Do You Like The Xbox Live Arcade? Options

[jwin767]

Geo wars, UNO and Marble blast have probs got more3 attention then most my 360 games.

Live arcade was a brill idea

[ch1c0]

Ultra Marble Blast is a great game....worth the $ ... brings back great memories of marble madness =D

[dragon-fli]

I thought is was interesting, for about 5 minutes. Not my type of game - that's how I could not buy it Marble Blast Ultra on the other hand was awesome!

How could you NOT buy Geometry Wars!!!

XBL Arcade is great!!

[BasicAir]

I thought is was interesting, for about 5 minutes. Not my type of game - that's how I could not buy it Marble Blast Ultra on the other hand was awesome!

I agree... For those who didn't notice, this person is stating that Geometry Wars was only interesting for about 5 minutes to them. Some people might not get that by the way the quote is below the post.

Anyway, like I said I agree. I don't know why everyone says Geometry Wars is a must-buy. Nothing is a must-buy because nothing is everyone's "cup of tea" shall we say. I didn't care much at all for Geomotry Wars, either, because it's just not my flavor.

I can still recognize that it's a good game, and I have to admit, all the 2D graphics and particle effects look wonderful in HD, but I've never liked those types of games.

I've bought Guantlet, Smash TV, Marble Blast Ultra (though haven't had an urge to play it since the day after I bought it -- or something like that), Uno, Bejeweled 2... I think that's it. If I could, I'd sell MBU and B2 to some other XBL player for 1/2 their points each, but unfortunately MS won't let us do that.

I understand why they won't, but it sucks. It's for the same reason, really, that no games on the Arcade are free -- it's because the developers of them need money! If I remember correctly, MS charges you/your dev team $10,000 or something to make a game and submit it for their review to be sold on the Live Arcade (an OXM issue maybe 3-6 months ago said the exact figure and $10,000 is what I recall). So obviously, they won't make money if the only copies of their Live Arcade games being sold are used ones.

Peter Moore was asked in a post-E3 interview (the video has been posted by Team-Xbox and such) in some 'snack room' (a very unprofessional area) a ton of questions - one of which was "What if I am done playing one of my Live Arcade games and will never play it again and want to sell it and my rights to it to another person on Live arcade and/or give it to a friend or a family member via Live.... Why can't I do that and will you be looking into that down the road?"

Peter Moore was stunned at the question and after a pretty long pause said that it was a very good question and that it would make sense for us to be able to sell one of the games we've bought off the Live Arcade but unfortunately the logistics and such would make it very complicated and he doesn't foresee us ever being able to do that.

Well I don't know about you guys, but if I can't sell it, I better be able to bring it onto my next Xbox console. I was pissed when I couldn't transfer Xbox Live 1 Arcade games I had bought onto my Xbox 360! I mean, why not?

Oh well... At least I have enough money to where this really isn't an issue for me anyway.

[thax]

I like the expansions. Very cool, and they are immediately available for more gameplay on the games that you like. It is almost like voting with your dollars on what you would like to see more of.

[Math1]

BasicAir -
Where did you get the idea that MS charges developers to do games for Arcade? They don't charge devs to do games, they PAY devs to do games. But they are very choosy about what games they will allow on the system.

I have a buddy doing a game for Arcade and he told me that they do things in different ways, but basically its like any publisher. For games that MS publishes (Uno, Geo Wars, etc...) they pay for the development. If it is from another publisher (like Popcap, for example) that publisher pays for the development.

But MS doesn't charge to put content on the service.

Of course the games aren't free -- they cost money to develop, whether MS is paying or the developer is paying. You need to pay for office space, computers, net access, tools, dev kits, salaries, etc... These games are a LOT cheaper to make than something like Oblivion, but they still get made by people who have bills to pay and noone works as hard as it takes to make a good game for free.

As to not being able to re-sell Arcade titles, why should you be able to? You can't re-sell downloaded music from iTunes, or any downloaded games on the Web. Every single Arcade title has a free trial mode so you don't ever have to buy anything without trying it first. If you try it and don't like it, don't buy.

[twistedsymphony]

They charge for the certification process... basically that is there so random joe's off the street don't submit 100s of random things. So if you submit something you're SERIOUS about it and feel that it has at least the potential to make that much money.

[BasicAir]

BasicAir -
Where did you get the idea that MS charges developers to do games for Arcade? They don't charge devs to do games, they PAY devs to do games. But they are very choosy about what games they will allow on the system.

I have a buddy doing a game for Arcade and he told me that they do things in different ways, but basically its like any publisher. For games that MS publishes (Uno, Geo Wars, etc...) they pay for the development. If it is from another publisher (like Popcap, for example) that publisher pays for the development.

But MS doesn't charge to put content on the service.

Of course the games aren't free -- they cost money to develop, whether MS is paying or the developer is paying. You need to pay for office space, computers, net access, tools, dev kits, salaries, etc... These games are a LOT cheaper to make than something like Oblivion, but they still get made by people who have bills to pay and noone works as hard as it takes to make a good game for free.

As to not being able to re-sell Arcade titles, why should you be able to? You can't re-sell downloaded music from iTunes, or any downloaded games on the Web. Every single Arcade title has a free trial mode so you don't ever have to buy anything without trying it first. If you try it and don't like it, don't buy.

ROFL. As I said in my post, an OXM article from about 3-6 months ago was talking about how for $10,000 you can make your own Live Arcade game. My figure may be wrong as it strictly from memory, but it said any person in the world can make a game for Live Arcade -- All they have to do is pay MS the money for the toolset and what goes along with the process (MS hosting it on their servers, their bandwidth / MS handing the transactions of credit cards / MS certifying the game / Etc.). This is all according to the article, not me.

Basically it was saying to me, the reader, and/or you, the reader that if you want to make a Live Arcade game, you can. Not only that, MS encourages it. However, you do have to come up with a small amount of dough (again I think it was $10,000) to give to the big M$. This doesn't even guarantee that your game will make it on Arcade - this just means they will provide you with the necessary tools, again, according to the article. It's *you* who has to make the game, a good game at that, too, and a secure one -- MS will not certify your Live Arcade title if it's incredibly lame in their eyes (unlike Sony -- the PS1 had over 2,000 titles -- 80% of which weren't even worth looking at for most anyone).

The article talks about how MS encourages this not only so that they can make more money by offering more games in the Live Arcade, but because of one main factor: The high development costs of making a game these days are insane -- millions of dollars, and yet 9 out of every 10 console games released fail to make a profit once everything is said and done -- licenses are paid to the console manufacturer, legal fees, employee wages, marketing, manufacturing, etc). The article discussed how back in the Atari and NES days, if you had a PC and an imagination, you could single-handedly make your own game and MS wants to make this an affordable thing to do again!

So there's your answer.

Sure, YOU get paid if you make a game for Live Arcade and it gets put up -- but you won't get 100% of the profits.

****** On a side note I want to say I don't know why big companies like EA aren't taking better advantage of the new capabilities of live. Madden 2006, for example -- all of the achievment points could be gained within hours. Also, why not come out with a ton more Themes and GamerPictures to sell - No, I'm not saying we need more for every sports team, but EA could easilly do this for any IP (Intellectual Property) they have, such as Medal of Honor. With the new Airborne game coming out for that series, they should already be offering themes and gamerpictures for it - they could make more money I'd imagine by doing it sooner rather than later - especially if a game that has a lot of hype ends up being a boring, dull game. I also hope they REALLY start to take advantage of the Achievments. The best company to take advantage of the Marketplace and Achievments, to this date, imo, is the dev. team behind PGR3 (bizaar or whatever it is, I forget).

[TheIceman72]

I think it is a really cool option. I have picked up several of the games and pulled down a couple demos. After the next update I will be getting more demos.

So far I purchased..

Geometry Wars (hardcore and very hard for me)
Hardwood Spades (very hardcore)
Uno (just loads of fun)
Feeding Frenzy (That fish game, actually pretty difficult)

I am sure I will be getting Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. They could charge $30 bucks for Street Fighter and I would cop that with out a thought!

[ILLusions0fGrander]

havent found any games worth my buck, but i do like the free trials.

give me street fighter or mortal kombat, something worth the over hundred or two spent on the franchise, and i might be willing to dish out another $10 or so for the online capabilities... cant wait to kick some of your asses.

i see the future!
:::eats his own words:::

[edwinmcdunlap]

Unfortunately I don't have an Xbox360 yet, but I've downloaded a few trials from the original Xbox Live Arcade.

[Altima NEO]

Ive only bought GeoWars. Havent really botherd buying anything else. Nothing really tickles my fancy.

[mgamer20o0]

i have downloaded most of the demos and that tieds me over. i guess i am to cheap or something.

[photoman]

only game i have purchsed is Robotron for nostalgia, the first day i had my 360. I had that game back on my Atari 5200 and wore out 4 or 5 controllers playing it all the time. I've nabbed a few trials but haven't purchased any of them.

[exchaos19]

ROFL. As I said in my post, an OXM article from about 3-6 months ago was talking about how for $10,000 you can make your own Live Arcade game. My figure may be wrong as it strictly from memory, but it said any person in the world can make a game for Live Arcade -- All they have to do is pay MS the money for the toolset and what goes along with the process (MS hosting it on their servers, their bandwidth / MS handing the transactions of credit cards / MS certifying the game / Etc.). This is all according to the article, not me.

Basically it was saying to me, the reader, and/or you, the reader that if you want to make a Live Arcade game, you can. Not only that, MS encourages it. However, you do have to come up with a small amount of dough (again I think it was $10,000) to give to the big M$. This doesn't even guarantee that your game will make it on Arcade - this just means they will provide you with the necessary tools, again, according to the article. It's *you* who has to make the game, a good game at that, too, and a secure one -- MS will not certify your Live Arcade title if it's incredibly lame in their eyes (unlike Sony -- the PS1 had over 2,000 titles -- 80% of which weren't even worth looking at for most anyone).

The article talks about how MS encourages this not only so that they can make more money by offering more games in the Live Arcade, but because of one main factor: The high development costs of making a game these days are insane -- millions of dollars, and yet 9 out of every 10 console games released fail to make a profit once everything is said and done -- licenses are paid to the console manufacturer, legal fees, employee wages, marketing, manufacturing, etc). The article discussed how back in the Atari and NES days, if you had a PC and an imagination, you could single-handedly make your own game and MS wants to make this an affordable thing to do again!

So there's your answer.

Sure, YOU get paid if you make a game for Live Arcade and it gets put up -- but you won't get 100% of the profits.

****** On a side note I want to say I don't know why big companies like EA aren't taking better advantage of the new capabilities of live. Madden 2006, for example -- all of the achievment points could be gained within hours. Also, why not come out with a ton more Themes and GamerPictures to sell - No, I'm not saying we need more for every sports team, but EA could easilly do this for any IP (Intellectual Property) they have, such as Medal of Honor. With the new Airborne game coming out for that series, they should already be offering themes and gamerpictures for it - they could make more money I'd imagine by doing it sooner rather than later - especially if a game that has a lot of hype ends up being a boring, dull game. I also hope they REALLY start to take advantage of the Achievments. The best company to take advantage of the Marketplace and Achievments, to this date, imo, is the dev. team behind PGR3 (bizaar or whatever it is, I forget).

do you just not read the front page of xbox-scene? they have a big competition thing going on right now to create your own xbla games. They provide the tools and tutorials and alot of other stuff for free and whoever wins it gets a big entertainment setup or somethin

and xbox live has/had arcade? I never had it so I don't know, I thought it was a xbox 360 thing. Crazy, learn something new everyday