Indie developers have expressed their disappointment over Microsoft’s decision to give Xbox Live Indie Games less exposure on the new Xbox 360 dashboard, with one developer suggesting that the move may force him to stop developing games for the format.
Speaking in the latest issue of EDGE, David Johnston, who developed XBLIG games The Adventures of Shruggy and Growing Pains, said that “there’s a general feeling in the community that Microsoft would rather be finished with Indie Games, and moving the channel deeper into the menu system is their way of doing that without causing too much upset.”
At the time of the interview, Johnston said that he had only managed to sell around 40 copies of his latest release Growing Pains via XBLIG, despite the game receiving a four star rating and ‘some good reviews’.
“I have another game I’ve been working on,” he added, “but I’m honestly wondering if it’s going to be worthwhile completing it.”
Meanwhile, another Indie developer, Robert Boyd, said that his XBLIG revenue had dropped by 70% between October 2011 and November 2011, the period in which the new dashboard was rolled out by Microsoft.
Boyd added that he wasn’t “too worried”, because the firm was making “drastically more money on the PC these days.”
Microsoft’s Indie Games program, previously known as ‘Community Games’, launched on Xbox Live in November 2008. The program lets independent developers upload and sell their own games via the network.
However, the most recent Xbox 360 dashboard update has made the Indie Games channel far more difficult to access, threatening fewer prospective sales for indie developers.
There is one positive note to Indie developers frustrated by the new dashboard though. According to Johnston, “Indie Games do seem to get included as a result of a Bing search, which might bring a bit of traffic in from a different route.”
But frustrated indie developers aren’t Microsoft’s only problem. The new dashboard has faced criticism from consumers angry over its emphasis on advertisements and awkward navigation.
Tags: Xbox 360 Dashboard, Xbox Live
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