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Indie developers cautiously optimistic about self-publishing on Xbox One
Microsoft's reversal of its publishing philosophy for the Xbox One has obvious and wide-reaching implications for the indie development community. While the original plan mandated that developers release games through a third-party publisher or broker a deal with Microsoft itself, indies will now be able to self-publish. Furthermore, retail Xbox One SKUs will function as development units, which historically are more expensive and more difficult to acquire than off-the-shelf models. "Ideally, this news could have been broadcast more proudly and loudly months ago, giving indies more time to prepare strategies for upcoming games," Minicore Studios founder and CEO John Warren told us, "but I suppose they don't owe anyone that courtesy. We know now, so now we can prepare for life with a Microsoft console, which is something I wouldn't have said yesterday." Warren and his team at Minicore are in the process of Kickstarting PC, Mac and Xbox 360 versions of their latest project, Laika Believes: The Sun at Night. "I think releasing on Xbox One without a publisher is a big step forward, of course, but the fact that (eventually) I'll be able to use my retail console as our dev kit is huge," he added. "My secondary (maybe flailing and futile) hope is that the fees for publishing won't be insane. It's one thing to only have to shell out $600 for a dev kit, but quite another if we have to spend another $10k on publishing fees. My hope is they'll be content with 30 percent of revenue and be done with it." Cautious optimism was a consistent theme among most of the indie developers we reached out to, though some had greater reservations over Microsoft's inner machinations than others.
Laika Believes: The Sun at Night takes to Kickstarter, Greenlight
Minicore Studios has started a Kickstarter campaign to fund the completion of its dog-based alternate-history action-platformer Laika Believes: The Sun at Night. The Austin, Texas-housed indie is seeking $100,000 to fuel the completion of the game's art assets, sound production and to facilitate the creation of Mac and Linux versions to accompany the PC version already on Greenlight, and the Xbox 360 version waiting in the wings. Reward tiers, of which there are many, run from as little as $1 for some desktop wallpaper to $10,000 for an Executive Producer credit, in-game robot version of your own real-life dog and a buttload of other stuff, including an adorable plush version of Laika. Stretch goals, if reached, help make PlayStation 3, Vita and Wii U ports possible, in addition to expanding the game's overall amount of content. Until now, Minicore Studios has relied on angel investors to front the bill while it worked on bringing Laika's episodic odyssey to life. "We raised money over a year and a half period and have gone through most of those funds since last May," founder and CEO John Warren told us. Income from Minicore's most recent release, iOS puzzler Tumblewords, also hasn't done much to extend Laika's development budget. "Tumblewords income has been minimal, so that's barely factored into it," Warren said. "It was supposed to buy us some time, but in reality income from Tumblewords has bought us a few days, not a few weeks or months. Which, on a side note, is a shame because it really is a lovely mobile game!"
