How not to screw up your Xbox launch
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Tips for independent development & publishing on Xbox.
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How not to screw up your Xbox launch
- 2. How to game the Xbox system Neil Holmes Senior Developer Partner Manager Microsoft’s Gaming Vision ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program Development Game Pass Marketing Support Working With Us
- 3. WE WANT TO HELP YOU REACH THE GLOBAL AUDIENCE
- 4. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Play the Xbox Games you want, with the People you want, Anywhere you want
- 5. Microsoft Highly Confidential - Shared Under NDA
- 6. PC Gaming
- 7. CLOUD GAMING
- 8. Network and Cloud Playfab Party ｜Secure connections Playfab｜Online services for games Azure ｜General-purpose cloud
- 9. ID@Xbox enables qualified game creators to unleash their creativity by self-publishing digital games on Xbox Platforms
- 10. WHAT IS ID@XBOX? STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS GLOBAL DIGITAL DISTRUBTION SHARE BEST PRACTICES AMPLIFY GAMES DEVELOPER DAYS FULL ACCESS TO THE XBOX ECOSYSTEM
- 11. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Award-winning titles published via ID@XBOX
- 12. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
- 13. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. 3,000 5000+ 5 billion Games in active development studios hours played 100 Countries with ID@Xbox developers A great community of independent developers 550+ ID@Xbox games launched in Game Pass XGP 30+ Xbox Game Preview Games released
- 15. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The New ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program Will Empower Underrepresented Creators
- 17. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Unified development environment across consoles and PC https://aka.ms/gdk
- 18. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Middleware and engine support Unreal Engine Unity Gamemaker And many more!
- 20. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. What can Azure do for you? Azure empowers game teams of all sizes and experience in the following solution areas: Game production Global game servers Multiplayer services Game data and analytics Live operations AI Your Journey in the Cloud Starts Today at azure.com/id
- 21. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Xbox Cloud Gaming aka.ms/gdk
- 23. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. What is Game Pass? Game pass helps you maximize your total rewards 400+ console games 300+ PC games 300+ streaming Partner & game perks
- 25. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Engagement Members play 40% more titles after joining Across 30% more genres Engagement goes up by more than 8x when a title enters Game Pass
- 26. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Strong communities GP members have 3x the number of social connections on Xbox GP members are 4x more likely to stream their gameplay
- 32. Xbox Wire
- 35. Major Nelson, Xbox Twitch Showcase
- 36. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
- 38. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Accessibility highlight Be inclusive! Accessibility features Localized languages Inclusion features Check out: aka.ms/afts
- 39. How to Game the System or How not to screw up
- 40. #10. My game is $.99 on iOS and $4.99 on Steam but I’m going to launch it for $19.99 on Xbox. Nobody will notice, right? Your Reviews: Top 10 mistakes - Pricing
- 41. #1 way to say you don’t care about a particular region and to drive them away from your game is to have jacked up word scramble in the game descriptions Use a translation service Know the difference between Simplified Chinese and Trad Chinese for Hong Kong and Taiwan Top 10 mistakes – Localization #9. Don’t Google Translate your meta data
- 42. Marketing copy is a primary driver of purchase conversion It should be professionally written and clearly explain what you’ll do in the game and what it’s about If English isn’t your first language run it by an English speaker (for English regions) Top 10 mistakes – Marketing copy #8. Put some serious thought into your marketing copy
- 43. Release trailers when there is something actionable by the consumer (e.g. pre-order or launch) Don’t do Live Action unless you have to – not worth the ROI and fans hate it Top 10 mistakes – Trailers #7. Make sure you include a trailer on your product page!
- 44. Release in every region you can. Loc barrier to entry for new regions is low Local regions will support games that are localized for those regions IARC is available everywhere* now Sim Ship is far, far better than delayed ship * almost Top 10 mistakes – Release regions #6. Let’s talk Localization and Global Releases!
- 45. In our experience, launch discounts don’t really drive sales Likely you’re just discounting a game for people who would have bought it anyway Consider bundling content instead, if you have time! Save discounts for later Top 10 mistakes – Launch discounts #5. Don’t Leave Money On The Table with Launch Discounts
- 46. You’re about 5 months too late Plan your SKU and discount strategy out 5-6 months ahead If you need help – ask us Top 10 mistakes – Discounts #4. My game has been out 3 months. Should I start thinking about discounting strategy now?
- 47. Easiest thing to say – hardest to do Pass cert months – not days – before you want to launch Allow time to set up a pre-order and execute on marketing activities Build community You can cert a game and continue to update/add content right up until launch Top 10 mistakes – Plan your launch #3. Don’t Crash Land Into Your Launch
- 48. Top 10 mistakes – Marketing channels #2. Pick Efficient and Effective Marketing Channels Heavy Investment Light Investment Weak ROI Strong ROI Television Print Big time Streamers, Tubers Events – You Pay Dash Advertising Digital Ads Micro-Targeted Social Media Ads Events – Somebody Else Pays 1st Party Channels Streaming Social Media Streaming Social Media 1st Party Channels Events – Somebody Else Pays Dash Advertising Micro-Targeted Social Media Ads Digital Ads Big time Streamers, Tubers Events – You Pay Print Television Hard Inefficient Efficient Easy
- 49. The #1 driver of clicks. If you can’t pick your game out from this image, your box art isn’t working for you. Top 10 mistakes – Art #1. It’s the Box Art
- 50. Think about the customer sitting on the couch 6 feet away. Compelling, arresting, visually engaging Needs to Pop! Bonus: tell us something about the game. These work: These Don’t Work: Cluttered/Busy Complex/Artsy Only Logos Sexually exploitive click-bait Top 10 mistakes – Art #1. It’s the Box Art… really!
- 51. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Registration Developers can register for the program here: www.xbox.com/publish
- 52. Registration Concept submission ID@Xbox Program Allow us to share confidential info (NDA), purchase dev kits Submit Game Information Approval process by our internal portfolio team on your game Development Certification Release Building on GDK Build towards Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC and Cloud Xbox Requirements (XR) review Does the game adhere to the policies to ensure consistent experience Publish your game
- 53. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developers can find and contact us here Register Email Marketing Twitter Discord YouTube ID@Azure DAP www.xbox.com/publish id@xbox.com IDMarketing@microsoft.com @ID_Xbox https://discord.gg/idatxbox https://www.youtube.com/idxbox www.azure.com/ID IDAP@microsoft.com
- 54. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Thank you! Q&A
- 55. © Copyright Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Editor's Notes
- Holding slide.
- Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to ‘How to game the Xbox system’. My name is Neil Holmes – I’m a Developer Partner Manager on the Xbox team, working primarily with independent developers to help them bring their games to Xbox console, Windows store and Game Pass. I’ve been working in the industry since 1991, the first 25 years as a programmer, technical manager and producer – and I’ve been with Xbox for the last 7 years. I started my career as and independent developer, and today I love spending time helping Independent developers achieve success on our platforms. Today, I’d like to give a quick overview of our platforms, our philosophy towards game development and publishing, and then give you some top tips on how best to work us! We’ll go through what the ID@Xbox programme is and how it fits within Xbox. We’ll take a quick look at the newly-announced Developer Acceleration Program. We’ll cover some of the dev tools and support we have available. And I’ll talk about the best ways to highlight your games – including the opportunities we have for Game Pass and marketing support, and also give you some tips on how to plan your release timing to maximize your exposure on our store! --- I’ve got about 25-30 minutes worth of content here. So there might not be much time for Q&A at the end – but I’ll be hangignf around after the tal, so if you want to ask me anything please just come and say hi!
- Ok, So, let’s jump straight into Microsoft’s vision for gaming and what it means to you as a game creator.
- Our mission statement is to “allow users to play the games they want with the people they want, anywhere they want”. We want to help put the gamer at the center – welcoming more gamers to our platforms and offering more choice on how and where they play. Everything we are doing, from our platforms, to our tools and to the services we offer, are all built with this vision in mind.
- The key pillar of our vision is of course the traditional home console. We launched Xbox Series globally in November 2020, and we are really pleased with the positive feedback we’ve had from gamers. We focused on a seamless transition from the old Xbox One generation, investing in cross generational purchasing, backwards compatibility and even on improving the performance of older titles through programs like FPS Boost. We launched with a 2 SKU strategy, Series X – focusing on power, a high-end SKU for the core audience, and the Series S – focusing on value and performance for the mainstream audience. And, as you will have seen at our Xbox Showcase a couple of weeks ago, we just announced an upgraded version of the Series S, now in black, and with 1TB of storage as standard.
- In addition to our consoles, we have never been more focused on PC gaming than we are right now. Our Game Development Kit, the GDK enables PC, console and Cloud development in a single environment – making it easier than ever to integrate Xbox features into your game running on Windows. And we also have the Xbox App on windows - a streamlined, gaming-dedicated space which surfaces and curates Game Pass and other gaming content directly to players. And there’s Windows 11 itself – which offers even deeper integrated gaming features and enhancements than ever before.
- And, as we look to make gaming more accessible, we’ve also invested heavily in the cloud – both so that existing players can play when and where they want, but also so that creators can engage new, larger audiences outside of the typical places where consoles are sold. Xbox Cloud Gaming is included as part of our Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and you can stream games from your own Xbox at home, or from outr dedicated Xbox blades in our Azure datacenters, to play on Android, iOS, Windows PC, Xbox consoles, and even newer models of Samsung TVs. Since launching in 2020, we’ve seen tremendous growth: More than 10 million people around the world have streamed games through Xbox Cloud Gaming. And 60% of these players have tried a new game for the very first time via cloud streaming. Demonstrating that Cloud Gaming can really help to drive Discoverability We’re also using the cloud to make titles more accessible. Since all of the blades in our data centres are Xbox Series hardware, users on lower spec PCs or even Xbox One consoles, are able to jump straight into gaming experiences that hey wouldn’t otherwise have had access to.
- OK – so that’s enough about our vision Now what I want to talk about, is our ID@Xbox program, and why it’s so incredibly useful for game creators like yourselves.
- ID@Xbox enables qualified game creators to self publish digital games on all of oyur Xbox platforms – including Xbox One, Xbox Series S and X, the Windows Store and XCloud. And I need to put an asterisk next to that ‘digital games’ part of that statement –I’ll come back to shortly.
- Our first goal in the program has always been to make shipping games on Xbox as straightforward and easy as possible, whether that’s technically getting a build of your game working on Xbox, working through the backend store provisioning, or signing a contract. ID@Xbox is the one-stop shop for everything you need to publish on Xbox. We’re still working to improve on this goal every day. And we are always keen to hear about your specific needs if there’s something that you think we don’t offer, or ways that we can improve. We host Developer Days events throughout the year, and all around the world, where we can speak to many developers from a different regions all at once – to deliver program updates, make announcements and share best practices. And over the years, several programs have started at Xbox in direct response to independent developers’ feedback; things like our early access program, Xbox Game Preview for doing Beta flights, support for cross-platform play with friends on PC and other manufacturers’ consoles - as well as cross-progression, so players’ progress can carry over to whatever platform they want to play on. Ironically, we’ve also enabled retail disc publishing for developers in ID@Xbox, so it’s not just about digital publishing any more! This retail program is still in the pilot phase with a limited number of partners, but developers can now make physical versions of their games with only a low “minimum order quantity” of physical units from Xbox.
- Earlier this year, At GDC, we announced the latest stats for the ID@Xbox program. To date, more than 3,000 games have released through ID@Xbox and that represents $4 billion in royalties paid to our partners.
- And here is a fun breakdown of the genres those 3000 games fall into. As you can see, we have quite a spread of different styles and genres, and It’s really refreshing to see so many titles in that “other” category – Creativity and experimentation are the things we love most about working with Independent developers.
- Adding to those stats, ID@Xbox has also got: Over 3,000 games in active development – Over 5000 registered studios across 100 countries. More than 550 games from developers in the ID@xbox program have launched into Game Pass And over 30 have games released in Game Preview on console – which is our version of Early Access.
- At GDC we celebrated ID@Xbox’s 10 year anniversary. As part this celebration, Chris Charla directly responded to developer feedback by announcing a new program… the Developer Acceleration Program. This new program aims to empower underrepresented creators with the resources and information needed to bring their creativity, innovation, and originality to Xbox.
- We aim to achieve this mission by focusing on supporting Porting, Information and Prototypes. For emerging developers the investment required to release on multiple platforms often conflicts with other priorities such as further development, polish, or marketing. For this reason, the Developer Acceleration Program is offering non-recoupable funding to help with porting to Xbox and does not require exclusivity or company equity. Instead, it is intended to help developers find success on our platforms by offsetting their porting investment. Offers will be unique to each developer’s situation and take into account the developer’s need and experience. - In addition to funding, participating developers gain access to information and best practices in the form of monthly webinars called Green Room events where developers engage with members of team Xbox covering topics like game lifecycle, marketing tips, certification prep and more. These topics are not exclusive to the program, but the goal is to create an environment where new teams can connect directly with subject matter experts and ask questions in an open and welcoming environment. --- And finally, Many underrepresented developers have lacked access to resources and networks to get their ideas off the ground. The Developer Acceleration Program is piloting a prototyping, initiative with the goal of partnering with a small number of promising developers with great ideas - and offering the funding and support needed for teams to create prototypes that accurately communicate their vision. And again, the funding offered for this is non-recoupable. --- We’ve actually been doing this behind the scenes for a few years. But we really wanted to broaden the program and make it public. To date, this effort has since helped over 100 emerging independent developers offset the cost of bringing their games to players on Xbox, allowing players to enjoy titles like Onsen Master, ValiDate and Paper Ghost Stories 7PM. The types of developers that we seek to support include, but are not limited to, developers who are led by women, comprised of diverse ethnicities, LGBTQIA+ communities, developers with disabilities, developers from emerging markets or teams with unique perspectives. This also includes independent developers working on a game that responsibly centers the experience around diverse characters or that prioritizes accessibility. If you’re questioning whether your project or team qualifies for the Developer Acceleration Program, chances are it probably does. So please reach out to us to discuss further.
- Ok, Let’s move into an overview of our development environment and tools available for you to create great content.
- The Xbox ecosystem at present is made up of three different physical platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series, and the Windows Store on PC. To make this easier for game creators and more sustainable to develop across 3 platforms, we created the GDK or Game Development Kit, enabling development in a single environment. GDK development is done on Windows using Visual Studio, however if you want to target Xbox, you will need a dev kit which will interface with the GDK. By signing up to ID@Xbox we will send you two dev kits free of charge. If you want to take a closer look, the majority of our GDK is public on GitHub - at aka.ms/GDK.
- We have worked closely with both Epic and Unity to make sure their engines are supported for GDK development and work on all of our target platforms. Many other technologies and Middleware also offer support for the GDK. Once you are signed up, our dedicated ID Developer Support team can talk you through the available options.
- And we can also hep support you with things like multiplayer We offer a platform called Playfab Party, which is an SDK that handles networking for games in a secure, fast, and reliable way and is our recommended way to implement Peer to Peer networking on Xbox. The cool thing about Playfab Party tho, is that it also works on PC, PlayStation, Switch, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android – so if you’re looking to implement cross network multiplayer, or cross network progression, it’s a great place to start! If you have additional cloud requirements such as servers, storage, or compute – we also have a lot of Azure services available to you through the ID@Azure program. We announced ID@Azure back in 2021, and it launched officially at GDC last year. One of the really cool things about ID@Azure is that it can directly help you with the cost of running your multiplayer games, with things like $5,000 in Azure credits, and free PlayFab services. It’s free to sign up to ID@Azure, and I strongly recommend you go check out what it offers!
- ID@Azure can also help with other areas of your development! Managing distributed development with remote team members can be tricky, and we can supply tools and tech that can really help to make this much simpler. And we can also help with analysing game data to helo with balancing or optimizing your game, or we can help make your you online community as inclusive as possible by providing real time speech-to-text, automatic translation and text to speech, so players can speak directly to each other in completely different languages! If you are interested, you can find out more about ID@Azure (and apply) by visiting azure.com/ID.
- I also wanted to quickly mention Xbox Cloud Gaming We often get questions on how much work is required to develop and release cloud versions of your game – and the answer is… none. As I mentioned earlier our data centres are running the Xbox build of games so there is no porting work required. You can optionally use the GDK to optimize your game for Cloud Gaming. This may include things like changing the layout of the controls, tuning the Multiplayer experience, changing resolution, or implementing Native Touch controls that enable drag-and-drop and pinch-to-zoom. But all of this is optional. The Xbox version of your game will just work without you needing to do anything.
- Ok, Let’s talk a bit about the many ways you can highlight and promote your games on Xbox – starting with Game Pass.
- In a nutshell - Game pass is a subscription service that offers access to hundreds of great games for a monthly price. Thanks to Game Pass, our players get more value from gaming and an easy way to try new games and new experiences – Game Pass is a curated catalog. We’ve come a long way since launching on console in 2017. Today we have over 400 games on console, and over 300 on PC. Almost 3 times as many as our catalog at launch. And we keep on adding MORE value – through programs and partnerships - such as EA Play, Disney+, our PERKS program and Spotify.
- The reason we love Game Pass and the reason we think it’s succeeding is that helps create value both for its millions of members but also, critically, for our partners. First, the millions of Xbox players told us they wanted a way to get more value from gaming. They loved the great games on the platform, but wanted an easy way to try and experience more – specifically, they wanted a curated catalog that allowed them to discover and try more games. They also wanted high quality gaming that was easy to share with their friends and participate in rich communities for all titles, small and large. For partners, what’s important is that these same elements – value, discovery, and community – also make sense. -Game Pass provides another way to drive value and help our partners make more money – enabling the creation of more awesome games in the ecosystem. -By providing a large audience of gamers that want to try new things, we can also introduce millions of new players to new games, genres, developers and franchises – and we can create millions of new fans in the process. -And finally, community - having a vibrant community of players engaging with and talking about your game is now critical to building awareness, engagement and re-engagement – the audience and mechanisms we’ve built with Game Pass are a catalyst for building healthier and vibrant communities that discuss, share and stream your games.
- And we have the numbers to back that up – Game pass subscribers play 40% more games, and across 30% more genres after joining Game Pass, including titles outside the catalog. Members are willing to invest in their experiences, spending more, than non-members – They purchase games inside and outside of what’s available in the library, and they also purchase additional content for the games they enjoy. On average across the Game Pass library, partners see engagement go up by more than 8x when they enter Game Pass.
- Game Pass creates engagement, and highly engaged fans help games get discovered by the community they engage with. Game Pass Ultimate members have 3x the number of social connections on Xbox compared to non-members. They are also 4x more likely to stream, which accelerates word of mouth and momentum, and supports sales elsewhere, outside of our ecosystem.
- Game Pass Perks is another avenue we have to help you drive value and increase player engagement with your games. Even if your game isn’t currently in Game Pass you can still engage with our Game Pass audience via Perks. By giving away skins, currency packs and starter packs. Players are incentivized to try out your game so they can experience the benefit of the gifted content. This is a great option for encouraging re-engagement in long running titles or giving Free-To-Play titles a huge influx of players.
- Ok what other kinda things can you ask us to do to help you successfully launch your game? let’s take a look at the various ways our Marketing and Store teams can also support titles in our ecosystem.
- Our Store is where you need to grab the attention of players – we have a dedicated Store team to help advise on setting up pre-orders, player incentives, release timing and discounting. There is also a monthly newsletter where you will be informed about upcoming ID-themed sales - so you can reach out and take part.
- We also have a dedicated ID@Xbox channel in the store! It’s editorial based and refreshed every 2 weeks. Rather than simply focusing on new releases, we pick games that are particularly cool, unique or titles that we love and want to see get more engagement.
- And we have a dedicated “Emerging Creators” game collection in the store, that helps drive visibility for developers that are part of our new Developer Acceleration Program
- We can also run articles written by yourselves on the Xbox blog, called Xbox Wire. The games media frequently check Xbox Wire for announcements. So, anything you post here has a great chance of being picked up by major press outlets. Make sure you reach out to use if you’ve got content that you’d like us to post here! We can’t keep track of the marketing plans for every developer we work with, so it’s super-important that you are pro-active and let us know how we can help amplify your marketing beats.
- We also have a fantastic community team who will stream, and tweet, about your releases on our ID@Xbox channels. Our content is also carried on the social accounts for Xbox, Xbox Wire and Xbox Game Pass. And If you’re making an announcement and would like a retweet – please reach out to our marketing team.
- If you’re rolling out a trailer as part of an announcement or update - we can also post it on our ID@Xbox YouTube channel which is dedicated to promoting independent games. All you need to do is provide us with a copy of the video, with the correct Idents already added, and let us know a couple of weeks before you want it to go live. Please don’t tell us the day after you posted it on your own channel, we won’t carry it if it’s already been published…
- And we also get great support from Major Nelson for ID@Xbox titles – we have a regular show on the Xbox Twitch channel that runs every Wednesday and focuses on two new releases per week.
- Twice a year we also run ID@Xbox showcase events with Twitch. If you’d like to be incluced in these events, please make sure to let us know!
- And finally - we also run a yearly Summer Game Fest, Demo event – where we publish around 50 demos of ID games to the Store, allowing fans to discover and play their next favorite ID game. If you have the bandwidth to create a demo or repurpose a vertical slice, please reach out to us and get involved. It’s an incredible way to build the hype for your game leading up to release.
- And one other cool thing I wanted to highlight is Accessibility. At Xbox we really care about making Gaming accessible to Everyone. Not only you should feel good about making your game accessible to more people, but sharing your game’s accessibility features will help you stand out in the Xbox store with highlight collections, and detailed feature breakouts on your product page. It’s a win for everyone. Check out the link for more information about how to get involved, and how to let everyone know just how accessible your game is!
- Ok, I said I was going to give some top tips about how to be successful. So let’s look at the top 10 things you need to do not to screw up your launch on Xbox!
- So, #10 on the list is Pricing In reality, not that many people compare pricing across platforms, But if people notice the price is way out of whack, you could get review bombed for it. If you need to drastically differentiate pricing, it should be clear to the customer why you’re pricing more on Xbox vs other platforms, e.g. extra content or 4K optimization.
- Number 9 Poor translations of meta data identify your product as low quality to people in those regions. Make sure you use a professional translation service or crowd-source the translations. This is such a simple thing to get right. And getting it wrong can make a huge difference to the perceived quality of your game.
- Number 8 Now, this is seemingly pretty obvious Marketing 101 but it’s amazing how many people use “throw away” marketing copy. At the very least the copy should be professionally written and tell the customer what kind of game it is, and ideally should also describe what’s special about your game. Focusing exclusively on the backstory without talking about what playing the game actually involves, really won’t help you much.
- Number 7 Trailers are super important for your product page. Players want to SEE your game in action. You can use trailers as a call to action. If you’re doing a pre-order or at launch. Haivng a trailer that goes along with that can really help. But, in our experience, live action simply isn’t worth it. It’s expensive and the fans hate it.
- Ok, number 6 Release in every region you can. The localization barrier to entry for new regions is really low - You only need to localize the meta-data and have the appropriate rating to release in each region. If you can localize your game content as well then that’s even better – Local regions will support games that are localized for their players! IARC ratings for almost every region are free, so there’s really no reason not to release virtually everywhere. And Sim Ship is far, far better than delayed ship. Your biggest and best chance to get noticed is to launch as on as many platforms as you can at the same time! We honestly encourage you to do this - if you want to reach players where they are, then you need to be on as many platforms on day 1 as you can manage.
- Number 5 Launch discounts Other platforms will tell you different things, but from our data analysis, launch discounts do not drive sales. One caveat, though, is if you’re doing a launch discount on another platform you should do it on our platforms too. If you’ve got additional content, DLC, skins etc, consider creating a launch bundle to help increase day one revenue rather than discounting! Discounts are really useful later in the lifecycle, save them for then, don’t waste them at launch
- Number 4 We see so many developers make this mistake. Best practice is to plan out your discounts a year in advance and work with us, and your other platforms, to get them set up - starting a few weeks before launch. It’s much easier to get them on the calendar and change them later if something comes up, than it is to try and set up a discount at the last minute. If you need help, just ask us!
- Ok, almost done! I know it’s super easy for me to say, But you should be through cert two months before launch, on all your platforms, if at all possible. I know that development is hard, budgets are tight etc, but if you can do it then your launch is going to be much smoother. It will give you plenty of time to get review codes, get them out to streamers, influencers and press, set up a pre-orders, get your trial just right, set up discounts, and start to build momentum into your launch. You only get one chance to launch. Don’t rush it!
- Ok, number 2 – marketing efficiently The way this chart works is the column on the left sorts things that from easiest at the bottom, to hardest at the top, And the column on the right sorts things that have the largest ROI at the top, to the weakest at the bottom. This can be pretty subjective and really varies depending on your game, marketing strategy, the amount of money you have to spend etc. But the general rule of thumb for most indie game marketing is that you want to focus as much effort as possible on efficient channels, meaning marketing that speaks directly to people who are most likely to buy your game. It might be awesome to get your game on a show floor in front of a few 1000 players, but there are usually way more efficient ways of reaching your audience. Think long and hard about how you’re spending your marketing budget! And also, bear in mind that not all social media is equal – we’ve heard of people getting 100s of thousands of impressions on tick-tock without seeing any significant sales, I’d be curious to hear if anyone has had success with marketing their game that way!
- Ok, number 1 This is really another “duh” piece of advice but the reason it’s #1 is because it’s SO important. If you’re unable to pick out your box art from an image like this, when viewed from 2 meters away sat on you couch, its not working for you.
- Just to hammer it home. It REALLY IS that important. If you’ve published on PC or mobile, the box art may not necessarily translate well. Think about the Xbox customer – he or she is most likely going to be sitting on a couch 2 meters from their TV. Print out your box art so that it’s about six inches tall and tape it to a wall six feet away and see if you still love it as much as you did looking at it on your 42” 4K monitor from 9 inches away at your desk. These are some random examples of box art that I think work pretty well – obviously it’s pretty subjective. But each of these does a great job of standing out, and ALSO telling me just enough about the game to get me interested. Cluttered,busy, hard-to-read box art generally doesn’t work well. And do NOT use sexually exploitative, click-bait box art. You might get clicks, but they won’t be from people who will actually buy your game, and as a general rule, you’ll block yourself out from any promotion.
- So, how do you get started with publishing on Xbox, Windows Store, Xbox Cloud Gaming or Game Pass? Just go to Xbox.com/publish.
- And the process is super simple - Register and go through the onboarding process with our ID@Xbox team Submit a Concept submission of your game, which will be reviewed by our Portfolio team. Download the GDK and start development - Our ID Development Support team and Xbox developer forums are available to support you should you need it Submit your game for Certification, which can sound a little daunting, but we have plenty of documentation and real people from our ID Cert team supporting you along the way. Just make sure you allow yourself some time to get through this before announcing your release date! - And then, with the guidance of our Store and Marketing teams, you publish your game to the Store. I mentioned at least one dedicated team per step there, but that was very deliberate – we have support for you every step of the way from our awesome, knowledgeable folks on the ID team.
- Here are the many ways to stay in touch and follow what’s new. Register at www.xbox.com/publish Email us at id@xbox.com Talk to our Marketing team at IDMarketing@microsoft.com Follow us on Twitter: @ID underscore Xbox Discord: id at xbox YouTube: id xbox If you want to learn more about ID@Azure, please visit Azure.com/ID And if you want to submit your project for the Developer Acceleration Program – please email IDAP@Microsoft.com
- And that’s it. Thank you for listening! I’ll be around for the rest of the event, so if you see me about please do come and ask me anything! I’m happy to answer any questions, if we’ve got time?