Xbox live community games
The following are notes I made during one of the sessions at Game Connect Asia Pacific 2008.
MS game development for PC Xbox and Zune development. Can develop with only a PC. You use XNA GS 3.0. XNA is a framework for building games. Visual Studio (also free version) used, code in C#. You can make games using free versions of all the required software downloadable from MS.
We’re getting a live demo of building games in Visual Studio. They have templates that let you just build a game. Select template, compile -> game works. Good way to learn how to make games because you can hack the template games. All assets are included, too.
The basic kit is free but you can only build games for Windows. You can buy premium membership and develop for XBox360. You can easily transfer builds from your computer to your XBox over a network cable. Students can get free Xbox-capable kits to test, but can’t publish. Can’t publish from Australia yet either. MS needs to chat with the Classification Board, but are expecting Australia to come online by the end of the year.
Lots of education materials on http://creators.xna.com.
Developers of live community games get a 70/30 split in profits in the developer’s favor.
To submit a game to live community you need premium membership. Not sure how much this costs. When you submit a game you need to self-rate using a form as part of the upload process. You then add a bunch of other data and upload the binary. This can be 150 megs max. You also select a microsoft points price (MS points are like credit on XBox, you can purchase points with a credit card or a store card like an iTunes card).
This raises all kinds of issues about user created content. What about copyright materials in the game – especially if they contain music and graphics? Microsoft says they bear no responsibility – you’re on your own if you upload illegal or prohibited content. A lot of people don’t understand copyright in my experience – I’m expecting this to be a learning experience for many.
When you submit it has to go through a peer review process. This process is about content and legal issues, not about the value if the game. There’s a list of prohibited content and it’s meant to be worldwide, so things in the prohibited list reflect the most stringent standards of the most restricted participating country. Part of this process is identifying copyright materials as well as illegal materials. MS will inform authorities is you try to upload highly illegal stuff.
Games need to be reviewed by eight people. This is currently taking around 10 hours to complete. Games are then quarantined for 48 hours before becoming available to the world. You can release timed trials too, so people can play your game for a short time for free.
Microsoft won’t own IP. You are free to republish your games in other formats.
