A Week of Steam Beats a Year of Xbox Live for Cthulhu Saves the World

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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A Week of Steam Beats a Year of Xbox Live for Cthulhu Saves the World


Cthulhu Saves the World developer Zeboyd Games says it's made more money in less than a week on Steam than it did in more than a year and a half on Xbox Live Indie Games.

Most of us like to imagine indie devs as guys driven by passion and creativity, who make games not for money but for the sheer love of the medium and a consuming need to express themselves. And this may be true for some, but even the most ardent booster of the indie scene has to eat, which is why Zeboyd's recent announcement about its experiences with Steam versus Xbox Live Indie Games is both interesting and, to those in the business, very relevant.

"We are pleased to announce that Zeboyd Games has already made more revenue in less than a week on Steam than we have in over a year and a half on the XBox Live Indie Games service," the studio announced on its website [http://zeboyd.com/2011/07/18/zeboyd-games-revenue-from-steam-exceeds-1yr-xblig-revenue/]. "Thank you again to everyone who has made this huge success possible!"

While launch a Kickstart program [http://store.steampowered.com/app/107300/?snr=1_7_7_151_150_1] in January to help finance the PC ports of the games because Microsoft only pays XBLIG developers on a quarterly basis. "XBLIG is quickly proving itself to be a less than ideal platform for our kind of games," the studio said at the time. "If we want to become a full time development studio, then just making games for XBLIG is not going to work."

Zeboyd revealed in a transcript [http://zeboyd.com/2011/07/06/arstechnica-interview/] of an Ars Technica interview that lifetime XBLIG sales of Breath of Death VII, released on April 22, 2010, are about 50,000 copies at $1 each, while Cthulhu Saves the World, which came out on December 30, 2010, has put out between 16,000 and 17,000 copies at $3 each. In other words, Zeboyd's games have cranked out at least $100,000 in sales less than seven days after arriving on Steam. Not bad, guys. Not bad at all.


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Johnnyallstar

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Feb 22, 2009
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Not really surprised. XBL doesn't push indie games nearly as much as Steam does. Steam is the place for indie games to go.
 

the_tramp

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It also helps that both games were £1.79 or something like that, easier to take a punt at that price. Also microtransactions are easier on Steam as it's spending the correct amount of money rather than buying 1000 points for £8-10 or whatever it is - I had 200 points registered with my XBL account for ages as a result of buying Perfect Dark HD for 800 points.
 

Aris Khandr

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Johnnyallstar said:
Not really surprised. XBL doesn't push indie games nearly as much as Steam does. Steam is the place for indie games to go.
I agree. I have literally never looked at the Indie game section of XBL. No one I know has, either.
 

Woodsey

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I don't understand why people still put indie titles on XBL. Its been public knowledge that they're shit with indie games for quite a while now.
 

Sigmund Av Volsung

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Dec 11, 2009
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And that kids, is the power of Steam!(The More You Know)
Seriously though, well done, and frankly, Steam is more friendly than XBLA.
 

Scizophrenic Llama

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the_tramp said:
It also helps that both games were £1.79 or something like that, easier to take a punt at that price. Also microtransactions are easier on Steam as it's spending the correct amount of money rather than buying 1000 points for £8-10 or whatever it is.
To be fair they offer around 400 points as well which is like $5(although I don't know how that transfers outside of the US), but I do agree that it is inconvenient to buy less expensive games like this, I'd imagine most people buy it because hey, nothing else is this cheap and they don't want the points to go to waste.
 

DustyDrB

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Jan 19, 2010
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Woodsey said:
I don't understand why people still put indie titles on XBL. Its been public knowledge that they're shit with indie games for quite a while now.
It's so crowded with awful games that no one expects quality. I've not seen a single XBLA Indie game that I'd spend one dollar on.
 

BrunDeign

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Johnnyallstar said:
Not really surprised. XBL doesn't push indie games nearly as much as Steam does. Steam is the place for indie games to go.
It's not who pushes which harder because honestly, Xbox Live's Summer of Arcade does a hell of a lot more than Steam for indie games.

No the difference maker here is how each service is structured. You have to be actively seeking out the "indie" games on Xbox Live and that involves digging through their menus and things like that. On Steam just the other day they had those two games (Cthulu Saves the World and the other one) right on the forefront of the store and even if they hadn't I could have just typed the name of the game into the search engine and it would have popped up. Hell I could have proably just typed in "Cthulu" and it would have been the first option in the search. That's LOADS easier to do and takes LOADS less time. That's the only real difference, but it's a big one.
 
Feb 13, 2008
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the_tramp said:
It also helps that both games were £1.79 or something like that, easier to take a punt at that price.
Which tends to mean that you'd have to sell 4 to 5 times as many...Not 3/400 times.
 

Dr Pussymagnet

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Dec 20, 2007
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kajinking said:
XBLA has indie games?
Yeah, it's not a very well advertised section of the marketplace. Every once in while one good indie game will be released but its pretty much nothing but avatar ragdolls and terrible zombie games.
 

GeorgW

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Aug 27, 2010
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Not surprising in the least. XBLA sucks at indie, while Steam are the masters. Also, XBLA sucks in general.
It's a good game, and deserves the sales.
 

Jodah

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I always prefer indie games on PC anyways. It offers more options in terms of controls and specialization. Plus the Steam forums are a convenient place to get first impressions and reviews.
 

The Youth Counselor

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Sep 20, 2008
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Hopefully stories like these will encourage more devs to focus better on PC games instead of thinking of them as a secondary platform.
 

damse

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Nov 2, 2009
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Doesnt Supprise me in the slightest since pretty much 90% of all pc gamers use steam if not 100%
 

]DustArma[

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It doesn't help that the Indie Games store is limited or outright nonexistent on some places, here in Chile I didn't even know that XBLIG existed until I created an US account for demo downloading (also limited in some countries).
 

Eric the Orange

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Apr 29, 2008
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well, in my case it's that I have steam, I do not have XBL. I probably would have gotten it on XBL, but whatever.
 

SinisterGehe

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damse said:
Doesnt Supprise me in the slightest since pretty much 90% of all pc gamers use steam if not 100%
Never say 100% on anything, since one thing is a fact of life "there is always 'the one'"
:D

But still, it just proves. Steam is easier, more accessible and the indie content can run on most PC's out there, I play it on my Mini-laptop (along with terraria)