Xbox Live Arcade Costs On the Rise
Date: Tuesday, September 19 @ 22:41:19 UTC
Topic: Xbox 360
Jeff Tunnell (GarageGames' co-founder) wrote on his blog, "Creating an XBLA game is taking most studios 6-12 months. Costs are currently ranging from $100,000 to $300,000. ... This will inflate rapidly. [Emphasis Tunnell's]"
While Arcade games are a relatively inexpensive investment, Tunnell implied further that costs will rise, and only serious players need apply. "The industry standard arms race will quickly make the top end $300,000 budget a cheap product. Right now, I wouldn't consider attempting to make an XBLA game with a $100,000 budget. Development kits and Certification (QA testing) would eat up half of that, not leaving much for the actual game development."
Still, compared to a next generation game that costs $10 to $20 million to develop, $300,000 maximum is relative beans.
Tunnell also detailed Microsoft's estimated distribution fees that it charges for making a game available through Xbox Live Arcade. "The publicly available information on this is that the distribution fees for bringing a game to XBLA is 35-70 percent depending upon participation by MS.
News-Source: http://www.next-gen.biz
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