CASTLE MINER Z XBOX PC
Despite being the best-selling Indie title on Xbox, the PC marketplace was largely unaware of us. On Steam your games needs to build a huge critical mass of the PC market, before you are even allowed to be published. The Xbox is a marketplace where you can make a game and simply put it up for a $100/year fee. We currently have about 300,000 users and growing rapidly since we opened it in July 2013. For example, currently we are very popular in Chile and Brazil countries where indie games were not supported by Microsoft. Also, we could sell games to countries that Xbox doesn’t support. Our website is a digital marketplace where we can sell our games, and in the future, the games of other indie developers. Therefore, I asked to elaborate exactly how the decision of a distribution channel on would aid in the PC release no Steam. Different platforms come with different requirements, such as Steam’s need for approval or development kit costs on consoles. It is not uncommon for other games from the iPhone or Xbox indie games to have a different price on the PC, because they are much different marketplaces and eco systems. Based on per unit costs associated with a purchase, we would lose money on every unit sold. Having done this, I can tell you that I am simply unable to give the game away on our site for the $1. For instance, part of this was building up our own distribution channel on our website. Besides the engineering that needed to happen, the path to Steam is not assured, so the increased marketing expense to get the game through the Greenlight process dwarfed the original cost to get the game on the Xbox initially. In reply, Steinke mentioned:īringing the game to Steam was an expensive endeavor. I also included a question in regards of what the additional costs would be for the PC release, since ports can easily hide some expenses not seen to the audience. The game has been on the Xbox since 2011 and since has been reduced in price to $1. Despite this, CastleMiner Z was released at $3 and was one of very few titles to be successful at this price point. For this reason, it is virtually impossible to release a game there for over $1. The Xbox Indie system has a strict pricing structure and a defect in the way that it presents games. Thomas Steinke replied with the following words: I asked developer DigitalDNA Games where the difference in price comes from. Complaints were so vocal that the developer even turned to the discussions by asking community feedback on its price. Steam, however, has a price range of $9.99, with a 15% discount at the moment. On Xbox Live, the game retails for $1, which is admittedly cheap. Obvious detractions are pointed towards the game’s similarities with Minecraft, even if CastleMiner Z is much more of a shooter, like Ace of Spades, for instance.Īnother point of criticism stemmed from the game’s pricing model. Still, despite its success, its release this week on Steam was met with community backlash. It’s also the first of its kin to surpass a million downloads on the console. Prior to the PC release, this game was the all-time best-selling indie game on Xbox Live. In October of 2013, CastleMiner Z was approved through Steam Greenlight.
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