Will we be able to shared compiled versions of XNA apps?

Ok, so before someone flames on me. I searched the forums and what not for a long time, before I posted this.

I only saw threads about actually selling the homebrew games and I'm not interested in that.

What I want to know:

Is there plans in future releases to share only compiled versions or some sort of package

I mean if I spend my heart in soul making a game that I think others will will enjoy for the love of the community. It doesn't seem fair that everyone gets my source.

So are there plans for just sharing complied versions of some kind If so, whats an approximate time frame

Thanks,

Nick

Maybe the questions is misunderstood. Is there plans to only make compiled games avaliable to 360 users. Instead of giving away all of the source code

I am only concerned with games that will be ran on the 360

Thanks,

Nick

Thanks,

I read that also. I thought the faq was printed some time ago and was checking to see if there was a mention of a time, season, or some other prediction.

But, I see there hasn't been one. I will eagerly await for one.

Thanks,

for your time.

Nick

O Wilmot wrote:

I am also waiting for that day. I see almost no point in giving away my source code.

Perhaps to share with the rest of the XNA development community

I think, yes if I might make money off of it, I would Also be reluctant to share it.

And I don't mind showing bits of code to help the community to grow.

But, lets say I work on this game every day after work for a week getting my formulas just right to get the game play I desired. And then I'm expected to just give it to someone else

So all my hard work was for nothing, except to help someone else gain a lot without working for it

I will always share code with others or teach them how to do something. Hell at work I show people how to write games for the gameboy, gamecube and what not. But a program to a developer is like his child. He put his sould into it. No one can expect a developer to just give that up.

I believe when the code can be sucred, the community will grow even faster.

Nick

Here is a workaround -- it's not pretty, though.

1. Create your XBOX 360 game project for the game you wish to distribute as binary only (we'll call this project Binary; this *project* does not get distributed)
1. Make sure Binary provides a public entry point that can be used to start your game (If you inherit Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game you can use Game.Run)
2. You may also want to make sure the Binary project has no other public properties or methods unique to your game
3. When you're ready to release your game perform a 'release' build
2. Obfuscate the Binary project using something like Dotfuscator (I use Dotfuscator Community Edition)
3. Create a new XBOX 360 game project that you will distribute as source (we'll call this Binary_Release)
1. Add a contents of the Binary project release build to this project
2. Set "Copy to Output Directory" to "Copy if Newer" for all files associated with Binary
3. Add a reference to Binary.exe (You could probably do this as a class too, i just did it this way)
4. Delete the Game1.cs file that XNA Game Studio created with the new project
5. Open Program.cs
6. Add the appropriate using and constructor statements to call the public entry point you created in 1.1 (again, this can be game.run)
7. Test your project by deploying to the XBOX 360
8. If everything still works you can distribute *this* project, which only contains a stub that loads your binary

This isn't exactly perfect, but i've tested with a project that i'm working on and it *does* work on my box. You can still use the content pipeline and haven't noticed any ill effects from running this way. Performance doesn't seem to be degraded, although i haven't studied it too closely.

I've got sample projects, but nowhere to host it. I'd be interested in testing this on another box if anyone's interested.

-MB