. It's already incredibly easy to publish a game now - just stick it up on the web and let people buy and download it. Marketing is a whole other area separate from game development.
| TheGame wrote: |
| I have already had a strong interest in graphics, mathematics, artificial intelligence and cinematography (i.e. so I've got some skillz) but I've never ventured into gaming development since I knew you really had to be a pro to do it right - I mean eat, breathe, and sleep the code to write the engine and everything else. |
|
Actually, you don't have to do this. There are indies that do well doing games on the side. Look at Counter-Strike, for example. It would just take longer to get the game done.
| TheGame wrote: |
| It would seem XNA is intended to lower the barrier to entry to allow new players in the gaming market to have a set of tools and processes to get their idea into some light |
|
Exactly. 
| TheGame wrote: |
| So, beyond the technicalities, assume XNA gives you shorter time-to-market with reduced costs. Will you still have other barriers and criteria that would neutralize any benefit XNA provides? What really makes a game viable on both Windows and XBox 360 (Live) platforms? Will XNA address these challenges thru some built-in checks or prescriptive guidance to ease the process of actually selling the game for bona fide revenue? The bottom-line is will XNA make it easier to realize revenue from a concept made into a game title or does it just make it easier to write a game and share it with others? Will leveraging XNA give you better chance at being accepted into the XBox RDP? Will there be any intrinsic guidance in XNA that will be geared to easing the acceptance into RDP by virtue of the process and tools used to manufacture the game? These are many questions I know but if there was ever a time to begin seriously contemplating a business venture in game publishing I believe now is the best time ever. Microsoft and XNA Team are to be lauded for their efforts to turn this industry into one that is more accessible to those who have an interest but have limited resources with which to pursue a viable business model for publishing games on Windows and XBox 360 (Live). I guess my only concern is building up a solid foundation upon which to gain positive visibility in the gaming space so as to have greater chances at success with minimal costs. However, who ultimately holds the key to selling games on XBox even if XNA is used to rapidly develop games? Will XNA deliver the knowledge, tools, and prescriptive guidance to improve the chances of being accepted as a publishable game on XBox to shorten the time-to-revenue? |
|
My opinion is that XNA will give you a solid framework upon which to create games. Whether or not this actually leads to getting a game published on the 360 is something that we can hope for, but the team at MS cannot release any info on this at this time. I've said before that I can see MS picking up some of the cream of the crop games and giving them a shot. The community is a huge resource for revenue for them and I can't seem them not taking advantage of it. It will probably take some time to get things into place to do so however. Until then, just have fun developing your game.
Sweet, this bodes well for a whole nother generation of game developers, who may not have developed if it isn't for XNA, I wasn't going to do game dev until the XNA announcment, and now if things go well, I plan to make Residual Logic Games a bona fide company. I just gotta say
THANK YOU XNA, YOU ROCK!!!
