Braid Creator Damns, Then Praises, XBLA Experience
In an interview with Gamasutra, Jonathan Blow goes over some of the issues he had with Microsoft in bringing his award-winning independent game Braid over to XBLA. His main criticism? Too many damn requirements.
They removed some of the requirements for XBLA games, but there are still a lot of requirements, and I believe that, at least for a single-player game like my game, the vast majority of these requirements are unnecessary. ...I put in a tremendous amount of work meeting all these requirements, when I could have put that work into the actual game, and made it even a little more polished, little bit better.
He doesn't specifically mention which part (or parts) of the certification process gave him trouble, but hinted that for small development teams, the time spent jumping hoops could negatively impact the quality of the game.
He also discusses problems with the business side of the service, and suggests that the changes that Microsoft has made to the publishing agreement would have made profits from the game unlikely. Braid was signed to the service a year ago, under the old publishing contract. As it stands, it sounds as though he has no plans to develop another game for the system.
Although dealing with the company wasn't always hugs and puppies, Blow emphasizes that "for the most part working with Microsoft has been great." In particular, he emphasizes that they were extremely supportive of his vision.
They didn't try to dictate the game design, as many publishers might -- they were very hands-off there, and what is in the final game is exactly what I wanted to put there.They also bent a lot of XBLA rules, in order to help me make the game the way I wanted, which was pretty cool of them. [The way the game starts by putting the player directly into the action is] technically illegal if you go by the book, but they saw what I was trying to do and went with it.
Blow: 'Unnecessary' XBLA Hurdles Hurt Game Quality
Dawdle
Posted to Video Games on 9 August 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: braid, independent, interview, jonathan blow, microsoft, xbla, xbox 360
XBLA is such a pain. I'd happily pay $15 for this game if there weren't a 10-dollar mandatory loan to Microsoft included in the deal. This should be on PSN, where money can be exchanged for such things as goods and services.
I feel compelled to insert a comment on any post here about Braid that YOU SHOULD BUY IT if you care about games as a medium for ideas and new experiences.
Andy B: Are you talking about having to purchase 2,000 points? Why not just buy 1,000 and then 500? Then you're only loaning Microsoft $3.75. (p.s. I'm totally with you in concept, though. The point system is a gross, blatant scam to squeeze more money out of consumers.)