My game is complete! Now what?

For my first real post, I’ve decided to focus on the end of the development process. It’s the freshest in my mind, and a ton of developers have had a bumpy ride. Consider this both a how-to manual as well as an opinion piece. It should be useful whether you’re new to submitting or have some experience.

What you’re going to need to submit your game:

1. Your game! Whether your game is complete or not, you’ll need to package in the .ccgame format, as I’ll explain below. The maximum size for a community game is 150 Mb.
2. Promotional Art: in order to submit your game, you MUST have at least 3 images, so prepare these in advance or you’re going to be less than happy. They also must be in JPEG format and have size requirements as follows:
   • Thumbnail: a 64 x 64 icon that will appear next to your game once it’s been downloaded. Maximum size: 16 Kb.
   • Box Art: when browsing through community games, users will see this 584×700 image of your game. Maximum size: 390 Kb.
   • Screenshots: you are required to have at least one, but no more than four 1000×562 screenshots of your game. This will appear if a user is interested in your box art and wants to see more, or wishes to see more after their trial of your game expires (trial mode is currently limited to 4 minutes). Maximum size: 150 Kb.
3. A Creator’s Club Membership: these cost $49 USD for 4 months, or $99 for a year. The membership requires a Windows LIVE ID and an XBOX 360 gamertag, both of which are free. You can find exactly what you need at the creators club website.

Packaging Your Game

Once your game is complete, you’ll need to package an Xbox 360 version of your game into a .ccgame file.

If your game only exists as a Windows game (as noted by the windows icon next to your game), simply right-click it and select Create Copy of Project for Xbox 360 .  Most code will run properly in the copy, but make sure that your inputs use the game pad, not just the keyboard.

Next, right click the Xbox 360 version of your game and select Package as XNA Creators Club Game .  Once this is complete, you’re going to need to find your file. I recommend using the search tool in the start menu to look for “*.ccgame” (without the quotes). Put this file somewhere that  you can easily find it.

Submitting Your Games

Step 1: Add Project

Now that you’ve got your game in hand, it’s time to head over to creators.xna.com. From the menu at the top of the page, place your mouse over Games, and select submit game from the drop down menu that appears.

After you’ve logged in, you’ll need to click the Add Project button on the next screen. You’ll then be prompted to enter a name for your project. This name is for your use only, and will not be the title of your game when anyone else plays it. Next, click the Add Game button and you’ll be taken to a new screen.

Step 2: Game Information

On this screen, there’s a lot of information to enter so we’ll go through it step-by-step

1. Game genre: This is pretty straightforward, just select the best fit you can.
2. Gameplay capabilities: Fill in the number of players that can play locally, via system link, and cooperatively. If you don’t support the latter two modes, then don’t check those boxes. For Maximum HDTV Mode, select the highest resolution your game plays in, not including any scaling up done by the Xbox. As a side note here, I’d recommend making your game in 720p if you want it playable in a variety of resolutions. Check the Custom Soundtrack box if you use MediaPlayer.Play to allow users to play their own music in your game.
3. Xbox Live capabilities: A shortened version of step 2, but for matches played over Xbox Live. If your game doesn’t feature networking, don’t check the boxes. Currently, it is difficult to find people to test community games over Live, so if you have an internet connection and a community games subscription, be a champ and try and find games up for playtest or review that need you.
4. Game descriptions: This is the text that will appear in the Xbox Marketplace when people are looking at your game. It’s one of the few things people will see when deciding whether or not to download your game, so it’s worth spending some time on and getting input from others. If you enter a description for more than one language, you’ll need to select one as the default. This kind of localization is a nice perk for gamers that prefer to read in other languages, but it does have one minor drawback. We’ll get to that in a later step.
5. Classification: This is the most well explained section of the submission process. If you mouse over any particular rating, there will be a thorough explanation provided. Keep in mind that these aren’t restrictions. Having a maxed out violence rating for instance, won’t make it harder for you to pass the review stage. The only thing reviewers are supposed to be looking for is that you’ve given it an accurate rating. Note, however, that there IS prohibited content as well.  I didn’t find anything particularly restrictive or controversial. But it’s somewhat interesting that swastikas are not allowed. No Wolfenstein clones allowed, I suppose.
6. Media: This is where you’ll need your promotional art. If you don’t have it, you won’t be able to submit until you do. Since the maximum file sizes aren’t listed in this part of the submission, I’ll relist the size and format requirements here (for examples from Arriba!, see the about page):
   • Thumbnail: 64 x 64 pixels, JPEG format, no larger than 16 Kb.
   • Box Art: 584 x 700 pixels, JPEG format, no larger than 390 Kb.
   • Screenshot(s): 1000 x 562 pixels, JPEG format, no larger than 150 Kb. No more than 4 allowed.

   Notice that the box art can be your highest quality image (due to its large file size allowance). This will be the first, and possibly only, piece of your game that will be seen by visitors to the community channel. It’s the most important piece of promotional art you have, so spend more time on the box art than the rest of your promotional art. I can’t say that I’ve followed my own advice, but if you’re looking for examples, check the About page to see the promotional art for my game, Arriba!

   There is an option to add an MSN Soapbox video as well. This will mainly be seen by other Creators Club members. While it might speed up how quickly your game gets reviewed, I would say that this is the least important part of promoting your game. Unless you plan on using the video for promoting your game via the web, or have a lot of spare time, I’d avoid this altogether. If you have your own reasons for wanting to make a video, I’m not going to judge you.

Click done, and your images will be uploaded. If there are any errors, there will be red error messages next to the fields that need to be corrected. These messages are pretty informative, so you shouldn’t have any trouble. On to the last step!

Step 3: Playtest and Game Release

This is it, the final page. We’ll go through each entry just like before.

1. Game Information: This is a summary of your game information. The edit game information link in the bottom right will take you back to Step 2 if you need to make any changes.
2. Game Binary: Use the upload new game binary link in the bottom right to find that .ccgame file that we made before we started. The maximum size for this file is 150 Mb. I hope you left it somewhere easy to find. It may not seem like a problem now, but when you have multiple .ccgame files floating around for the same game, it can be tricky to make sure you have the right one.  You’ll also be given the statement “this game package is localized into the following languages”, followed by checkboxes for various languages. If your game has any content in those languages, check those boxes. I made the mistake of assuming it meant “is there a version of this game that is made for people that speak the following languages”, like Mass Effect. All that checking the box will do is allow people that speak that language to say ‘I reviewed this game in English and Spanish’, or whatever languages they speak.
3. Game Suggested Retail Price: All games have to be priced in MicroSoft Points, and all payments to creators are made in USD. If your game is above 50 Mb, it can be priced at either 400 or 800 MS Points. If it’s under 50 Mb, you can also choose to price it at 200 points. The conversion between USD and MS Points is $1.25 to 100. So the real price points allowed for community games are: $2.50, $5.00, and $10.00 US.
4. Countries: When you’re releasing your game, you can make it available in up to 6 countries (Canada, U.S.A, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, and France). It will take the same amount of time no matter how many countries you choose, so it’s usually a good idea to select all of them.
5. Forum Comments: When you put a game up for playtest or review (I’ll explain the difference in step 6), a thread will automatically be generated for your game. The first post will feature a small version of your box art, game title, game description, and whatever you enter in this box. If there’s a particular aspect of the game you want people to test, or something like that, this is the place to mention it.
6. Playtest or Release? If you don’t think your game is ready to sell in it’s exact current state, select playtest. This will allow Creators Club members to download and test your incomplete game. How incomplete is too incomplete to submit? There isn’t any rule on this, but my opinion is to put your game in playtest as early as possible and resubmit it as often as possible. There’s a lot of valuable feedback that you’ll get and it will make your game better.

The release option is what you should select if you’re prepared to put your game on the Xbox Marketplace without a single change. This means, no new game modes, no bug fixes, not even a change in your game’s description. Creators club members will be able to download your game and review it. They can only reject your game if it has bugs which make the game unplayable, usually by crashing, or if the game has any prohibited content. At this stage, they aren’t supposed to check if your game works as intended, or that it’s as fun as you had hoped. Once you get a sufficient number of positive reviews (this number isn’t disclosed by Microsoft), your game will automatically be posted on the Marketplace.

During the initial wave of submissions, many games (mine included) were prematurely submitted as releases rather than playtests. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that for myself, trying to hit opening day for the Community Games Channel was definitely a motivating factor in this regard. In the long run, most, if not all, of these games took longer to be approved. If your game is rejected, you have to fix it, resubmit it, and your positive review count is reset to zero. The people who did give you positive reviews may not re-review your game. Sometimes this is because they think they’ve already reviewed it, and sometimes it’s because they don’t want to spend time pushing your game towards approval, if they think you’re going to have to repost it again, nullifying their positive review. In short, it’s faster, and better for your game if you release your game in playtest first.

Good luck with your submission. Feel free to comment if you have questions, comments or suggestions.

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