Clover developer disappointed by poor sales
by Xav de Matos 
{ Jun 24th 2009 at 4:00PM }
Despite strong critical reception for the title, Jones says the Xbox Live Community Games market -- being re-branded 'Indie Games' in July -- is "prohibitively small to be financially viable." According to Jones, Binary Tweed may only use the Community Games market as an "an arena for proving concepts" in the future.
While Clover has failed to capture much attention from gamers, Jones says having a salable product to showcase to publishers (rather than a demo) has helped open doors for the team's future. "Although I can't talk about specifics at the moment, Clover's critical acclaim has opened doors to Binary Tweed." Jones recommends Clover fans keep an eye on the developer's official site for news in the coming weeks. We recommend you stop playing with that XBLCG Fart app and check out Clover.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kasey Johnson @ Jun 24th 2009 4:11PM
Well, personally I was disappointed with this game. I heard a lot about it leading up to launch so I downloaded the trial and played it for a bit and it felt terribly unpolished.
Maybe I didn't give it enough time, but I felt like it's gameplay mechanics were pretty terrible and seemed like the art was thrown together in something like MS Paint.
Sorry if this is an unpopular opinion, just throwing it out there.
joeybeast @ Jun 24th 2009 4:11PM
Try the demo, just didn't like it.
lippenhoffer @ Jun 24th 2009 4:19PM
i tried the demo too. It just wasn't fun.
readmore @ Jun 24th 2009 4:21PM
I thought it was a neat idea but it didn't appeal to me. Poor sales may be due to poor game, rather then the service delivering said game.
If the game was 99 cents maybe it would sell better
Neorev @ Jun 24th 2009 4:21PM
tried the demo....got bored real quick
but on a positive note the style of artwork is beautiful.
NoughtSoClever @ Jun 24th 2009 4:48PM
The art work is high quality and very well drawn, from an artistic standpoint. But it comes together to make a very generic looking game, from a stylistic standpoint.
Shafnitz @ Jun 24th 2009 4:54PM
I too tried the demo and didn't really enjoy it. Has any other "Creator's Club" game has as much hype as Clover? It had stories on all the major gaming blogs for quite some time before release. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of Joystiq readers gave the demo a shot when it was released. So what does that say? Not trying to be a jerk, because I couldn't make a game like that if I tried, but we've already heard other developers say they have had success in the market that Jones claims is "prohibitively small."
MichaelG @ Jun 24th 2009 6:43PM
From the demo, I got the feeling that maybe the game could be good, but there was nothing actually in the demo that caught my attention. If I wasn't tight on money I would have given it a purchase just to support people making actual games on XBLCG instead of Looking-Out-The-Window sims.
AoE @ Jun 24th 2009 6:46PM
Sorry Binary Tweed, maybe if you guys had hired an artist instead of primates to produce the visuals things would have gone differently. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a graphics whore, but this crap looks like it was created by one of the programmers over the course of one weekend with a $3 watercolor paint-set from CVS. I don't care how good the gameplay may be, this game LOOKS so fucking awful and unprofessional I couldn't be bothered to try it out (and I've bought several community games... Solar for example is quite fun).
To be honest, I suspect ugly crap like Clover is probably the reason most people don't give community games the time of day. Binary Tweed developers, if you're reading this, please know that you lost at least one sale based on the poor, unprofessional look of your game. If you wonder why, take a look at Braid (two man team) or Alien Hominid (ALSO a two man team) and explain what excuse you have for the grade-school quality art. And no, the art is not "stylized" unless the style the artist employed was complete lack of knowledge of anatomy, perspective & lighting.
I am not really a graphics junkie when it comes to games... but I do draw the line at art so bad there's no way the artist would get accepted into art school... which they so desperately need to attend.
ColdPizza @ Jun 24th 2009 8:06PM
Video games are not art. By this I mean just because a game has style or makes an artistic statement doesn't mean that makes it a good game.
Brax0r @ Jun 24th 2009 9:54PM
I can't download the trial, for some reason.
James Silva @ Jun 24th 2009 10:39PM
Am I the only one who's tired of these "it is immensely tragic that XBLCG has caused me to not recoup costs" interviews? Perhaps if XBLCG is so awful, you should consider releasing on Windows?
I've put out shareware games on Windows and XNA games on XBLCG, and, in my experience, XBLCG is vastly better across the board. Maybe it's just me, but whatever.
AoE @ Jun 24th 2009 10:57PM
Well yeah, but your game smacks of style and has decent art. Clover... makes my eyes hurt AND makes me second guess the whole opening up the platform to anyone to develop thing. Games like Clover actually make me severely wary of community titles overall... and I've actually been trying hard to get into the whole community games thing... I've actually bought a handful of them.
And no, you're not alone in tiring of hearing semi-pro developers complain that their doo-doo doesn't sell like hotcakes.
Jackson Pritt @ Jun 27th 2009 2:33PM
Sorry, but this game is butt-ugly.
It looks like a bunch of doodles done by an 8th grader who was trying to copy the South Park style.
ignfan69 @ Jun 25th 2009 4:29AM
Well it looks like Braid without achievements... I immediately wasn't interested.
awesome @ Jun 25th 2009 5:06AM
It probably sold bad because the demo, to be honest, sucks.
victorinvictus @ Jun 25th 2009 8:33AM
Well I am one who actually purchased the game. I loved Braid so I thought I'd give this one a shot (I also had some MSP to spare)...I personally felt that the storyline was a bit hard to follow. Some of the puzzles were top notch though.
My main concern with this game is the length....my first play through took the longest, but once you know all the puzzle solutions you can finish the game in like 20 minutes. Absolutely NO replay value at all.
The artwork was ALMOST as good as Braid, but Braid still holds that special place in my heart.
So, I'm sorry Binary Tweed, but your high selling game is in another castle.
onimuusha @ Jun 25th 2009 5:19PM
cant even try the demo, still no communtiy/indie games in australia and who knows how many other countries.