Clover and Tank Strike creators say Microsoft doesn't nurture independent titles

Independent game creators are claiming Microsoft doesn'tt do enough for developers who create titles for Xbox Live Community Games.

Clover's Daniel Jones and Tank Strike's Daniel Steger have called promotion of the platform "woeful" and that the service pales in comparison to Apple's App Store for iPhone.

"Microsoft has gone quiet on the service, with nary an official public mention in recent months," Jones told Eurogamer. "Compared to the marketing Apple have invested in for the iPhone as a games platform, it's pretty woeful."

"Even popular services like iPhone have a lot of people making games that just don't make money," Steger added. "Their service just suffers from different problems of games being lost in the crowd, rather than not having a crowd."

"There's an argument that maybe the games just aren't good enough," Jones chimed in. "And whilst there's some truth in that, the fact is we have 20 million Xbox Live users, of whom 4 million regularly purchase content. That the top-selling XBLCG titles only sell around 10,000 units shows there's something quite seriously wrong with the service's marketing - namely a lack thereof.

"Clover cost around GBP 13,000 to make, and that was almost entirely on living costs - central London isn't cheap! I know some developers who have sunk USD 30,000 into their XBLCG projects, and were still worryingly optimistic about making that back.

"I feel very sorry for them, but I hope that they can prove me wrong."

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