The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Microsoft allows anyone to make and sell 360 games (XBox Live Community Games)
RainbowDespair
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Here's the news post taken from Major Nelson:
"Microsoft Transforms Community Game Developers Into Entrepreneurs
Xbox 360 creates marketplace for user-generated content with Xbox LIVE Community Games.
SEATTLE - July 22, 2008 - During the keynote address today at the Gamefest 2008 Microsoft Game Technology Conference, Microsoft Corp. revealed that it will allow anyone to turn the hobby of game-making into a full-fledged career. Through what is now officially called "Xbox LIVE Community Games," Microsoft makes its marketplace of millions available to members of the XNA Creators Club to create, sell and share in the profits generated by their unique creations.
Microsoft has already opened up game development to the masses by offering the easy-to-use, affordable XNA Game Studio toolset. With this newly announced business model, Microsoft will have truly democratized game distribution by enabling XNA Creators Club members to participate in the multibillion-dollar-a-year console gaming industry.
Newly appointed to his role as Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business Group Chris Satchell said the business model was designed to create the best possible experience for both consumers and developers. Community games that have been submitted by XNA Creators Club Premium members and have successfully passed a rigorous peer-review system will be added to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog for sale to consumers. Creators will be able to choose from three suggested preset retail price points varying from 200 to 800 Microsoft Points to sell their creations and will receive up to 70 percent of the total revenue generated by their game.
"Not only are we democratizing game development with Xbox LIVE Community Games later this year, but we're creating an opportunity for aspiring developers to start their careers on the world stage," Satchell said. "It is really a win for both developers and consumers because this will no doubt act as an incentive for game creators to continue to develop the best, most innovative games for Xbox 360."
A host of new and creative ideas are already appearing on the Xbox LIVE Community Games beta. When the service launches for consumers this fall, community-created games on Xbox LIVE are expected to double the size of the Xbox 360 video game library, offering some of the most inventive, quirky and unexpected games ever seen on consoles. By the end of 2008, Xbox 360 owners are expected to have access to the largest, most creatively diverse game library across all next-generation platforms, with more than 1,000 titles spanning Community Games, Xbox LIVE Arcade and retail blockbuster titles.
When the bold new Xbox experience, a re-launch of the largest online social network on TV that is fun and approachable, is released late this fall, the Community Games storefront will be an easy-to-use addition to the existing marketplace on Xbox LIVE. The new Community Games channel is currently scheduled to launch in the United States, Canada and select European markets later this year. Other regions will be added over the course of 2009 and beyond. Consumers will also be able to view and rate community games on Xbox.com, watch trailers, and even play a trial of each game before buying it.
"Since first launching XNA Game Studio in 2006, we have been working hard on improving the toolset and building resources for the community, and the response has been amazing. To date, we've had more than 1 million downloads of XNA Game Studio and adoption in more than 700 universities," said Boyd Multerer, general manager of XNA. "For some perspective, the incredible creative community we've unleashed worldwide is more than 25 times the number of professional developers in the industry."
Microsoft also is giving aspiring developers a hand with the second annual Dream-Build-Play game development contest based on XNA Game Studio projects. The competition will yield prizes in excess of $70,000 and an opportunity for one of the winners to sign an Xbox LIVE Arcade publishing contract. Three of last year's top performers and winners, "The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai," "Blazing Birds" and "Yo Ho Kablammo!" from the United States, Canada, Sweden and United Kingdom, respectively, are all slated for release on Xbox LIVE Arcade in the near future. For more details and Dream-Build-Play Official Rules, see http://www.dreambuildplay.com/main/Rules.aspx. For more information on XNA Game Studio, head over to http://creators.xna.com."
So forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time a home console company has allowed any old end user to make and sell games for the system? I must say I'm extremely excited; not only because I have a game idea I'd like to try to make, but also to see what cool games others come up with.
"Microsoft Transforms Community Game Developers Into Entrepreneurs
Xbox 360 creates marketplace for user-generated content with Xbox LIVE Community Games.
SEATTLE - July 22, 2008 - During the keynote address today at the Gamefest 2008 Microsoft Game Technology Conference, Microsoft Corp. revealed that it will allow anyone to turn the hobby of game-making into a full-fledged career. Through what is now officially called "Xbox LIVE Community Games," Microsoft makes its marketplace of millions available to members of the XNA Creators Club to create, sell and share in the profits generated by their unique creations.
Microsoft has already opened up game development to the masses by offering the easy-to-use, affordable XNA Game Studio toolset. With this newly announced business model, Microsoft will have truly democratized game distribution by enabling XNA Creators Club members to participate in the multibillion-dollar-a-year console gaming industry.
Newly appointed to his role as Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business Group Chris Satchell said the business model was designed to create the best possible experience for both consumers and developers. Community games that have been submitted by XNA Creators Club Premium members and have successfully passed a rigorous peer-review system will be added to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog for sale to consumers. Creators will be able to choose from three suggested preset retail price points varying from 200 to 800 Microsoft Points to sell their creations and will receive up to 70 percent of the total revenue generated by their game.
"Not only are we democratizing game development with Xbox LIVE Community Games later this year, but we're creating an opportunity for aspiring developers to start their careers on the world stage," Satchell said. "It is really a win for both developers and consumers because this will no doubt act as an incentive for game creators to continue to develop the best, most innovative games for Xbox 360."
A host of new and creative ideas are already appearing on the Xbox LIVE Community Games beta. When the service launches for consumers this fall, community-created games on Xbox LIVE are expected to double the size of the Xbox 360 video game library, offering some of the most inventive, quirky and unexpected games ever seen on consoles. By the end of 2008, Xbox 360 owners are expected to have access to the largest, most creatively diverse game library across all next-generation platforms, with more than 1,000 titles spanning Community Games, Xbox LIVE Arcade and retail blockbuster titles.
When the bold new Xbox experience, a re-launch of the largest online social network on TV that is fun and approachable, is released late this fall, the Community Games storefront will be an easy-to-use addition to the existing marketplace on Xbox LIVE. The new Community Games channel is currently scheduled to launch in the United States, Canada and select European markets later this year. Other regions will be added over the course of 2009 and beyond. Consumers will also be able to view and rate community games on Xbox.com, watch trailers, and even play a trial of each game before buying it.
"Since first launching XNA Game Studio in 2006, we have been working hard on improving the toolset and building resources for the community, and the response has been amazing. To date, we've had more than 1 million downloads of XNA Game Studio and adoption in more than 700 universities," said Boyd Multerer, general manager of XNA. "For some perspective, the incredible creative community we've unleashed worldwide is more than 25 times the number of professional developers in the industry."
Microsoft also is giving aspiring developers a hand with the second annual Dream-Build-Play game development contest based on XNA Game Studio projects. The competition will yield prizes in excess of $70,000 and an opportunity for one of the winners to sign an Xbox LIVE Arcade publishing contract. Three of last year's top performers and winners, "The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai," "Blazing Birds" and "Yo Ho Kablammo!" from the United States, Canada, Sweden and United Kingdom, respectively, are all slated for release on Xbox LIVE Arcade in the near future. For more details and Dream-Build-Play Official Rules, see http://www.dreambuildplay.com/main/Rules.aspx. For more information on XNA Game Studio, head over to http://creators.xna.com."
So forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time a home console company has allowed any old end user to make and sell games for the system? I must say I'm extremely excited; not only because I have a game idea I'd like to try to make, but also to see what cool games others come up with.
RainbowDespair on
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Posts
Yeah, there's a $99/year fee. Still, that's peanuts compared to the thousands of dollars it generally costs to license a game for a system.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
:x
Seriously though, this looks utterly awesome. I fully expect it to be flooded with tech demos and twin-stick shooters, but I also can't wait to find the one or two gems that will come through.
Why do you read things that you know will hurt your mind?
Link me because I'm lazy.
---
I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Nuff said.
I never asked for this!
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3168929
It's dark in there..
Literally.
XNA bought'd.
Now to go make a Hello World program.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
Game cost is determined by game size-- 50mb and below sells for 200funbux, up to 150mb can sell for 400 or 800 (at which point it's your choice).
Your games are peer-reviewed before being allowed on. The XNA forums actually have some clever and talented folks on them, so hopefully they'll cull the herds nicely.
XBL: LiquidSnake2061
Because if so, Holy shit!
No, it's not. The Atari 2600.
Not quite a comparable case. With the Atari they could not stop other companies from reverse engineering their stuff and creating their own dev process.
It was wide open... top anyone with the necessary engineering skills and fabrication facility.
Microsoft supplies XNA, which includes a massive amount of support and documentation, for free. The $100/year creators club applies to XBox games but you can use XNA (which was designed to work with the free to download Visual Studio Express) to develop windows games (including commercial ones) free of charge.
What is especially cool is XNA provides things that are often hard to come by for free in the open source community (like sound libraries) and yet places to asinine GPL or other license requirements on your code.
You write it, you own it. And you decide whether to make it open source or not.
I was looking through the How to _____ section in the Help section and wow, it looks like you can do just about anything that you would find in a commercial game with XNA: Save/Load game files, various 2D & 3D effects, make the controllers vibrate, make networked games, etc, etc.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
The website is here: http://www.dreambuildplay.com/main/default.aspx
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
That's an awesome headsup, much thanks
I'm Jacob Wilson. | facebook | thegreat2nd | [url="aim:goim?screenname=TheGreatSecond&message=Hello+from+the+Penny+Arcade+Forums!"]aim[/url]
I know how to set the resolution (I've got it at 720p right now).
I know how to determine when the player presses a button.
I know how to load a font and display text to the screen.
I made some functions for displaying lines & rectangles (to use in creating text boxes).
I made a function that will crop long bodies of text depending on how big the text will appear on the screen (so that I can fit text to a text box).
Next up, combining these functions into a working text box function that sets the size and location of the box and that has text that fills up the box on multiple lines without exceeding the text box boundaries. Then it's menu function time!
Oh and I will admit that I was seriously surprised that there were no functions for creating simple geometric shapes like lines and rectangles. However, it wasn't too hard to make some with the sprite functions that XNA has. All I had to do was create a 1x1 image with the color I wanted for the rectangle or line, import that image into my program, load it up, and then draw that image to the screen hundreds of times as necessary. And hey, now that it's done, I know how to use basic sprite functions!
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
I would also like to make a game centered around the U.S. Senate, putting you in the shoes of a Senator with specific goals. Do you try to be elected president? Majority Leader? Remain in office forty years? Pass some major legislation? Your goals are up to you, but beware, backdoor dealing and your constituency are a fickle bunch, and will often work against you. Make the time period a hundred years or so into the future to avoid modern day political arguments and you could have a game for all political leanings: "My opponent believes that we shouldn't genetically engineer toast, but I say he is misinformed."
Twitter
So is anyone here besides me planning on entering this contest or make a game for Community Games once it opens? I'm working on a test-based RPG - like a gamebook for the story progression (ala the Choose Your Own Adventure books), but with stats, character development, and combat like an RPG. So far things have been going pretty well: I'm starting to feel pretty comfortable around XNA and C# and I've developed most of the basic functions that I'm going to need like the user interface (finished coding a pretty robust menu system this afternoon) as well as the general structure of the code. I'm on the verge of my project starting to resemble an actual game instead of a tech demo and I'm way excited to start coding the actual gameplay & story stuff.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
Gamers are idiots and make me angry.
Aha, but you yourself are a gamer.
Thus do we see, the source of your anger surely comes from within.
One in particular is an RPG example.
Ahahahahahaha. Freeware, good one Lewie.
It all costs some coin, and that coin is based on the size of your game.
So if any PAer is making a game remember, uncompressed textures and music is your friend!
Edit: Assuming I had already paid the $100 for the XNA dealie
The best thing?
Someone making those comments about it being the same as littlebigplanet has a Penny Arcade avatar.
Nobody said that everyone from PA is smart.
And Lewie, there's nothing stopping you from releasing an XNA game for free. It just sounds like you won't be able to distribute the game over Community Games. You can always just release it on PC for anyone to play, or release it for 360 to anyone who can launch games on their 360 on their own.