In 2011, World of Goo developer 2D Boy said that Xbox LIVE Arcade had “peaked”, with its popularity among developers dropping due to the platform being “excruciating” to develop for. According to Double Fine Boss Tim Schafer, things have not changed.
Speaking to Industry Gamers, Schafer said that there continues to be a migration away from Xbox LIVE Arcade because the service is significantly more complicated to develop for than iOS and Steam
“I was hoping [2D Boy’s blog post] would be a really, really eye-opening article for the console manufacturers… and I feel like it’s been totally dismissed,” Schafer said.
“I really think it’s something they can’t dismiss and they should really pay a lot more attention to because he’s calling attention to a migration, an exodus of real creative talent away from those platforms to more open platforms, and I think they should do something quick to reverse that.
“Can you reverse an exodus? Is there a term for that? A redexus?”
Schafer said it’s important for Xbox LIVE Arcade to heed the warning call because if developers leave the service in droves, so will gamers. He compared Xbox and PlayStation’s services to Steam and iOS, saying that the latter services made it easy to distribute and update games whereas the former were much more difficult to work with.
“I like the Xbox and the PS3. I like Sony and Microsoft, but those systems are closed and curated very closely and it costs a lot more money to go through that system, to patch a game,” he said.
“It makes me stressed out that if I put a game up there, I might not be able to patch it because it might cost too much money, whereas these more open platforms will let us manage our own price and our own updates. It’s just a lot more appealing right now.”
Schafer said that he wants services like Xbox LIVE to succeed because they offer developers and gamers with a fantastic creative outlet, but the service needs to act quick to address the concerns of developers.
“There are good games on both platforms. And that’s the thing, is that I really believe in both those platforms, and I want them to succeed,” Schafer said.
“So when you read an article about that, warning about the migration away from the platform, that’s a shame and we want that not to be the case.”
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