03-10-2017, 07:38 AM
chart below shows what percentage of
NBA Live Mobile Coins developers have been making games for each platform over the last few years. It also includes reported plans for 2012:Why Is This Happening?I asked these developers to rate the importance of certain factors in choosing which platforms they will develop games for. The most influential factor was ease of working with the platform owner, with 69% of developers rating it Very Important. In 2nd and 3rd place were the platform's install base (63%)
). So XBLA is not going to be hurting for content in the immediate future.But if things keep going the Cheap NBA 2K17 MT way they are, and XBLA keeps losing talented developers, I believe the diversity of games available on XBLA will diminish, quality will suffer, and revenue numbers will drop as players start to move away from an unremarkable portfolio of games. We will see a lot more "genrefication" and big publisher franchises.After a few years, XBLA might start to look like Big Fish Games, which is
an advanced state of genrefication. With XBLA, the genres would be different, but the overall effect would be similar.Once players start to leave in large numbers it will be too late to late to turn things around. Given that it takes at least a year or two to make an XBLA game, no developer would want to start working on one knowing that XBLA is declining in popularity and could be significantly weaker by the time the game is ready. There's data suggesting this player migration is already
, but my gut says this is a local adjustment forced by the arrival of social games, not a trend. I suspect a larger scale migration is still a few years away and that there's more than enough time for XBLA to change course.The more open platforms, like Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, are very attractive to developers. Take iOS, for example. Top hits on XBLA/PSN earn their developers millions of nba18mt dollars. iOS hits earn tens of millions. When World of Goo was briefly
NBA Live Mobile Coins developers have been making games for each platform over the last few years. It also includes reported plans for 2012:Why Is This Happening?I asked these developers to rate the importance of certain factors in choosing which platforms they will develop games for. The most influential factor was ease of working with the platform owner, with 69% of developers rating it Very Important. In 2nd and 3rd place were the platform's install base (63%)
). So XBLA is not going to be hurting for content in the immediate future.But if things keep going the Cheap NBA 2K17 MT way they are, and XBLA keeps losing talented developers, I believe the diversity of games available on XBLA will diminish, quality will suffer, and revenue numbers will drop as players start to move away from an unremarkable portfolio of games. We will see a lot more "genrefication" and big publisher franchises.After a few years, XBLA might start to look like Big Fish Games, which is
an advanced state of genrefication. With XBLA, the genres would be different, but the overall effect would be similar.Once players start to leave in large numbers it will be too late to late to turn things around. Given that it takes at least a year or two to make an XBLA game, no developer would want to start working on one knowing that XBLA is declining in popularity and could be significantly weaker by the time the game is ready. There's data suggesting this player migration is already
, but my gut says this is a local adjustment forced by the arrival of social games, not a trend. I suspect a larger scale migration is still a few years away and that there's more than enough time for XBLA to change course.The more open platforms, like Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, are very attractive to developers. Take iOS, for example. Top hits on XBLA/PSN earn their developers millions of nba18mt dollars. iOS hits earn tens of millions. When World of Goo was briefly