I’ll admit, I’m finding some of the reactions to the announcement of the XBox 360 community games stats more than a little befuddling. I can’t help but feel that perhaps the problem isn’t necessarily one of low sales but more of high expectations, something that even when setting up xnPlay I can’t say I had for the service.

Sure, I was aware that it was going to do fairly well, and indeed it has done so, but I could never manage to get into the headspace that induces gold rush fever in people. Perhaps somewhere down the line, partially the blame lies with Microsoft. After all, being the gatekeepers of the service they’re responsible for managing expectations and it’s not in their interest to play down the value of the community games. It’s hardly likely that a company reliant on bringing indie developers onto the 360 are going to turn round and say “well, y’know, develop for us but don’t expect your pockets to be spilling over with gold from our virtual monies purchases”.

Even if MS did come out and say something along those lines, it’ll only take one person to look at the iTunes App Store and get a stiffy at the thought of reproducing the success of a minority of apps/games on the service before others start following suit. As a race, we’re not exactly the most sensible thinking things that walk this Earth, especially when you start to include the pursuit of money into an equation.

The announced sales figures so far were (with a few scant and noble exceptions – people, buy Duotrix) pretty much what I expected to see. I’m not going to claim I had the foresight to make approximate numerical predictions within 2 digits or the like, but they certainly didn’t raise an eyebrow from me when glancing down the list.

None of this really boggles me. What boggles me is the amount of people queuing up decrying Microsoft for failing to deliver the required sales*. This is usually coupled with suggestions for dashboard improvements to stick these games right in peoples faces. Where this idea falls down, really, is that it’s a technical solution. The problem itself is a social one. It’s still going to be there even if Microsoft implement every single request that the community games developers want.

There’s no denying that the NXE and it’s handling of community games could be improved. The time to populate the games list is horrendous, the visibility of titles is poor and even with the leaps and bounds from the old blades interface, there’s still not nearly enough information available on titles. With the rate of releases on the CC being what it is, it’d test the average person to try them all. These are, without a shadow of a doubt, things that Microsoft can improve upon.

There’s still one major problem which is out of Microsofts hands.

Community Games are a niche within a niche within a niche.

In January 2009, there was an install base of somewhere in the region of 28 million. In February 2009, according to press releases, Xbox Live connected 17 million of the 28 million to each other. You can see where this is heading already can’t you? The last report I read (which admittedly is quite old) stated that 70% of the people connected to Live had downloaded an arcade game from Live. So, we’re knocking this figure down even further as we go. The attach rate was placed at 6/7 games on average. Out of over 150 titles on XBLA, the attach rate is 6 or 7. And that’s considered good.

So, we keep on cutting that number down.

Then we get to community games and well, they’re already a niche unto themselves by their very nature… and it doesn’t take a genius to work out that you haven’t got access to the entire install base of the 360 as a community games developer but not only that, if proper bona fide XBLA developers are losing a massive slice of the market with their fully featured titles, where does that leave things?

Hopefully the answer is “with reasonable expectations”.

If you take into account that there’s a good chance that the 6 or 7 games are truly big hitters, take into account the amount of people who only really turn on Live so that they can scream insults at either their friends or a random during a Halo 3 session and then take into account that you’re not dealing with massive megamoney blockbusters in general on the CC… the sales figures so far make a lot more sense. In fact, they look really rather fucking good all told.

Visibility is, I fear, only a small part of the battle developers on the CC are up against and if folks can learn to manage their expectations and their budgets accordingly, the CC can go to some fantastic places. In fact, I feel confident in saying that it already is. There may be some guff there, but there’s some very special stuff too.

Expecting Microsoft to pull the sales fairy out of its arse isn’t going to happen though, even if all the NXE issues are addressed. Developers are going to have to start grasping the fact that MS are distributors and it’s in the communities hands to raise their own profiles if they really want to clutch at mega bucks.

This is going to take work. Work creating things people want to buy and work putting themselves, their name and their game out there. It’s going to take a lot more work than a few dashboard adjustments, that’s for sure.

*required sales may vary depending on developer, levels of sanity and ability to understand words of more than one silly bull.

One of the surefire ways to indie success is to engage with your readership. If you’re not already blogging then perhaps now is the time. A blog invites readers to become a part of the process, to feel like they’re friends with the development team. Whilst it can, in a minority of cases lead to disappointment when your title is released, the sales from your regular readership will invariably eclipse the naysayers by an estimated ration of 78:1.

Because we believe in practicing what we preach, when we received a correspondence from a reader calling himself The Codex, rather than communicate directly with him, we’re making him a part of the conversation. A public engagement with our readership at large.

It’s important to share knowledge with not just one person but as many people as possible. Which is why you, readers, can read our communication with The Codex too. We want our knowledge to be public, we want you to be as much a success as we are. Why talk to 1 person when you could talk to 1,000? Why engage in private communication when the world at large could benefit from being a part of that communication?

Continue reading to be a part of the discussion.

I have heard about people who put “torrents” in games. Somehow this turns your game into an email attachment and then other people can play it without paying you for it. How do I find out if someone has put a torrent in my game, and if so, remove it?

It’s worth noting that torrents are estimated to have caused a hole in the economy of approximately 400 billion dollars in lost revenue to indie developers alone. In order to understand how that money is lost, you first need to understand how a torrent works.

A torrent is a file used by pirates. Pirates make a living from exploiting the intelligent property of indie developers. Each pirate is capable of creating 4,000 torrents an hour according to statistics from the World Torrent Organisation. Having created the torrents they then flood the internet via a series of slave computers called Bots, each of the 4,000 torrents can contain one or more independent games in a file as little as 1kb in size. Think about that for a minute. 4,000 torrents, 1kb in size. The sheer breadth of the damage a torrent can do is unbelievable.

Sadly, there’s no organisation in place to help an indie developer stop the tide. The only way to counter the effect is to begin to produce torrents of other independent titles yourself. Play them at their own game. If you pirate more than the pirates then eventually the pirates will be forced out of the market. From this moment on, it’s plain sailing as you simply cease to provide the torrent files any further. You’ll have effectively destroyed the market in no time whatsoever.

Someone going by the name “DarkeDraegonRazour191″ posted a “walk-thru” for my previous game. This contains intellectual property from my game and I would like to know how much I can sue this person for. I have also sent a C&D letter demanding that the “walk-thru” be taken down, that the person’s actual identity be revealed, and that he or she be legally banned from playing video games for five years.

One of the biggest problems an independent developer will face in the industry is the unauthorised use of his intelligent properties. In a recently published survey, it was revealed that the general public believe walk thrus to be “a good thing”. Unfortunately for the developer, there is currently little to no recourse under international law to remove walk thrus from the internet. They currently exist in a legal grey area with no test cases for the developer to fall back on.

The only true solution is for independent game developers to join together as a coalition. With the weight of numbers behind them and a large amount of pooled funds, it should be possible to lobby local law enforcement and change the existing laws. Creating a stigma around walk-thrus will work in the short term, but in the long term a more proactive approach is needed to eliminate the blight.

Where can I obtain a list of the ten best-selling games? I need to focus our development team on the easiest titles to emulate from that list, ideally coming as close as possible to the current best-seller with only cosmetic changes.

Probably the best long term business plan an independent developer can undertake is to research and clone market leaders. Due to the competitive nature of the business, a top ten is only available to subscribers of this website. You can subscribe for $75 a month or at the reduced rate of $200 for a six month subscription.

Lastly, as a secondary revenue stream, I have recently discovered that there are numerous “freeware” games out there, some of quite good quality. (I discovered this when, in my capacity as CEO, I exhausted all the play options in Minesweeper and was forced to look elsewhere for diversion.) I would like to compile these freeware games onto CDs and sell them. Can you provide a list of sites from which these games can easily be harvested?

Freeware game authors are the underclass of the independent development scene. It’s important to note that despite having some great ideas they are incapable of producing an appropriately polished game for a retail market and a game with an inate financial value will always trump freeware development.

Rather than collect freeware games, we recommend collecting a CD of games that would normally cost a minimum of $10 a piece. If you collect 10 of these games and apply an RRP of around $19 then the consumer receives a drastic saving and is more likely to purchase your CD.

Remember: VFM=Happy Smiles. Happy Smiles=Repeat Customers. With 20 minutes of effort, you can multiply any outlay you make 100 times over and reach profit in no time at all.

The Codex, we hope this answers your questions in a satisfactory manner and wish you a safe and prosperous journey into independent development.