Steam power: Cthulu Saves the World thrives on PC

Thanks to my country’s archaic media classification system, Xbox Live Indie Games aren’t available in Australia, but that hasn’t stopped me from observing one important thing: it’s host to a fuckload of games. It’s bad enough that the industry is getting saturated with AAA titles, particularly shooters – then we’ve got top notch indies available on the PSN, Steam and XBLA, and now this? Talk about cultural over-bombing. Microsoft’s marketplace currently lists 1,941 titles on the service, meaning unless you’re picked up for one of the winter/summer promotions, or reviewed favorably by this brave man, it’s hard to stand out.

XBLIG dictates games be available 80, 240 or 400 Microsoft Points – approximately $1, $3 and $5 respectively. Indie developer Zeboyd Games released two titles on the service – Breath of Death VII, which managed to moved around 50,000 for $1, and Cthulu Saves the World, which sold approximately 16,000 at $3 a piece. While those earnings of $49,000 far exceed the XBLIG average of $3,800, Zeboyd were unsatisfied, and raised $7,000 to port the game to PC. Two weeks ago, Cthulu and Breath were released as a $3 bundle on Steam.

Speaking to Ars Technica, Robert Boyd, one half of Zeboyd Games, expressed his surprise with how well the game has done on PC.

“In less than a week, our Steam revenue has actually exceeded over a year and a half of XBLIG revenue for us. We’re still a little stunned at how well it’s been selling. I can’t say how it’s doing on GamersGate yet, but I imagine it’s selling well there also.”

Basic math will tell you that by bundling the games and charging 25% less than they did on XBLIG, they sold over 33,000 copies within the first week. Now, a fortnight after a release, that could well be a few thousand more – not to mention the boost they’ll receive from the inevitable Steam sales over the next few years.

Boyd praised the personnel at Steam he dealt with, and the “gazillion” codes they granted him to offer to the press, versus the 50 he received from Microsoft. Moreover, the way XBLIG allows developers to price its games means that $3 is erring on the side of expensive for some consumers, whereas on Steam, $3 for two indie games is a godsend.

While some think self-publishing is no longer a feasible option for tiny devs, XBLIG can be a good starting point if you promote yourself properly – as long as you try take it to Steam and  beyond.

[Ars Technica: Xbox Live Indie Games: no way to make a living]
[Ars Technica: Cthulu catches up: indie RPG  struggles on Xbox, thrives on Steam]