Daniel Jones, the director of developer Binary Tweed and the man behind Xbox Live Community Games hit Clover has cast doubt on the credentials of Microsoft’s indie publishing platform as a viable avenue to market.
“It's a shame to say that Clover has not sold as many copies as we'd hoped for,” he told Digital Spy. “As it stands, through Community Games alone, we definitely won't recoup costs.
“Frustratingly enough, the critical reception to the game has been good. The size of the XBLCG market is prohibitively small to be financially viable, so I can only see it being of use to Binary Tweed as an arena for proving concepts.
Jones also went on to criticise the fragmented nature of Microsoft’s Community offering – though of course this isn’t something that has troubled Apple’s App Store.
“The problem is that the Community Games market is just too small, and the people buying titles via the service don't seem at all interested in games,” he insisted.
“In the first week of Clover's release, the top ten CG titles was made of eight applications, RC-Airsim (which seems to be having a self-fulfilling prophecy at the top) and one edutainment game.”