SpikySnail Games

Speaking to VentureBeat, SpikySnail Games Studio founder, Niv Fisher, has commented about the struggles that indie developers encounter when marketing their games on XBLA.

In particular, the developer of XBLA game The Splatters claims that the marketplace has gotten “tougher in the last couple of years, with a few titles getting lots of promotion, exposure and sales, and the rest are getting hit pretty hard.”

Fisher argues that Microsoft can do much to address the issue, particularly with regard to the current dashboard. “I feel the current dashboard just doesn’t work well as a storefront, especially if you want to encourage discovery or diversity,” explains Fisher.

“Games are hard to find, there’s no friend-recommendation system, and lots of the store promotional space goes toward non-game applications – and now, also downloadable retail games. Sales are usually poorly promoted, and dashboard placement is sold and bartered with. Small developers like us have very little to offer here and are often left on their own.”

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A new marketplace listing gives The Splatters a release date of April 11, 2012. Unlike other recent listings, it has been confirmed by Niv Fisher of developer SpikySnail that …
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Developer SpikySnail Games has announced that their puzzle game, The Splatters, will be released exclusively on Xbox Live Arcade sometime this spring. A studio representative said that the …
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Microsoft and SpikySnail Games’ recently announced physics based XBLA title The Splatters was playable at last week’s PAX Prime event and Kotaku has provided us with a video to …
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