

Humble indie fumble: an XBLA horror story - seagaia
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/humble-indie-fumble-xbla-horror-story

======
snprbob86
I played an early build of Shuggy nearly four years ago when some of my
colleagues were reviewing Dream Build Play games. Even back then, it was
surprisingly close to a finished game; carrying a coat of polish that was very
rare among the other contest entries. It was far and away my favorite game of
the competition, so it was hard to watch it from a (pretty far) distance while
it struggled to find its way to XBLA. When it finally did land, it didn't make
so much as a peep.

This is a sad story, but let it serve as a warning: Publishers, just like any
party in a business relationship, have their own priorities and motives. You
need to understand those of whoever you enter into business with. And
furthermore, you need to demand final cut for the key parts of your business,
and that includes marketing yourself and your product. If you're not good at
something, don't assume that getting another party to do it for you is a
panacea. You need to become enough of an expert to know when they are doing
you a diservice.

~~~
decadentcactus
Also adds weight to the "Just Ship" mantra. Imagine releasing it 2 years ago,
and using the time since then to promote it, update it, polish it (if XBLA
allows that sort of thing).

~~~
alanfalcon
Or create a second game in that time frame, with lessons learned from the
first.

------
prayag
I read it as a Humble Indie Bundle: an XBLA horror story and thought it was a
story about Humble Indie Bundle. It's not. The story has nothing to do with
Humble Indie Bundle. In fact this story goes on to show the need for something
like Humble Indie bundle for xbox.

~~~
jeff18
My heart skipped a beat when I saw the headline!

------
pestaa
A story worth reading. I'm sad because I'm afraid of being in the same boat
(although I'm just starting out basically). The takeaway from my perspective
is this: pick the platform carefully as it may narrow your space of movement
so much it might just screw things up for you; and secondly, do some marketing
yourself if possible.

    
    
      [column inches, websites] may be easier than ever to do it
      yourself - but that doesn’t guarantee anyone will care.
    
    

Apparently, letting the relevant department do it didn't guarantee anyone
would care. If you're too much into coding, you may forget other aspects of
business. Oh, and things sometimes fall apart even if everything is done the
right way.

------
r0s
I never understood the hope XBLA inspires. The ecosystem is limited and
tightly controlled. Access to the market is entirely at the whim of Microsoft,
who will also be your main competitor.

From the outside it looks like a huge trap for catching cheap IP as it
develops.

------
twidlit
The story is not done, seems it will have a happy ending IF he ports it to
Steam. Whats another 1-2 months doing that and getting some more multiple? But
something tells me the contracts he's done restricts what he can do with the
IP.

------
Hostile
I tried the game and passed on it when it was released. I can't speak for the
general public, but it was not a failure of marketing for me. It just wasn't
enough to get me to spend money on it. It was polished, and not _bad_ ,
just... sort of forgettable and average. It would be a big assumption for me
to assume that my experiences are more consistent with what happened to the
game in reality, but the article doesn't tell us how many trial downloads went
along with the poor sales either.

~~~
pestaa
There is a huge need for polished games under the radar. Even the forgettable
part is forgivable. Polished is above average.

(I don't mean you should have bought the game. All I say is I don't understand
why it didn't generate more sales in the indie community.)

~~~
Hostile
Polish is nice to have, sure, but if nobody wants to actually play the
delivered experience, all the polish in the world won't save it. Nobody should
buy a game just because it's polished. While I'd prefer polish on all my
games, I'll take an unpolished dwarf fortress over a polished forgettable
uncompelling game any day of the week).

As a side note, I'm not sure what rule I've broken to get downvoted. I pointed
out that there could be more to this story, and that we don't have solid data
on how many trial downloads there were (which is a MUCH better indicator than
sales is regarding "marketing" in this case).

For those unfamiliar with XBLA, just about everyone downloads a trial first
(every game on XBLA is required to have a free trial, so you'd have to be
pretty impulsive to skip it completely), and then you can buy the game from
within the trial version's interface.

If the point of the comments here on HN is to add to the discussion, I'm not
really sure what I did to justify a downvote. I'm just getting started
commenting here and don't really have karma to spare. I really try hard to be
a positive member of the site, so If somebody sees this and can point out what
I can avoid doing in the future, that'd be appreciated.

~~~
timknauf
You're doing fine. Just don't panic about downvotes so loudly -- that's one
thing that _is_ considered bad form, if I remember correctly.

------
timknauf
Glasgow may have a self-deprecating culture similar to that here in New
Zealand. We've had to learn the hard way to be -- by our local standards --
incredibly pushy. Hopefully my business partner won't mind me quoting an
article he wrote for Ars Technica [1]:

 _Then come the cultural differences (or perhaps they're just personality
differences.) Whether it’s a New Zealand-wide trait or not, we tend to talk
ourselves, and our products, down. To boast about how great you think you are
seems arrogant and obnoxious, but when you’re trying to get people excited
about your games, underselling it (and yourself) can backfire horribly.

I’ve seen the same confused facial expression from many overseas visitors when
I modestly described my game as “alright." If the creator doesn’t think his
game is totally super awesome, they seem to be thinking, then why on earth
should I check it out? We've had to learn to talk our games up. Even if it
makes you cringe inside, developers have to show others why they're spending
their life making these things!_

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/01/sell-in-america-
live-i...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/01/sell-in-america-live-in-new-
zealand.ars)

------
zokier
Isn't indie game development all about being self-publishing aka independent
aka _indie_?

------
itg
It was difficult reading that article since it had so many grammatical errors,
but worth it.

~~~
timknauf
You must have a keener eye than me: where were these errors?

~~~
itg
I'm not the editor for that site so it's not my job. Not sure why I get
downvoted for pointing out the horrible writing.

~~~
timknauf
Not that I downvoted you, but is it because no-one else is able to spot any
errors?

