The Decision That Levels The Playing Field

[Trippy]

/necrobump AND /crosspost (do I get extra points for that?)

Looks like MS has smoothed out at least an initial plan for a pipeline from XNA to retail XBLA distribution....hate to be an indie that laughed at the whole XNA initiative and ignored it early on because they thought MS was just being greedy...

Link?

[Stephen Zepp]

The first prize for their "Dream, Build, Play" game competition is an XBLA production slot:

1 First Prize
The developer with the most outstanding game wins:

An invitation to enter into an Xbox Live™ Arcade Publishing Contract
on terms and conditions applicable to such offer
$10,000 USD
Alienware Aurora® 7500 desktop system with AMD Athlon™
64 FX-62 Dual Core Processor, courtesy of Alienware PC and AMD
Retail copy of Windows Vista Ultimate* operating system
Autographed Xbox 360 Premium SKU retail console**
2-year subscription to the XNA Creators Club†
25 four-month subscription tokens to the XNA Creators Club, to
share your masterpiece with friends and family
Choice of Softimage®|XSI® Advanced 6.0, Autodesk® 3ds Max® 9,
or Autodesk® Maya® Complete 8.5



Value of prize: $19,992 USD (No ARV is presently assigned to Publishing Contract pending future mutual agreement by Sponsor and 1st prize winner)

2 Second Prizes
Two talented contestants each win:

$5,000 USD
Alienware Aurora 7500 desktop system with AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-62 Dual Core Processor, courtesy of Alienware PC and AMD
Retail copy of Windows Vista Ultimate operating system
Autographed Xbox 360 Premium SKU retail console*
2-year subscription to the XNA Creators Club
25 four-month subscription tokens to the XNA Creators Club, to share your masterpiece with friends and family
Choice of Softimage®|XSI® Essentials 6.0, Autodesk® 3ds Max® 9,
or Autodesk® Maya® Complete 8.5



Value of each prize: $11,492 USD

17 Third Prizes
If you’re one of these ten skilled developers, you’ll score:
Retail copy of Windows Vista Ultimate operating system
Autographed Xbox 360 retail console
1-year subscription to the XNA Creators Club
10 four-month subscription tokens to the XNA Creators Club, to share your masterpiece with friends and family
Choice of Softimage®|XSI® Foundation 6.0, Autodesk® 3ds Max® 9,
or Autodesk® Maya® Complete 8.5



Value of each prize: $4,394 USD

Note that you can use Torque X, but you must use XNA and GSE.

[Stephen Zepp]

I have to admit, I'm amazed at the lack of response/excitement here...I'm not even allowed to be in the competition (partner employee), and I'm damned excited about it!

That's over $110,000 in prizes, for an investment of about $8 a month, the rest free, and then of course some blood and sweat--and the XBLA deal for the winner puts you on a pretty nice gravy train for an indie game developer...

[stray]

I'm just a gamer. Maybe a "literate" (?) one, but developer contests are off limits to me. There's not much to get excited about.


This is kind of like how only a few of us post in the Guitar Thread, even though the rest of the site loves music in their own way.

[Stephen Zepp]

I'm just a gamer. Maybe a "literate" (?) one, but developer contests are off limits to me. There's not much to get excited about.


This is kind of like how only a few of us post in the Guitar Thread, even though the rest of the site loves music in their own way.

I think you would be very very amazed at how easy it is to pick up XNA, and Torque X.

"Pure Artists" (meaning those that don't have a lick of logical thought in their brains, but can do wicked cool things with pixels that I'd never even dream of producing) are kicking out some amazing stuff with some pretty low cost tools, and XNA/C# are even easier than just about anything else on the market...

This contest isn't for commercial game developers--it's for indies, and "newbies"--it's for those that are willing to spend some time struggling with new ideas and ways of doing things to reach their dream.

[stray]

If what you say is true, then it'd be great. Here's a little bit of my history though: I know crap about programming. Like zilch. I was never one of those kids who even did anything with BASIC when he was 10 years old. It's not in my blood, so to speak. And because of that, I'm not an aspiring game developer. I may be passionate about gaming, but so far, it's only as a player. I'm just a critic ;).

Technically, I know more than the average person about computers, but it's more in the "Printer Repair Guy" sense.

As for other skills: I do know a little bit of scripting and markup. Just the usual. HTML, a little JS, some experience with Lingo.

I'm not much of a visual artist, but I'm not bad either. Enough to aid in illustration work and basic animations (which is part of my job actually).

I have very little patience with 3D modeling (and in terms of general art, little patience with sculpting as well).


With these skills, I'd be surprised if I could create anything resembling a game. I'm more creative in music, sound, and umm...theatrical things. Maybe a little storywriting. If I were to be involved in gaming, it'd be along those lines (sound design, scores, voicework, etc.).

[Stephen Zepp]

If what you say is true, then it'd be great. Here's a little bit of my history though: I know crap about programming. Like zilch. I was never one of those kids who even did anything with BASIC when he was 10 years old. It's not in my blood, so to speak. And because of that, I'm not an aspiring game developer. I may be passionate about gaming, but so far, it's only as a player. I'm just a critic ;).

Technically, I know more than the average person about computers, but it's more in the "Printer Repair Guy" sense.

As for other skills: I do know a little bit of scripting and markup. Just the usual. HTML, a little JS, some experience with Lingo.

I'm not much of a visual artist, but I'm not bad either. Enough to aid in illustration work and basic animations (which is part of my job actually).

I have very little patience with 3D modeling (and in terms of general art, little patience with sculpting as well).


With these skills, I'd be surprised if I could create anything resembling a game. I'm more creative in music, sound, and umm...theatrical things. Maybe a little storywriting. If I were to be involved in gaming, it'd be along those lines (sound design, scores, voicework, etc.).

When the current internal build (which includes tutorials) is pushed to open beta, I'm going to pm you directly Stray--I'd -really- like to see what you think, and if it is something you think you can handle--mostly due to the exact skills you listed. The "bit of scripting experience" especially actually puts you right into the realm of having at least the background to understand C#, and the rest of it is game engine theory, which you don't need to understand, you just need to learn how to use.

For the rest of you out there (yes, I'm talking to you Margalis) that may have dabbled in making games in the past, I just can't see how you don't at least give it a shot...the scoring criteria for who wins is 40/40/20, which the first 40 percent of your score being "innovation".

With all the discussion here about game innovation, it's time to put your money (or time in this case) where your mouth is!

[Margalis]

ONE person wins the right to distribute their game publically. ONE. I can work my ass off for 6 months or more, come in second place, and win a new computer that I don't need - yay! In addition I don't even know what the contract terms are until after I've won.

Most indie devs are used to working on the PC where you can distribute anything you want at any time if you have a website.

It sounds like something for kids, not serious developers. You should know that - you work at a place that *does* let people distribute whatever they want. Imagine if GG didn't let you publish anything but once a year they had a contest where ONE person could publish something. That would be a joke.

If you treat people like small children they aren't going to get excited. You know what would excite people? Create an indie games channel on XBLA. The second that happens I will be the first to say "awesome job", really.

It is patronizing.

"Aren't you kids so happy? We're throwing you a bone! One of you dopes might just be lucky enough to actually sit at the table with the adults!"
---

God why would I spend a ton of time trying to make something awesome for XBLA only to find out I got beat by a Tetris clone and now I've completely wasted my time and can't do ANYTHING with the thing I produced?

I know I speak for a lot of people who would otherwise be interested. You can ignore my opinion but the fact is this is exactly why you don't see much excitement.

Again, the second this becomes "you can submit your games for review and a number of them will go on XBLA" I will be the first to congratulate you on an awesome job. And I would probably sign up myself. I would probably quit my job so I could work on something full time. That would fucking rule, and I swear I would not find some reason to further be an asshole about this.

As it stands now, I get paid good money for the job I have and I have other things to do with my time. The cost-benefit isn't there for me. I'm not a starry-eyed 14 year old dreamer. That doesn't mean I don't have passion but it just doesn't make sense to sink in the time required.

The tools and everything else are there to some degree. (Good enough anyway) The distribution model is not.

[Stephen Zepp]

It's been said many times that the current model is the beginning.

Do you really think that MS does not want to take games directly from XNA to XBLA if they are worthy? Their best commercial interest is flat out making the transition from XNA to XBLA as smooth as humanly possible...and the very fact that the first prize includes the XBLA offer implies that they are working on it currently, and simply don't have it smooth enough yet to announce it.

BTW, you are missing one very salient point--you can use XNA right now to commercially distribute and sell your games on Windows platforms. The only thing missing is being able to commercially distribute for XBox, and for that, see my paragraph above.

Finally, the contest is open to either platform of choice--you do not have to deploy to a 360 to win the contest. You can take whatever you win, and turn right around and sell your project commercially for Windows, and laugh at the distribution on 360 if you like.

I'm really surprised Margalis...honestly. You are making a game, as a hobby (you've not announced any plans at all to sell what you're making, although I can only assume that has changed due to your position in your post), while still having a primary job...how would doing it in XNA be any different at all?

Let me iterate: you can always sell your XNA game on Windows, no strings attached. If you submit for the contest, you can also win quite a bit (if you make $5k or $10k on your first game without any type of distribution deal, let me know--please!) simply by using XNA and submitting the game, in addition to whatever revenue you generate on your own.

[Sairon]

I agree with Margalis to some extent. However, I just as a lot of other people who wants to come from the outside into the industry actually wants to do the things that torque offers themselves. Sure it's time consuming and the success rate is slim, but actually rolling your own little engine teaches a lot and has its advantages.

I was on the XNA seminar on NGC and while it was pretty cool how fast you could see results, it was pretty much laughed at by the serious developers, it was quickly labeled as pretty neat but only good for mock ups. So, if I as a programmer wants to play with the big boys, why would I learn XNA and put my effort on it? It's like expecting people to take you seriously in the web dev area when you slap "I know front page inside and out!" on your resume.

[Margalis]

Fair enoug Stephen, I did ignore the windows aspect of XNA. My concern with distribution is not money, it's putting stuff in front of people. Not to hit the pay dirt but just to get stuff to the general public.

You can ignore me to some degree, I've been kind of touchy lately. (Which is saying a lot, I know!  )

You are making a game, as a hobby (you've not announced any plans at all to sell what you're making, although I can only assume that has changed due to your position in your post), while still having a primary job

This actually became not true about five minutes after I posted it!

I sort of had this weird revalation as I typed "I would quit my job" which was "why the hell haven't I quit my job already?" I couldn't think of a good reason. (This all sounds rather sudden but it isn't, I didn't just have a moment of insanity)

So maybe I'll look into XNA more given the extra free time I'll have coming up shortly.

It's hard to walk away from the job I have (decent hours, freedom, good salary) but fuck it you don't live forever and there has got to be something more interesting in this world than business software!

[stray]

Targeting Margalis is one thing, but I think it's strange to target me with this stuff. I'm almost 100% sure that it'd be a complete waste of money and time across the board if I bought anything development related.

[Trippy]

Targeting Margalis is one thing, but I think it's strange to target me with this stuff. I'm almost 100% sure that it'd be a complete waste of money and time across the board if I bought anything development related.

I think what Stephan is trying to find out is if the tools are usable by somebody like yourself.

[Margalis]

You might also learn something.

I have experience with Torque and a non-programmer can do stuff like make particle effects, create maps and define behaviors pretty easily. If this is easier than Torque you could probably mess around with it nicely.

[Stephen Zepp]

I agree with Margalis to some extent. However, I just as a lot of other people who wants to come from the outside into the industry actually wants to do the things that torque offers themselves. Sure it's time consuming and the success rate is slim, but actually rolling your own little engine teaches a lot and has its advantages.

I was on the XNA seminar on NGC and while it was pretty cool how fast you could see results, it was pretty much laughed at by the serious developers, it was quickly labeled as pretty neat but only good for mock ups. So, if I as a programmer wants to play with the big boys, why would I learn XNA and put my effort on it? It's like expecting people to take you seriously in the web dev area when you slap "I know front page inside and out!" on your resume.

Just a note: that is going to change, 100% certain. MS convinced a shop of die hard anti-MS folks, die hard c++ folks that Managed code was worth the performance loss--and that's a shop that not only makes games, but makes engines.

The current model of "spend XX millions of dollars and hope your game turns out fun...sell it even if it doesn't and try again" is failing--it's lead to exactly what we all hate about the industry (you guys, the game purchasers, us, the game developers). Indies are quickly proving that long tail revenue from multiple games generating revenue at the same time are the way to go for a very large success rate combined with freedom from the current model, and the commercial studios that are bothering to pay attention are realizing it as well.

The "serious developers" that are laughing at XNA are going to be the ones that are crying--and they've been represented in the past by those that said "anything not written in assembly is worthless", "anything not written in ANSI C is worthless", etc, etc.

[stray]

You might also learn something.

I have experience with Torque and a non-programmer can do stuff like make particle effects, create maps and define behaviors pretty easily. If this is easier than Torque you could probably mess around with it nicely.

Let me just come out with it...

I'm not rejecting learning things so much as I don't really care to learn them to begin with. I was trying to say that before in a nicer way (by giving a little of my history and interests), but that's it in a nutshell. It may be hard to believe around here, but game development just isn't something I want to devote myself to, and never has been. I'm not here at this site to give anyone that impression. I'm just a gamer and a critic -- and I'm pretty content with that. At best, I have only broad ideas on how to improve games (i.e. bullshit).

[Trippy]

ONE person wins the right to distribute their game publically. ONE. I can work my ass off for 6 months or more, come in second place, and win a new computer that I don't need - yay! In addition I don't even know what the contract terms are until after I've won.

Most indie devs are used to working on the PC where you can distribute anything you want at any time if you have a website.

It sounds like something for kids, not serious developers. You should know that - you work at a place that *does* let people distribute whatever they want. Imagine if GG didn't let you publish anything but once a year they had a contest where ONE person could publish something. That would be a joke.

If you treat people like small children they aren't going to get excited. You know what would excite people? Create an indie games channel on XBLA. The second that happens I will be the first to say "awesome job", really.

It is patronizing.

"Aren't you kids so happy? We're throwing you a bone! One of you dopes might just be lucky enough to actually sit at the table with the adults!"
---

God why would I spend a ton of time trying to make something awesome for XBLA only to find out I got beat by a Tetris clone and now I've completely wasted my time and can't do ANYTHING with the thing I produced?

I know I speak for a lot of people who would otherwise be interested. You can ignore my opinion but the fact is this is exactly why you don't see much excitement.

Again, the second this becomes "you can submit your games for review and a number of them will go on XBLA" I will be the first to congratulate you on an awesome job. And I would probably sign up myself. I would probably quit my job so I could work on something full time. That would fucking rule, and I swear I would not find some reason to further be an asshole about this.

As it stands now, I get paid good money for the job I have and I have other things to do with my time. The cost-benefit isn't there for me. I'm not a starry-eyed 14 year old dreamer. That doesn't mean I don't have passion but it just doesn't make sense to sink in the time required.

The tools and everything else are there to some degree. (Good enough anyway) The distribution model is not.

Wow. Microsoft is the only major console maker that's even making an attempt to allow indie game developers a way to distribute games on a major console platform and all you can do it shit all over them for not promising all the people who submitted entries a guaranteed publishing contract?

First of all Microsoft would be stupid to offer guaranteed publishing contracts to more than the first place winner since this is the first time they've tried this and have no idea what quality of games are going to be made. Heck the first place winner may end up sucking too but at least publishing only one sucky game limits the costs to MS. On the other hand, there's no reason why MS wouldn't offer publishing deals with more than just top finisher if there are other games that are really good. I think of it like American Idol, which presumably most of you don't watch.

On American Idol only the top finisher is guaranteed a recording contract. However historically every second place finisher has been offered a contract as well, and some of the second place finishers have actually sold more records than the winner of that season. Other finalists have been offered recording contracts as well with Chris Daughtry being a recent notable example having the fastest selling rock album in Soundscan history (of course there are many that believe he should've won). And of course Jennifer Hudson just won an Oscar for her performance in Dreamgirls even though she was voted off in seventh place on AI. In other words if you have talent getting exposure on a show like AI opens up all sorts of opportunities for you.

I view contests like this one and "Make Something Unreal" along the same lines as AI (though obviously the immediate rewards for winning AI is far larger). It's a way for budding game developers to get their game design ideas seen by industry people and the gaming public. There's no guarantee that doing well will lead to fortune and glory but it can open up opportunities and lead to better things in the future. You are correct that this contest is not really for "serious" developers since there's a very short 4 month development window for making something for this contest, and they even make that clear in the judging criteria with "polish" being the lowest category at 20%, but like I said above it is a great "career-building" opportunity.

I've been critical of XNA on the 360 in this thread as well but I applaud MS for attempting something no other major console maker has tried before as I said at the top and I think this contest is a good way to for them to gauge interest in the idea and it gives budding game developers a good opportunity to have their game ideas looked at by a major game publisher.

[Strazos]

Sorry, but I'm not excited because I'm not a dev, and really have no desire to be one. I could perhaps come up with some interesting ideas, but without any way to implement them. I hate programming, and I'm about as artistic as a rock. I took 2 years of programming in high school. I gave up before I got to C++, so I'll leave this stuff to the people with the actual talent and desire.

[Dundee]

Anecdote: when I was a kid, I was playing games on a Vic-20/Commodore 64. And with some programming, I could make games on the same platform, and that was very very cool. So cool, in fact, that 20 years later when I got a chance to make games for a living, I jumped at it.

 Today, kids are playing games on a console, but can't mess around with console programming. MS wanted to change that.

I think where this is missing that target, is that I could make games and show them to my friends who had zero interest or ability to make games of their own. This seems aimed more at catering to collaborative development, whereas almost all the hobby development I had ever even heard of back then was independent: shared with an audience, rather than co-developers.

Now I'd want to be able to make a game my friends could play on their consoles ('cause if they have PCs, just making a PC game would make more sense).

That said, my son joined a game development group at his high school: gang of kids filling the roles of designers, programmers and artists, to make their own game. This would be great for them.

For a platform aimed at collaborative development, a contest aimed at individuals (based on the prizes) seems like a mis-match.

A school vs. school contest would be pretty sweet, especially benefiting MS with prizes aimed at ensuring the computer game dev club becomes entrenched.

Otherwise, this seems like more the sort of thing to showcase a hobby-dev community's stuff than to build said community. Probably more exciting to a website populated by that community than to... whatever f13 is... Folks rode hard and put away wet by PC MMORPGs?

Don't get me wrong, though, This is real nice, too.

[Stephen Zepp]

For a platform aimed at collaborative development, a contest aimed at individuals (based on the prizes) seems like a mis-match.

I have to admit, I agree totally with this. The prizes definitely seem aimed at the "single person shop", which is a shame.

A school vs. school contest would be pretty sweet, especially benefiting MS with prizes aimed at ensuring the computer game dev club becomes entrenched.

That is such a freaking outstanding idea that I'm going to present it directly to the Microsoft Educational Advisory Board (hell, I don't know if that's even their name, but I am going to find out!) as soon as possible. Seriously...no sarcasm there at all.

[Trippy]

For a platform aimed at collaborative development, a contest aimed at individuals (based on the prizes) seems like a mis-match.

I have to admit, I agree totally with this. The prizes definitely seem aimed at the "single person shop", which is a shame.

Yes it is. You can compare it with the Make Something Unreal contests which just have cash prizes (plus an Unreal Engine license to the winner) which makes it easier to split the winnings among a team. MS likes to give "stuff" away, though, since it costs them a lot less than the "retail" value of the prizes.

[Stephen Zepp]

For a platform aimed at collaborative development, a contest aimed at individuals (based on the prizes) seems like a mis-match.

I have to admit, I agree totally with this. The prizes definitely seem aimed at the "single person shop", which is a shame.

Yes it is. You can compare it with the Make Something Unreal contests which just have cash prizes (plus an Unreal Engine license to the winner) which makes it easier to split the winnings among a team. MS likes to give "stuff" away, though, since it costs them a lot less than the "retail" value of the prizes.

Well, the top 3 prizes all include cash portions as well--$10k for top prize, and $5k for second, but yes, the other portions are hard to "split up" I agree.

[Margalis]

Dundee brought the logic.

It's just a problem of message mismatched with audience.

Dundee is right, the appeal to me of XNA is that I can make something, show it to my friends, and then maybe let the general public play it. Sharing only with other XNA devs is strange. And the appeal is very much the XBox - having your thing on a console is way cooler than having it on a PC and we can already make PC games.

I don't expect a contest with 10 contracts for an XBLA game. I don't expect any contracts. What I would ask for, ideally, is that your game can go through an approval process and end up on a special channel. Now the approval process might be easier because the "indie channel" would be nicknamed the "dreck channel" at first, but the idea is that everyone has something to work towards.

I do think this would be a really exciting thing for kids and teens. (And said as much in my sarcastic asshole way) Kids love working together on stuff like this together - I know I did.

[Dundee]

That is such a freaking outstanding idea that I'm going to present it directly to the Microsoft Educational Advisory Board (hell, I don't know if that's even their name, but I am going to find out!) as soon as possible. Seriously...no sarcasm there at all.

That's F-R-E-E-M-A-N.

[Soln]

Dundee brought the logic.

It's just a problem of message mismatched with audience.

Agreed, both statements.

[Murgos]

I asked before if you can port XNA stuff over to the console and check it out.  Pretty sure the answer was no.  Killed whatever interest I had in the project right there.  Let me know when I can create a package, transfer it to the 360 (LAN preferably but a DVD is fine too) and run it without buying a $50,000 license and I will take another look.

If I actually were to make something marketable the $10k prize in this contest is laughable and if I can't make something marketable then the $10k prize is out of my reach anyway.  One of the major points of digital distribution is the lack of having to pay off multiple middle-men to get your product out there.  This contest is basically saying invest your hard effort for a minor prize and let us take the cream of your earnings and maybe we will help you digitally distribute your creation.

eh?  Whatever.

[Trippy]

I asked before if you can port XNA stuff over to the console and check it out.  Pretty sure the answer was no.  Killed whatever interest I had in the project right there.  Let me know when I can create a package, transfer it to the 360 (LAN preferably but a DVD is fine too) and run it without buying a $50,000 license and I will take another look.

Yes you can. You have to cough up $49 for a four-month subscription or $99 for a year subscription to XNA Creators Club to run XNA games you create or copy from other XNA Creator Club members on your Xbox 360.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/xna/bb219592.aspx

[Sairon]

...

Just a note: that is going to change, 100% certain. MS convinced a shop of die hard anti-MS folks, die hard c++ folks that Managed code was worth the performance loss--and that's a shop that not only makes games, but makes engines.

The current model of "spend XX millions of dollars and hope your game turns out fun...sell it even if it doesn't and try again" is failing--it's lead to exactly what we all hate about the industry (you guys, the game purchasers, us, the game developers). Indies are quickly proving that long tail revenue from multiple games generating revenue at the same time are the way to go for a very large success rate combined with freedom from the current model, and the commercial studios that are bothering to pay attention are realizing it as well.

The "serious developers" that are laughing at XNA are going to be the ones that are crying--and they've been represented in the past by those that said "anything not written in assembly is worthless", "anything not written in ANSI C is worthless", etc, etc.

I certainly agree that 3rd party engines is the way to go for a dev house intrested in making quality games. However, XNA has totally failed to market to that segment and have so far decided to cater to the newbie squad and push simplicity rather than technical power. Managed C++ is cool, and especially .NET. The performance hit isn't that large, and the memory footprint is somewhat getting migrated by growing system memory. However, the step to XNA is a diffrent thing entirely. What microsoft needs to do in order to get some market penetration going is producing something that technically impressive. This holds true for torque to some extent as well, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but what you guys really would need in order to get people intrested is a decent AAA release. I mean, there's a reason for why people are raving about the latest unreal engine or the latest id engine.

[Murgos]

Yes you can. You have to cough up $49 for a four-month subscription or $99 for a year subscription to XNA Creators Club to run XNA games you create or copy from other XNA Creator Club members on your Xbox 360.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/xna/bb219592.aspx

I remember what happened now.  Zepp started talking about subscriptions to the tools and I blanked out.  As a hobbyist I haven't decided if I care for that idea or not.  If I was convinced I was going to make something professional then I would probably go for it (except, of course, you can't make anything for commercial use on XBOX 360).  All I am really interested in at this point is making a ball bounce on my TV screen with the words "Hello World" on it and I gotta pony up 40 bucks?  And then in three months they take it away from me until I open the wallet again.

Stupid thing is that I actually have a good bit of C# experience and also experience making 3-D models and such and if I could dork around with no pressure I certainly would.  As it stands now I don't care for the implementation as I don't have a lot of free time and the subscriptions would sit idle the vast majority of the time.

[Trippy]

Stupid thing is that I actually have a good bit of C# experience and also experience making 3-D models and such and if I could dork around with no pressure I certainly would.  As it stands now I don't care for the implementation as I don't have a lot of free time and the subscriptions would sit idle the vast majority of the time.

So just do it for Windows XP initially and if you actually complete enough of something that you want to see run on your Xbox 360 then you subscribe.

Edit: your not yoru

[Stephen Zepp]

I'm still blown away by that attitude I guess.

Do you have any other hobbies that coss less than approx $9 a month?

MS is taking the long view with XNA, as they rightly should. They are focusing on the kids when they are young, in the educational and hobbiest spaces, to bring back the passion of making games that so many of us had when we were kids, because they are focusing on post 2010, not next quarter.

GarageGames for that matter is as well--there are more than 140 schools teaching Torque right now, and it's continuing to go up. A very quick anecdotal story:

Davey Jackson went to a Microsoft sponsored academic conference last wekk, and during the EA presentation, one of the topics on EA's sliides was "what we look for in new developers". The answer was "experience in a game engine like Torque or Renderware".

[Stephen Zepp]

Stupid thing is that I actually have a good bit of C# experience and also experience making 3-D models and such and if I could dork around with no pressure I certainly would.  As it stands now I don't care for the implementation as I don't have a lot of free time and the subscriptions would sit idle the vast majority of the time.

So just do it for Windows XP initially and if you actually complete enough of something that you want to see run on yoru Xbox 360 then you subscribe.

Exactly.

[Murgos]

I'm still blown away by that attitude I guess.

Do you have any other hobbies that coss less than approx $9 a month?

+ XBOX 360, + windows XP Pro, + Computer, +internet, + etc...  So, it's like, a really expensive hobby, thousands of dollars a year.  I play piano a bit.  I bought a cheap electric piano years and years ago.  Probably costs me less than 9 bucks a month to play it and the longer I play it the cheaper it gets.

I don't care if there is a cost to entry, I can decide to pay that or not if I feel the value is there.  I do care for cost of continuing use of stuff I made though.  Your 9 bucks a month is actually $500 for 5 years.  No, wait, it's $1000 dollars for 10 years.  Second I stop paying it (and being held hostage anytime MS decides to raise the fees) I can no longer putz around?  Frankly, I would rather have paid $250 up front and been done with it.

Trippy:

I can already dork around on Window's without paying any month-to-month fees, I did the ball with hello world thing years ago, heck it even bounced and beeped when it hit the ground.  Now, I want to just dork around on an XBOX 360.  There is a difference.

[Stephen Zepp]

I'm still blown away by that attitude I guess.

Do you have any other hobbies that coss less than approx $9 a month?

+ XBOX 360, + windows XP Pro, + Computer, +internet, + etc...  So, it's like, a really expensive hobby, thousands of dollars a year.  I play piano a bit.  I bought a cheap electric piano years and years ago.  Probably costs me less than 9 bucks a month to play it and the longer I play it the cheaper it gets.

I don't care if there is a cost to entry, I can decide to pay that or not if I feel the value is there.  I do care for cost of continuing use of stuff I made though.  Your 9 bucks a month is actually $500 for 5 years.  No, wait, it's $1000 dollars for 10 years.  Second I stop paying it (and being held hostage anytime MS decides to raise the fees) I can no longer putz around?  Frankly, I would rather have paid $250 up front and been done with it.

Trippy:

I can already dork around on Window's without paying any month-to-month fees, I did the ball with hello world thing years ago, heck it even bounced and beeped when it hit the ground.  Now, I want to just dork around on an XBOX 360.  There is a difference.

So basically, you're saying that you "deserve" the right to use, for free, what cost others millions of dollars of research work.

Guess I understand now ;)

[Murgos]

I said I would be willing to pay up front for a sense of ownership but I didn't want to pay a subscription where it is implicit (explicit?) that I don't own my work.

I said exactly that, no more.  No less.  This is the same problem as the last time I tried to talk to you, worthless strawman attacks.