Clover dev: Indie Games channel has a long way to go

by Richard Mitchell on Jul 8th 2009 9:27PM

Daniel Jones of Binary Tweed, developer of the Xbox 360 Indie Game Clover, has a few choice things to say about Microsoft's independent games service. Speaking to the UK's X360 Magazine, Jones just doesn't see a big enough audience in Indie Games to justify creating a game for it -- Joystiq readers will recall similar comments after Clover sales failed to set the world on fire.

"We're seeing even the best-selling Indie Games titles sell in the low five-figure numbers," says Jones, laying the blame on "lack of marketing from us developers, Microsoft, and also on the dirge of massage 'games' that dilute the brand's message." (Don't forget fart games!) He notes that the most popular titles on Indie Games are simple applications like music visualizers and digital aquariums, saying, "The marketing message clearly hasn't gotten to the people that want to play games, and so one has to question if there's any point making games for a service that gamers don't buy from."

Jones believes that the upcoming user ratings feature will help "immeasurably," though he adds, "There's still a lot of work to do in educating LIVE users about [what] Indie Games is about."

We're inclined to agree that the Indie Games channel needs a lot of work, especially if Microsoft ever expects it to become more than a Kodu delivery service.

Source

Tags: binary-tweed, clover, community-games, daniel-jones, indie-games, Microsoft, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (47)

indie games as a whole have a long way to go

The massive iPhone dev community would disagree.

Maybe someone needs to make a good game for this service, I have yet to find one.
And maybe it is just me, but I gave "Clover" a try and I thought it sucked immensely.

I dont remember what its name is, but there was a game made by an ex-Insomniac employee that was incredible. I think it was called Weapon of Choice. I'll check my dashboard and get back to you

Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse.

Both obscure, related, and somehow appropriate. We need more indy devs to be that second mouse. Do the kids these days still like the Fatboy Slim with their hippin' and their hoppin'?

Get CarneyVale Showtime, it is hands down the best Community Game released so far. Think of it as a re-imaging of what digital pinball should be, with a ragdoll clown as the silver ball. One of the very few that deserves to be upgraded to a full XBLA title (and why it hasn't been yet is a mystery).

As for Clover, I tried the demo and couldn't imagine why I should continue playing. There was no hook to it. It didn't sell because the demo (and the developer) did not communicate any reasons as to why people should buy it.

A Fading Melody. Also: Swords & Monsters.

All good tips, but we shouldn't have to post back and forth in a Joystiq forum to get an idea of what games are worth trying.

Clover did kind of suck. It had an OK art style and music but it's political overtones were way too obvious and heavy-handed.

You guys should try Groov, it's the only Community game I've bought and it is really cool. Also, only 200 pts.

Clover did suck. Groov is pretty good though. If there were any type of marketing it would be in the "most popular" list instead of remote vibrator apps.

Miner Dig Deep was the killer app that got me into the Indie/Community Games section. It's this odd little game about mining, but it's really a stat- and dialogue-free RPG and sandbox game in disguise. It's also massively addictive, and since the earth's crust is randomly generated each time you start a new game, very replayable.

Why isn't anyone addressing the 1943 issue and instead spewing out this drivel.

Because there are more people that don't care about BF1943 issues than not?

It should be up to the developer to drive this.

MS just provides the services and capability to do this, but like apps on iPhones or Facebook, they won't go anywhere without proper dev-side support.

Clover was a pretty game not a fun one. Make a better game and people will buy it.

why i develop for homebrew ds and for games for windows. the pay at least 200points for a game that is normally terrible doesnt really sell the idea. plus, the lack of achievements really kills it. then again, if there were achievements, how many games would just be, click a button and earn achievements. people did play that avatar and king kong game after all.

The games available don't even measure up against what's available for the iPhone/iPod touch. I bought Clover and it's just ok, don't blame the consumer or Microsoft for the uninspired shovelware that's in the community games section.

Oh...Clover the game. I thought Capcom was restoring Clover studios for a second. Nothing to see here folks.

I know. Dash it all!

i was thinking the same when i clicked

That always happens to me whenever there's a story about this game.

I'm getting tired of hearing from this guy. Stop crying about the Indie Games service just because your crappy no budget game didn't do well.

Clover sold poorly because it was mediocre. I tried the demo when I saw Jones's comments earlier, and I doubt that any marketing could have persuaded me to buy it.

The best part was the comically ham-handed political message. (I recommended the demo to friends for this reason, but I don't think any of them bought it either.) This same small-mindedness seems to have inspired Jones's whine campaign, blaming other people's software for his team's failure. Even this clever strategy to get free advertising probably won't help much, because the product can't stand on its own.

The ratings will help alot.... the biggest problem with the community games is knowing what is good and not. There are actually a few good games on there but its maybe 5 out of the hundreds released so far.

They really should create a weekly video on inside xbox where they give a quick preview of each new game that week on the service. It also would help if they had a set day that all the community games came out that week so people would know to go to the community channel on a certain day like xbla Wednesdays.

No Achievements, No Thanks!

The ratings system will help to a certain degree.. But what really separates Community games from iPhone games are a few things.. 1) dollar games and 2) strong influencers in the media. John Davison of what they play for example is strong influencer. 3) advanced knowledge of games coming out.

Clover wasn't all that great anyway. Why of all devs is this clown so vocal about Xbox Community Games?

Regardless of whether or not Clover is any good (I haven't tried it), the man has a point. Top-selling games selling in the low five-figures on a platform with an audience of 20+ million is beyond abysmal.

There's only so much the developers can do to promote games without investing a lot of money (remember, these are low-budget INDIE games). Microsoft needs to do more with their 30% to promote the platform.

I don't even understand the "pretty" comment(s) since Clover is supremely ugly in my opinion. It's just so generic and lifeless that I almost wish instead for the sorry manga impostors drawn by American 'artists'.

Also, if you haven't played Miner Dig Deep, you can keep mouthing off about there being no quality community games, just know that you're completely and utterly wrong.

main reason the community games do poorly is lack of achievements. I liked weapon of choice but it had no achievements which made it feel lesser than normal a 360 arcade game.

Blarg, me again.

There's this problem: when you make a game, you get this overwhelming sense of accomplishment, like that the world must love and worship and adore you for your excellence and awesomeness. too often in hobbyist game development, the developer loses track of the fact that the game's got to be *fun* and that there is not a 1:1 relationship between work spent on the game and how "good" the game is. I know this from experience, and I've learned from my mistakes.

But there's no reason to blame XBLIG. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if your game is that good, release it on Windows and reap those massive profits. After all, there are way more Windows users than Xbox360 users, right? ;)

Maybe they could make them cheaper. I'd pay .99 to play a crap game like clover any day

Why is Richard Mitchell the one who always hypes the bad games like this one and yet he cuts down possibly good games? Look at his previous blog entries entries, he cuts up Wolfenstein and yet Wolfenstein 3d was the one that created the FPS genre and it was innovative. and he has the gall to cut up Wolfenstein by calling it's story trailer cheesy without playing it. And then he supports and still hypes Clover which is abysmal and beyond cheesy. If you look at the other games he hypes like Pirates Vs. Ninja's Dodgeball, they are horrible. This guy clearly has horrible taste and he has for years. No wonder why he quit running xbox360fanboy.com. He just sucks period!

I was laughing at your comment until I saw your name. Now I don't know what to think.

I hate to sound like an ass but...That Clover guy sure does bitch alot. I buy indie games see: Weapon of Choice and Kodu. These games got little to no promotion here on joystiq until after their release but I bet they made 10x more than Clover. Even though Clover was heavily promoted here and on other sites people just don't like it including myself. If you want a game or app to sell well it has to be something good. Well that or a massage app lol.

Kodu was made by a team within Microsoft, so even though it's on the Community/Indie channel, hard to claim it is an "indie" game. And it has made news on Joystiq before, both as Kodu and it's original name Boku. Kodu has also received plenty of press across a variety of outlets. It's an experiment for Microsoft at this point and I'm not sure that it's even meant to be profitable. At only five bucks, I think they are just researching the potential of user created games.

I don't disagree with your point, just felt the need to clarify about Kodu.

...is there a reason you're capitalizing every instance of "indie games?"

Microsoft is in the process of changing the name of the Community Games channel to the Indie Games channel. It's a proper name, not just a description.

For the main part, I think the developers themselves have a long way to go. Most of the games aren't exactly brilliant and yet priced as high as possible. More of them need to learn that if they're game goes up for cheaper, more people are likely to buy it. Spending even 400 points on a game I'm going to play once or twice is unlikely.

I'm also not sure what they're expecting. MS could definitely advertise them more, even adding a rating system would help weed out the crap, but for the most part these are INDY games, I was under the impression it was there in order for small developers to get their foot into the door and help break into the industry.

If you release a small game that manages to sell pretty well on XBL, or even get a decent amount of attention, that's going to look great to a potiential employer. I think these Clover guys are being pretty niave if they were expecting there game to make them a lot of money.

The fact in games are only available in USA and Canada could have something to do with it.

Who cares what Daniel Jones says about indie games, Clover was boring and he's just pissed it didn't sell so it's time to play the blame game.

What people need to remember here is that the Community/Indie channel has only been available for less than year.

There are some good games on there if you just look for them (ratings system will help that)

It would be nice if they were available via the Amazon Marketplace as well.

To evangelize a bit, go here to see mini reviews: http://xnaroundup.com

And here are a couple of games to try out

Unrevolutionary
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/offers/00000000-0000-4000-8000-000058550232?cid=SLink

World Revolution
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/offers/00000000-0000-4000-8000-000058550165?cid=SLink

Maybe if Clover had been a good game this wouldn't be such a problem. I got fed up with it and bored playing the demo.

Maybe if Indie games weren't such pretentious crap and people actually made games that were fun they might get purchased...

I would agree that this guy bitches waaayyyy too much. There have been plenty of other Community Games that did not sell well and those devs haven't complained half as much as this guy. I would also agree that the game isn't anything special. If the game itself was better than maybe it would sell better, what a novel idea!

Try Bennu.

It rules.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/offers/00000001-0000-4000-8000-000058550252

Microsoft can't advertise these games, they're unrated. The entire point of Indie games is to have an outlet to create fast little games and attempt to get attention. No one is making a lot of money off these things. If This developer really wants to make money he can go through the process of getting his game liscensed and rated.

I thought Microsoft said early on that they were taking a hands off approach to Community Games. Did this guy not hear that?

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Clover dev: Indie Games channel has a long way to go

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