Patrick Buckland, Stainless CEO and originator of Crystal Quest, discusses the game and the opportunities afforded to developers by Xbox Live Arcade.
“When I set up Stainless in 1994, nobody in the UK games industry had ever heard of Crystal Quest. There was a very definite divide between the Mac world and "everything else" back then. However since then there's been a general dissipation of personnel, such that many died-in-the-wool Mac-ites have ended up working for Microsoft and the like.
I have been pleased at how fondly it's remembered though. Back in the late 80s, almost every Mac in the World had a copy of CQ on it. Unfortunately for me and my bank manager though, 99.999% of them were pirated...
Xbox 360 Live Arcade and Crystal Quest is a marriage made in heaven. It’s the perfect way to distribute these simple classics - and for new games as well, as you'll see in the future from Stainless.. We are going to do a downloadable PC version as well, but you get into the whole piracy issue again. Xbox 360 Live Arcade is just SO perfect for classic games, plus it allows us to update them graphically and in gameplay terms.
Back in the 80s, arcade games were unforgiving, brutal affairs. The new version is much more forgiving and balanced - in all I think it's a much better playing experience. However, at the same time as being more forgiving, it ramps up more and more until it actually offers a *more* intense experience to the skilled player.
Plus of course the visuals are in a different league!
And there's the Content Packages. There will be two graphic reskins, two sound packages, and even and Xtreme gameplay mod available very soon. Players will be able to customize Crystal Quest just how they like it.
Working with the Xbox Live Arcade group at Microsoft on the new Crystal Quest has been a really good experience. We've got to know the team very well there, and you get truly personal service. We started developing at the end of May 2005. It came about thanks to our agent, John Cook, who has good connections with the Live Arcade team at Microsoft – but it also just seemed natural to us.
I think that the financial model of Live Arcade is exceedingly good. To my mind it points to the way forward. As a developer, it allows us to reach our customers directly. Previously, you could only do this on PC, and even then you were pretty much restricted to “MSN”-style games as this is what the market expected. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the likes of Bejeweled et al, but the point is that the customer doesn’t expect much more than this from a downloaded PC game.
On Xbox 360 Live Arcade we have the opportunity to deliver the next level of performance and sophistication to our customers, directly, and on a premium console.
Additionally, like all online sales, Live Arcade sales are more steady and longer-lasting than traditional retail sales. Rather than having a tiny window within which to rack-up the majority of one’s sales, you have a year or more of good, steady income.
Clearly the issue then comes down to funding the development in the first place. I think that Microsoft has come up with a very fair model for 360 Live Arcade, where the developer receives the majority of the income from each sale if they funded the project themselves – and thus took all the risk.
The only problem we’re finding at the moment is that it’s still such a new platform that the guys with the money don’t necessarily share our view that Live Arcade is The Future! However I firmly believe that this is The Way Forward. I’m convinced that in 10 years time (or less) we’ll look back at the concept of walking into Game in the High Street to buy a physical game and laugh at how quaint it all was.
This is the forefront of The New Way and Stainless is proud be there right at the start.
We are currently producing an original, fully-featured multiplayer combat-driving game called Novadrome for 360 Live Arcade, which has been in development in parallel with Crystal Quest, but is taking longer to complete due to its being a new, original title. We are also talking to a number of publishers about other 360 Live Arcade titles, including the porting of classic arcade games.
At Stainless, we’re positioning ourselves as 360 Live Arcade experts because we got in there nice and early. I think that if a developer can keep the remit of games they develop down to a sensible specification, then they can self-fund and develop more and more innovative and creative product for Live Arcade.
This is another interesting point actually – it can be very difficult to persuade a publisher to take a risk with a more innovative title that is to be delivered through the traditional high street outlets. Quite understandable, given the risk. Everything from development cost, through marketing, to inventory overheads stack up against it. Whereas on Live Arcade there’s an opportunity to push the boat out a bit and try something quite different.
It’s a whole new opportunity for developers – but it’s important to realise that you’re not going to get away with anything. If the game is weak – your customer won’t buy it. I’d like to think this is the way Stainless works anyway, but I’m sure every developer would say that!
And there’s another important factor we have to consider – download size. Having to fit in 25Meg (or 50Meg on more premium games) is really tough. Makes you have to plan more carefully.
Interestingly though, this is another reason why the core-game + content model makes sense. The core game can then fit in 50Meg without having to compromise textures etc too much, because it doesn’t contain every single level.
I think it’s the way forward for the games industry. Rather than expecting customers to pay £40 for a game, you modularise the experience. You then sell them the core product at a very reasonable price, and then charge them for the other bits and pieces as and when they need or want them.
This way the customer isn’t risking too much in the first place, and isn’t paying for anything that they don’t need.
I think that there is more money to be made here than by using the old model – and not necessarily at the expense of the consumer. This is because I think you’ll be getting way more people taking the punt on the cheap core game. You then factor in the average number of extra content packages purchased by each player, and I think the sum will be greater than a lower number of full-price sales.
Also, from the customer’s point of view, Live Arcade is much fairer. This is because the “Try before you buy” ethos is so engrained in it. Not only can the customer easily try a game before buying it, but they can then decide how much they want to spend on it. This puts the onus on the developer to make addictive, exciting and satisfying games.
The better your game is, the more people are likely to convert their trial version to the full thing – and (just as importantly) more people are going to want to buy additional content. It’s therefore a quality-driven market, which to my mind is the way it should be.
Fundamentally, there’s no particular reason why there should eventually be such a thing as a “Live Arcade game”, as any game could go up there. If the download limit was removed then you’re really just down to the demographic of X360 owners. I think that eventually Live Arcade will be seen merely as a games delivery method rather than as a type of game.
It may take some time to happen, but it will happen eventually. No physical packaging, try before you buy, and modular distributed cost purchasing is where it’s going to be at.
And that’s where it could explode. There’s a proportion of our potential customer base that we’re missing out on because they feel intimidated by the “hard-core” nature of the likes of Game, HMV etc. These are the customers who might very well try a game out – and even buy a copy – if they could do it all from the comfort and privacy of their living room couch.
Right now, as you can probably tell, the focus of our attention is concentrated on 360 Live Arcade. However, as always we're discussing other projects with various publishers – at Stainless we are proud of having more than a single string to our bow!
Having Crystal Quest out there on Live Arcade… Well, for me personally, it's nice to come full circle. Crystal Quest is my baby, and it's nice to see it being given new life - particularly as I personally did most of the coding on the new version. Shows that there's not only still life in a 19-year-old game, but in a 42-year-old programmers as well…”
