XBLA “A Slaughterhouse” – Hello Games

Hello Games’ inaugural venture into the digital distribution arena has been a resounding success. Joe Danger, with his audacious stunt antics and engaging gameplay, has not only struck a chord with critics, but ranked up some impressive sales for a PSN-only title.

Speaking at Develop in Brighton today, Hello Games’ Sean Murray has commented on the decision to go PSN-exclusive along with the whole thorny topic of distributing a game without the backing of a publisher.

While extolling the virtues of the self-publishing model along with how the PSN operates in general, Murray was less than complimentary about rival network Xbox Live. He stated:

“XBLA is kind of a slaughterhouse for smaller developers. There are games that do amazingly well, but there’s two titles released every week and a lot of those are falling in that 25,000 or less category.”

Murray quotes some startling XBLA figures, claiming 47% of all XBLA titles sell less than 25,000 copies. Only a select few (17%) sell over 200,000. As stated earlier, Joe Danger managed to crawl back its development cost on its very first day of release, chalking up an impressive 50,000 units downloaded at that day alone.

Murray goes further and describes the self-publishing model as something small companies pretty much have to follow in order to retain creative freedom. Painting a bleak picture of how publishers view small developers, Murray suggests third-party publishers still view indie houses as “the ginger step-child” of the industry.

Comically, the studio lead regaled the crowd with some astonishing stories about pitching Joe Danger to the large distributors. Dealing with monkeys is putting it lightly, with one publisher apparently stating: “Name me one popular game with motorbikes. Can Joe be a monkey? We like monkeys.”

The studio are now moving forward with their next game, while suggesting that doubling the size of the team (from a whole four to an almost mind-boggling eight) could have significant impact on what their next game could be. Murray claims:

“What we could do with eight people could be f***ing amazing”.

Source: Eurogamer