Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Showcase Showdown

Data's still out, but I can get it back, so I'm not as stressed as I was previously. The bit of info I don't have is how much it will cost. Either Free (I like free) or $69.95 worth of over a barrel unpleasantries. In any event, it is there, so I can continue with project stuff. I'll have more as it develops.

Right then, the real news. I've taken the first, tentative steps into getting a booth at PAX in that emails were sent and hopes fostered. Having seen the site I'm seeing a whole lot of giant booths. I can't afford a giant booth. Hell, I get nervous at spending $69.95 to retrieve my own work. Don't believe what people say, there is no money in Video Games. Billion dollar industry? Nonsense.
Either way, I'm hoping that they have some kind of Indie Showcase option available. Comic-Con ( a place I go every year, which shouldn't surprise you given the plethora of nerd-a-riffic references peppered everywhere) has a whole section devoted to Indie Comics. Generally small affairs with a single table and a back drop with some merch spread around and a big sign trying desperately to catch your eye long enough to strike up a conversation. That's really what I want, something modest to get people to see us and maybe remember The Thief's Tale when they see it on XBLCG and maybe Impulse. Recognition, somebody told me once, is half of sales. Besides, as per the point of the project, then we can tell people that we showed at PAX, which is, of course, freakin' sweet.

What? XBLCG? Weren't we over that? Yes, and no. I said that there was no money in XBLCG, so finding somebody to fund our little venture is a bit of a fool's errand. However, the magical "point" I keep talking about, is to show people that we can do it. Even the demos of XBLC Games that people didn't buy were downloaded 7,000+ times. That's quite a thing isn't it? Add to that The Thief's Tale already being, in its unfinished state, better than most of the games on the service and we can probably be one of the best games on the thing. Is there money in that? Nope. Certainly not anything to make a living at. However, building the game at the top of the XBOX indie pile would provide, as Marcus Fenix once said, "Ten Shitloads" of opportunities for my team professionally.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool, hopefully you do get the booth at PAX or Comicon to showcase the game. It is expensive but like you have said it might just help the game stand out(or might not, who knows?).

You were right about that there is no money to be made at XBLCG(if I said that I stand corrected). However, if the game does stand out from the rest on XNA, it could eventually catch attention from others(wishful thinking?). An example of what I believe of what an indie should beware of is what Paleo Entertainment has tried to do:

http://www.paleoent.com/

I do not know how many people work on their team, but they game was released and had received some very iffy reviews, mainly from technical issues. (Why the heck did they choose CryEngine 2?) The alpha version was also released as if it was the final version on Steam. Here is a review:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/967/967245p1.html

Thank you for following my blog, I will try to get some more posts up later.

Eric said...

Hmm, it looks interesting. What I want to know is how the hell did they get a CryEngine 2 license in the first place? Those things are more expensive than gold plated Pandas.
And as much as I would love to trash them, I just can't. Even assuming they have twice the number we do, it's clear that they went out to build something way beyond the scope of their resources. A little buggy is okay. Ambition goes a long way with me.