Thorware.org

Hi Thor!

I'm from Spain, and you?

I've worked in games since I was 16, now I'm 24, and you? . I'm tested XNA for some months and I think that it's difficult programming a game.

How long time you spend on this game? How many hours? I supose it's very hard to do this. I'd like to know if your work are satisfied.

I wish you very luck and grow up your money?

How many units are you selling?

Thanks!!

And congrats for the game!

Hi Naxox,

Wow, all the way from Spain! Greetings from the US. I hope it's not too hard for you to understand the text in the game.

You're right, creating a game is difficult work. I went to school for making games at DigiPen Institute at Technology where I got a 4 year degree in programming: www.digipen.edu. I am 25. If you want to find out more about me, I have a personal web page for hiring purposes: www.ryanthorlakson.com

I worked on this project full time for 7 months. So that's around 6,000 hours. The artist put in 4 months.

It's difficult to write an entire game in XNA, but really it's easier than using other things like C++ and DirectX.

We're very happy with how the game turned out considering it was just two guys!

As far as units sold and profit, we have no idea. We just released the game yesterday! We don't have any information about that yet. But Community Games historically has a relatively low sale rate because Microsoft doesn't promote it much. We are pretty certain we're not going to break even (pay back our living expenses). So don't try this at home!

Thanks for the info!

I think like you, Microsoft can promote their XNA users advertising Community games.

Good luck and I wish you become so popular!

Apparently in the weeks to come Microsoft are going to rebrand the community section and call them 'Indie' games. Hopefully this will lead to greater recognition and trial downloads but to be honest - 95% of the games on the service are homebrew versions of geometry wars (etcetera) or poor 'lifestyle' gimmicks.

Edge wrote a good analysis of the service and anything that I would say would merely be a regurgitation of that - they were spot on.

On another note, they reported some sales figure and even games that have very small downloads can gain £1000 in income and in my opinion that is incredible for a 6 - 12 month labour of love and proving ground to test your game creation skill. Edge also provided the analysis that without the XNA service, indie developers would have to release on PC to an even greater level of obscurity... plus, games that have semi decent sales can garner around £10,000+ in income so I would definitely say try this at home.

-

Word Soup made £15,560 even taking into account a 50% Microsoft cut and Xbox360 Calculator made £110 for a nothing, 'testing the waters game'. A likely outcome would be something like Aarons Ping Pong which recouped £745.45 - give or take 40% and you'l probably have something like this for Lights End. But taking into consideration that Lights End is a unique IP, personally I feel that it deserves better but in reality I think too many people are happy with there COD4's and *insert name here* sequels so as like THOR states, it will most probably not recoup living expenses but in my opinion if your doing something you enjoy and expanding your horizons then it is undoubtedly priceless.

Of course, in the real world in which society is unfortunately based upon money as opposed to happiness or purifying gain, if it was myself I would perhaps hold down a generic part-time job and then work part-time on a project. No doubt difficult but it’s what must be done in this tiny world of money = success filth.

I agree that the quality of the content in the Community games section is questionable, but I have not given up on the service since it was introduced. I still check it periodically, and that's how I found Light's End. I hope that it can do well in the sea of uninspired controller massage and fish tank simulators.

I would like to see Microsoft do more for the indie developers. I think that rebranding the section and adding user feedback is a step in the right direction, but the question of "When?" Comes to mind. I hope that they act soon. I can't complain too much, though, because with the XNA tools and distribution method on the console, they're already doing a lot for people out there.

at 200pts, this game was a steal. hope u guys make a lotta dough!

Ryan, I read you're working in Valve, I'm very happy for that. It seems Light's End haven't downloaded enough to consider the game a success. I may be making a mistake in saying that but that's what I think.

I still thinking Light's End is the best game on Xbox Live Indie Games.

Congratulations!

¡Saludos desde España!