Does this mean it's far more likely that indie game developers can get their games in the legit Nintendo game store rather than some relegated "secondary" game store like Xbox did in the past which nobody ever actually goes to and is usually filled with junk (afaik)?
Xbox Live Arcade was absolutely terrible on the 360, akin to Steam Greenlight.
There were one joke games for a dollar, just like Steam has now.
There were overpriced games, bad games, shit games. Stuff that should be shamefully hidden on a hard drive long forgotten.
I am certainly glad about the death of Greenlight, and from what I can tell all the "indie@xbox" hype leading up to the launch of the One has been unfulfilled, with those games seemingly ending up on the PS4 instead.
I suppose whoever sells the most consoles gets to have the most indie titles.
Then again, I don't own either console, so maybe "indie@xbox" is better off than I'm thinking it is.
Nintendo had indie games like Stardew Valley ported over to the Wii U, IIRC, so I expect to see similar footwork done for the Switch.
You're confusing Xbox Live Arcade with Xbox Indie Games. In the 360 days, Live Arcade was the featured store that games like Braid and Geometry Wars were sold on. "Xbox Live Indie Games" was a separate storefront that didn't get the same feature space, and was the free-for-all that you are describing.
There were some good games. For instance, I really enjoyed Arcadecraft [1], a game that had you running an arcade in the 1980s and trying to turn a profit while keeping your machines repaired and up to date.
alright, that's a pretty good concept, I'll give you that.
Of course not everything there was terrible, but the signal to noise ratio was unreasonable IMO, similar to how Greenlight has flooded Steam's new releases with mobile ports and other undesirable software of questionable quality and price.
Don't shit on the indies. Everyone has to start somewhere and most of the time it's a student producing something with programmer graphics.
The only difference between Stardew Valley and something that languishes in Steam Greenlight is the years of constant effort and feedback to produce something of quality.
I didn't mean to shit on them with such a wide log of shit, so to speak.
I love indie games, but I think services like Greenlight have been long since abandoned by anyone who cares and have been overrun by pay-for-vote services, shovelware and pre-packaged asset packs being sold as a completed, original title.
Luckily it's being killed off, after 800 votes on Greenlight I did nothing to stem the tide of crapware flooding the platform. With over 40% of Steam's titles added in the past year alone, there is clearly a problem with lowering the barrier of entry to game development and publishing so far down that games become mix-and-match premade assets, teenager developed memegames, etc. Is it really "starting somewhere" if you're running a legal scam to make a quick buck?
I did mix up the two storefronts, Xbox Live Arcade had some awesome indie titles like Geometry Wars, etc. It was the other one that was basically a dumping ground.
>most of the time it's a student producing something with programmer graphics.
this is fine by me, but don't you think something like that should be shamefully hidden away, part of a portfolio, or better suited as a free browser game? Or even a PWYW title on Itch.io.
Surely they don't need to be on Steam of all places.
Pixel Dungeon was an excellent mobile port of an excellent mobile game, was priced fairly and is right at home on Steam. On the other hand, several mobile titles are overpriced and poorly ported. I don't think that's what Greenlight was intended to do.
