For all those who love and adore Microsoft, MS is offering you the once-of-a-lifetime opportunity: To create your own games, but allow MS to profit handsomely because you use its software tools!
Sarcasm and (possible) groans aside, MS hopes to lure enthusiasts with the "free" software ("XNA Studio Express") to design games they want, eventually hoping they gain such a following as to have their own "gamer" community," with these members creating games for each other (inferring an "on-demand" basis). Of course, with all things Microsoft, there is a catch:
incarnation, games developed using the free tools will be available only to like-minded hobbyists, not the Xbox community as a whole. Those who want to develop games will have to pay a $99 fee to be part of a "Creators' Club," a name that is likely to change. Games developed using XNA Game Studio Express will be playable only by others who are part of the club. |
While these games could be for the Xbox 360, PC or both platforms, Microsoft likely does this with ulterior motives. As previously stated, MS envisions profits from a gamers club. However, MS hopes this gains enough of a following to allow it to publish and sell games online. Not only will it control which games are sold, but also will get a sizable chunk of the revenue for doing the "work" of "selling" the product. Naturally, an immediate reason for this is for MS to preempt the Sony PS3 release, as well as Nintendo's Wii.
At the same time, it asserts the programming community this approach
might establish will eventually separate the wheat from the chaff. This is
obviously intended to save MS money, by having others develop games, shorten
game production turn-around, and is a cleverly-disguised "outsourcing" approach,
where aspiring programmers put their creative efforts into their desired game,
graphics, etc., but of course, MS won't pay them for development, yet MS will
reap the "benefits" from having a "success" it did not create.
This also (if successful to the degree MS would like) would greatly reduce
marketing efforts, due to word-of-mouth and possibly news from other computer
forums. What some might consider as brilliant market strategy,
MS will also introduce these tools to 10 colleges this fall, as part of computer
courses! The bottom line: MS hopes to find "talent" without
traditional recruiting expenses; it hopes online communities will serve as test
and focus groups for culling and creating new games; it envisions big $$$ signs
as part of a clever campaign; and it embraces and promotes this as a "great
opportunity," but mostly as a potentially "great opportunity for it to make
money hand-over-fist through gaming club fees and online sales--all without
assuming the work and the risk itself.
What's your take on this? What's MS's true motivations? Read the full article here.
Source: news.com
