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Steve Taylor is the president of Ninja Bee. His company is a branch of Wahoo Studios, where they create products based on their own unique IPs.
Some of the games he has worked on include Kingdom of Keflings, Cloning Clyde, and Outpost Kaloki. At Seattle's Casual Connect, he hosted a lecture talking about what he learned working with Microsoft to get his games published on Xbox Live Arcade.
Some of the games he has worked on include Kingdom of Keflings, Cloning Clyde, and Outpost Kaloki. At Seattle's Casual Connect, he hosted a lecture talking about what he learned working with Microsoft to get his games published on Xbox Live Arcade.
The first game he worked on for Live Arcade was Outpost Kaloki. The game was a Tycoon game set in the far reaches of space. Ninja Bee was initially turned down when they pitched the game to Microsoft. The company then started to redesign the game for PCs when Microsoft changed their minds and wanted Kaloki as one of the first games on XBLA. Outpost Kaloki went into its second redesign. "Everything was retouched for the 360," Taylor Says.
"Being a part of the launch experience was fantastic," Taylor says about working on games during Live Arcade's early days. "We were part of this family, part of the crazy-energetic push to release this service." Because Live was launching, Kaloki appeared in many of Microsoft's ads for the service. This free marketing helped Kaloki out exponentially. Taylor believed at this time that "Live Arcade makes dreams come true." Outpost Kaloki was essentially promoting itself because it was released right next to Live Arcade. Ninja Bee was making free money.
The second Live Arcade game Ninja Bee worked on was Cloning Clyde; a platforming title that also flourished in the Live Arcade space. Clyde was promoted alongside Live Arcade and it ended up in many venues that were nigh unobtainable any other way. "We've seen Clyde promoted in paper materials, and online, and at talks in conferences," Taylor said. The Ninja Bee creator was also surprised that this game was just as hard to get on XBLA as Kaloki was.
Ninja Bee's third XLBA game was Band of Bugs. This game was a massive venture for the company. It would feature a lot of DLC, a map editor, and impressive visuals. Microsoft was initially wary of this game; especially the map editor. "Our producer picked up a controller and created a penis saying 'that's why you can't do a level editor,'" Taylor exclaimed. After strenuous pitching, Band of Bugs got their level editor.
Band of Bugs met with a very different experience post-release. Ninja Bee found that Microsoft didn't promote the game at all. In fact, they barely mentioned it was being released. It was around this time that Taylor realized that XBLA was a business. That your game will be promoted if it fits into Microsoft's plans.
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It was around this time that the company starting working on a game similar to Sim City and Black and White. A Kingdom for Keflings. Initially, the game didn't have any avatar support. Ninja Bee had developed an original character for the game and they didn't see the need to remove him from the game. Microsoft, however, asked them to experiment with adding Avatars in the game.
The company did so and realized that it looked really cool. When they went back to Microsoft, however, they realized that Microsoft had changed their mind. All of a sudden, Ninja Bee had to pitch an idea to Microsoft that they had initially thought of.
The company did so and realized that it looked really cool. When they went back to Microsoft, however, they realized that Microsoft had changed their mind. All of a sudden, Ninja Bee had to pitch an idea to Microsoft that they had initially thought of.
Avatar support ended up being very beneficial to the game. Microsoft supported the game to their fullest, and the game was very profitable. After a while, they released DLC for Keflings and the game shot back up into 360 Top 20 most played games list.
Ninja Bee's most recent XBLA release, Ancients of Ooga was a spiritual successor to Cloning Clyde. The team had been casually working on it for four years. This game was published after a failed XBLA pitch before an accepted one. This game sold relatively well. It didn't depend on Microsoft's advertisements.
The company is currently working on a Keflings sequel entitled "World of Keflings". The game is set to come out later this year.
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