Xbox One Allows Self Publishing

I don't think publishing will help them out any in sales. Its a niche group of people that will more than likely get frustrated with how bad they will be "limited".

As it stands right now, anything that is sold digitally on XBL whether it be a game or DLC has to pass some strict guidelines to be approved... and modifications or bug fixes have to go through the same processes, which is why a few games on Xbox have taken long amounts of time to patch. If developers groan at these processes I can only see the outcry from regular joe blows trying to put their content out there. I don't think MS is willing to become as unsecured as the Google Play store. There is one thing I can give MS props on, and thats their crack down on cheating. It's almost non existent outside of COD map glitches. Unregulated content would be a new avenue for cheaters, They've been doing it on iPhone for years making dummy apps that are really free tethering apps to bypass AT&Ts restrictions... (This is what lead to the end of unlimited data plans FYI).

This goes hand in hand with modding... a big chunk of this target group would be modders... There will be an outcry about how people can't make their own DLC for games, Extra maps and what not. MS is going to regulate it all... and how will they deal with the achievements? Will they let these player made DLC's have extra achievements? If you can sell your content, do you get to decide a price? MS will most definitely take a chunk of your proceeds for themselves... that will be another thing that will have people crying, but what are the implications of this? Will MS change the culture of modding to where modders expect to be paid for their content after tasting the monetary value of their work? Console DLC it self has changed the once free DLC of the PC gaming world.

On a stretch, someone could make a few impressive DLC's sell them, become highly acclaimed for their work as a common gamer... and slowly build funds from these sales to start a small gaming studio... only to be purchased by EA or Activision... the end

In all seriousness, I see more PR blunders in Microsoft's future.

Its interesting that Xbox 360 will allow self publishing, but it doesn't sound like it will be an easy process:
 
http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/24/xbox-one-indie-self-publishing/
 

We also reached out to a handful of indie developers who have been outspoken on the issue. The first one to respond was Retro City Rampage developer Brian Provinciano, who ported his game to Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360 as well as a variety of other platforms. His response to today's news:

"I'm very happy to see this. After all of the developers have spoken out, they're finally listening. However, this is yet another example of them changing policy, but it sounding better than it is when the whole story is revealed. Make no mistake; while this is a great thing, it's again not the equivalent to what other platforms offer. On PS4, for example, developers can tap right into the system; use every bit of RAM and all of its power. Indies have access to everything that the AAA studios do, from platform support to development and release. The indication on Xbox One is that it's essentially XBLIG 2.0. Instead of XNA, it's Windows 8. Windows 8, which is already struggling to gain developer interest, will gain a boost from developers wishing to target the console. However, it won't be as full-fledged as published games on the system.

After my experience working with them to release on Xbox 360, I have no interest in even buying an Xbox One, let alone developing for it. The policy changes are great, but they don't undo the experience I had. I'm not ready to forget what I went through. Working with Microsoft was the unhappiest point of my career. Policies are one thing, but developer relations are another.

It's important to me that consumers don't see things as black and white. There are still strings attached to this policy change."

 
 
Ouch.
 

Will MS change the culture of modding to where modders expect to be paid for their content after tasting the monetary value of their work? Console DLC it self has changed the once free DLC of the PC gaming world.

This reminds me of message board software. We used vBulletin for a number of years and the mods available were all free.. then after switching over to Invision power board, the majority of the mods cost money. While most of the mods I have used are free, quite a few are definitely well worth the money and the fact that the modder is getting paid for it, it gives them incentive to keep the mod up to date and working bug free. Of course they need to keep their prices low or nobody will buy their mods. Invisionpower has an official marketplace where the mods are listed and sold, they handle the transaction and keep a small percentage. It works good for them, but I don't see it working ok for games.. Its one thing for invisionpower to allow mods and get a percentage because they are the only company involved. The issue with games is the numerous developers that won't want people making a profit off a mod for their game. If there is no money being made then the companies don't care.. but as soon as money comes into place everyone wants a piece of the pie. It like all those fanfics out there for popular series. Online and free is fine, but as soon as someone publishes and expects revenue from it, expect the company to sue the hell out of them.

Of course there are also massive mods out there for pc games now that are completely free, but must have taken massive man hours to create.. like the Black Mesa mod for Half-Life. I was looking at that the other day and installed it.. I'm honestly surprised that its completely free. Its literally Half-Life 1 recreated with the Half-Life 2 source code from scratch with completely improved graphics.

I personally have no qualms about paying for good extra content. If someone put their blood, sweat, and tears into hours of my enjoyment, I think they deserve a few bucks for their time. But this could really shake the hardcore PC fanboy community to its core. A lot of sole PC gamers act like they are superior to people that play on consoles even though they have less titles to play on. It will bring on a classic oxymoron when they bitch about having to pay for something that was once free, even though they live by the cliche of always having up to date software that eclipse a meager $10-15 for some DLC.

Besides there are some studios out there like 2K games that will throw their fans a bone with some free stuff to this day... they really have to pull some weight though on Xbox, because even if they want to do something for free, MS still wants money for it. I think these developers should really bite the bullets and stuff they intended to give away for free... just do it on rival consoles and when people bitch, just bring up MS's policies.

I've read that MS has contracts with certain developers that are obligated to make games look the same or run the best for Xbox first or else they wont carry their game.. if this is the truth, its time for the bulling to end and send them the way of Nintendo. Sony's approach this gen by not discriminating against developers because of their size really works in their favor. Indie groups getting the same treatment as triple A devs is a big plus for the gaming community that has been oppressed by EA and Activations for the past 10 years.

I've read about that too.. some games being knocked down graphically for ps3 and pc just for xbox policies.. if that ends up being the same again with the next gen we might not see the full potential for games on PS4 unless they are exclusives because MS will have the developer handcap the graphics on their competition.

I think Sony's new policy giving developers complete and utter freedom with their hardware will change that really fast within the first year and a half. Once dev's taste that freedom and hassle free development process, they'll decide weather its worth the headache MS puts them through or just make it exclusive until MS gets the point. PS3's problem was that Sony didn't give devs all the details about the cell processor and it make it unnecessarily difficult to develop and even port games to the system. I'm not sure if PS3's potential was ever truly unlocked because of this.

That could be the case. Honestly, Last of Us and Tomb Raider are the best looking games I have ever seen on the PS3. Those games look as good as almost any PC game with max graphics settings.