I have been actively reading as much information on XNA as possible. I would like to thank the members of the XNA team who have been providing great information about the tools and framework. I have already posted my thoughts about the fee on David Weller’s blog. I understand completely why the fee is needed for development. However, I do feel that the fee could be adjusted in such a way that the end result would equal more profit for Microsoft and a larger market for the hobbyist game programmer. While browsing David’s blog today I came across this comment to his latest post by Bladestar:
“That should create a dent; I'm not sure if "XNA Creators Club" it's the proper term. Since even people that have no interest or can't develop games; but are ONLY interested on playing games that some of us create will have to pay for it. I will be paying for it myself (since making game is my hobby); but why should my friends be paying if they want to be able to see my creations. This is somewhat disappointing... It sounded so nice when it was presented during Gamefest. So, now it goes down to; in order for a friend of mind to be able to play my non-professional game on their 360; they will have to pay $99 a year. Now we go back to square 1; pretty much the 360 will still be locked to the club mentality. Imagine MySpace will allow people to post their profile for $10 and at the same time in order for you friends to see it they have to pay $10/year to see it; would it be what it is today
I would prefer if the XNA would be "$300"... This is like getting Visual Studio 2005 for free but charging every user $99 a year to be able to display the web pages you create with it. I rather pay for the XNA... anyways forget it... I knew this was too good to be true; after all money talks.”
I agree with Bladestar's post above. I would be willing to pay $300-500 for a license to develop on the X-Box 360 if we could distribute the games closed source and with the annual fees removed. The license system could be designed so that there are different pricing tiers. The developer would have the option to commit the game as commercial or non commercial title.
If the commercial option is chosen, Microsoft would reserve the right to receive a portion of the profits made for each sale. This would allow the developer to at least regain the money spent on the higher price for the commercial developer license over time. With the commercial option, the game would be uploaded to XBLA and current XBLA users would be able to purchase the game through their 360.
Non commercial developers would not have the benefits of uploading their games to XBLA, but instead could still at least copy their game onto a memory card so that they can share it with friends and family. To expose non commercial games with excellent quality, contests could be held. The winner would be uploaded to XBLA as a free download to XBLA subscribers. This would thus help increase the value of the XBLA subscription, and ensure that quality content is provided, while exposing the hobbyist game developer.
So we could maybe classify the tiers as:
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Express Edition ($100, Small fee with non commercial rights, and local copies of binaries only. End users will need to be XBLA subscribers to obtain the XNA framework which will be provided free to subscribers.)
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Standard Edition ($300-500 with commercial rights, however MS makes a percentage off every sale of the title on XBLA)
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Pro Edition (Non hobbyist, Reserved for major game studios.)
*** The Windows Express Edition would remain free, allowing hobbyists to decide if they are willing to fork out the money on 360 Development.
As stated in the title of this post, it’s just my 2 cents and feelings towards the pricing issues. No matter what, I will still be developing with XNA Framework on the Windows platform for the foreseeable future largely due to the benefits it provides. Whether or not I port to the 360 will be largely based on if I feel I will be getting my moneys worth. Nothings set in stone yet, so I’ll do my part as a community member and make suggestions. 
- Bill
My 2 Cents on pricing...
LuckyL
Another section of live created called live developer community,
everyone has access to this, no fees to submit a game to it you would
have to get the source code tested by microsoft then once approved the
game would be available to everyone on live.
A download/rating system is set up so that the cool games get recognition,
the popular games would get known, users vote after they have downloaded and played the game.
The games that are very popular getting recognition from the community microsoft could contact the developer and do a deal for the next version of the game to appear on marketplace.
If you want a youtube for games you cant charge / restrict access to the content.
DaveSmith
VikasAgr
Patience! The MS folks, including Dave, have said that they'll be fixing the distribution system. It's not a permanent condition.
i agree, though, that MS should be considering ways to partner with the shining stars of its Game Club to figure out a way to make some mutual money. The sense i get from nearly all of the people on this board is that money is the prime motivator.
1. Let's face it - we all want to see our games on the 360.
2. Once that thrill wears off, we want to share our games with our friends.
3. And then once a bunch of our friends all give great feedback on our game, we want to share that game with the world and, naturally, be compensated for it. There's no shame in that.
Microsoft has already addressed these first two points. They've been suspiciously evasive about the third point, repeatedly stating that the club is for "hobbyists and small fish ONLY. There's NO chance of seeing your stuff for sale on Live Arcade, so stop crying and deal with it. Also, this is not an actual quote from Microsoft."
Golly - my sneaking suspicion is that MS does have plans for its little amateur community. i would guess that it relates to Sony and Nintendo's concurrent strategies to offer their own XBLA-type services; there will eventually be a battle for content, with different gaming companies making exclusive deals and the Big Three vying to snap up the best classic games for their systems. (IMO XBox has already had a very disappointing year on Live Arcade until this summer's weekly Wednesday release blitz.)
i can totally forsee an event such as what one poster described on Dave's blog: once you have all these minions developing content for the 360, and right in the middle of Sony and Nintendo beating their chests about all the great 20-year-old content they're offering, you open the Game Express floodgates and your service is suddenly filled with original, exciting and NEW content developed for your system - content that probably comes to you on the cheap (unlike Contra and Wonder Boy in Monster Land) because these semi-pro developers are so hungry to see their content offered to the world. Then you drop trow and poo all over your competition.
- MrSock
roychoo
I understand completely that Microsoft can't put itself in a situation where it allows just anyone to publish on XBLA, but I hope they take into account market realities when the final system they do set up takes shape.
Let's say I'm a smallish indie developer looking to develop for XNA and I plan to sell my game, which, as has already been stated, I can do with the Windows version. If I'm selling the Windows version, clearly I'm not going to want to make the Xbox 360 version available for free to all, thereby potentially killing my own market. So if I intend to make money on my game and Microsoft hasn't shown enough interest for the full XBLA treatment, there is no incentive to make the 360 version available to anyone. Given this, I hope that at the very least, Microsoft enables some way to allow the developer themselves to selectively publish 360 versions to specific people (in executable form and without them having to be 'creators'). If this were the case, I could make getting the 360 version a registration incentive for people paying for the Windows version, which would then make the 360 version have some financial sense.
ahmedilyas
Nazgul4
MS game certification for 360 games is a pretty sizeable undertaking. There's no benefit for MS to certify indie games at this point. I can see MS picking up the cream of the crop indie games for inclusion in Live Arcade or such however. Even without this, I can see community sites spring up that allow people to rate the games. I'm thinking about setting one up in fact.