Not that im complaining at all or anything, just curious, but why exactly did you choose to realease MNC as an Xbox 360 exclusive? Why not the PC or PS3?
Microsoft is the publisher and in terms of dollars and cents (literally) it may have been more lucrative for them to release to XBLA 1st. Summer of Arcade is a HUGE deal. It spotlights the game, the developing studio, and gives access to MILLIONS of people. Don't think for a second that the game wont be porting to PC, but I think PS3 is out of the question (IMHO). One thing we have to remember is that Uber is a "for profit" company, and they're going to do what they need to do to stay profitable. XBLA is the 1st step on that path.
Sm1tty Sm1t, If you're running a business, any business, of course it's to make money to keep running the business. If you can't make payroll, you can't have the staff to do what you want to do. We're not any more "for profit" then any other studio. I don't really get what your point is. As far as why we picked Xbox, it's because we thought it was the best platform initially for the game and it made sense for us as a startup and as players we all loved Xbox Live. Summer of Arcade is EXTREMELY hard to get into and we had no guarantees that we would be part of it. There are no guarantees in any platform. To quote Todd Howard of Bethesda if install base really mattered, we'd all make board games, because there are a lot of tables.
It wasn't meant as an insult, so don't take it that way. I was merely pointing out that you aren't a nonprofit company and that money keeps the studio around. The more money you make, the more we can expect from Uber. I was trying to explain that it may have been more lucrative for you to go with Microsoft and XBLA than to, say, release it on PC via steam first, or release it on PSN. Sounds like you think I was calling you guys greedy or money-grubbing. Not the case, I just know how businesses run and what they look at in terms of being successful.
Sm1tty, I get what you're saying. As far as Xbox being more lucrative for us, only time will well. Again we picked Xbox because it seemed like a good match for MNC especially with the quality of indie games on Xbox Live Arcade. Our hope was to get into Summer of Arcade and that worked out. Ideally, we would have loved to do multiple platforms but it's difficult to do with being a smaller studio, so we focused on Xbox first.
I'm certainly not going to speak on behalf of the studio here, but from an outsider perspective, going to Xbox Live clearly is the path of least resistance. Now tack on the successful inclusion into Summer of Arcade and everything is in place for a start up studio to be successful on their debut release. Arcade style games sell more on Xbox, the game is on Unreal Engine 3 and there has been plenty of documentation on the difference with 360 and PS3...and plenty of titles to compare the results of. Plus, as a start up, Uber could focus on making a great game first, rather than splitting resources on another platform. I don't even see this as a cup half full or empty scenario. The cup is full, now we just need a million people or so to take a 1200 MS Point drink on August 11th!
Believe me, I'm doing my best to spread the gospel of Uber Ent. I wish this studio only the best of luck.
H...hey I've been spreading the news too, dang it! But everybody I told said it looked boring. I soon punched th...I mean, I soon "talked" them into saying otherwise.
