The once-webcomic-now-gaming-empire Penny Arcade continues to make waves in the industry, and with news of its new independent games portal Greenhouse, even more industry eyes are on both Penny Arcade and Hothead Games, developers of the upcoming Penny Arcade game On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. The game won't just be available on the PC (including a nifty piece of licensing that allows a single purchase to cover Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux), but also on the Xbox Live Arcade. Ars caught up with Mike "Gabe" Krahulik of Penny Arcade as well as the CEO of Hothead Games to find out how tough it was to work with Microsoft and bring On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness to Xbox Live.

We asked Vlad Ceraldi, CEO of Hothead Games about the process. "There has only been one other 'M' rated game on Live Arcade, so the first hurdle was actually getting everyone that needed to be involved in a large organization to understand what the game was actually all about," he explained to Ars. "The second hurdle was the release schedule—we originally decided to launch the PC versions in late 2007 and the Live version in early 2008." (Hothead has yet to announce a firm release date.)

Surprisingly, that didn't end up being a problem. "When we decided to launch all the versions simultaneously, Microsoft worked with us to remove as many roadblocks as possible with their processes to ensure the game could be released as close to our original intended date as possible," Ceraldi continued. "Microsoft is a large organization, so although there are some issues that come up that make you wonder how anything gets done, they suddenly surprise you with their agility and adeptness at dealing with change."

Mike Krahulik, the artist behind Penny Arcade, also described the process in positive terms. "It wasn't really difficult because we never felt like we 'had' to get it on the Xbox. We went into it saying 'This is our game, and if they don't want it or they want us to change it, then we'll just forget about the Xbox'," he explained to Ars. "The truth is that Microsoft did want it, and they didn't want to change it at all, so there was really no problem. Working with them has actually been pretty painless other than the fact that when you work with any big company it takes a long time to do anything. There's really no getting around that, though."

Dealing with Microsoft to bring the Penny Arcade game to the Live Arcade is only part of the story, as the title will also be sold via the Greenhouse site. The indie-games portal run by Penny Arcade and Hothead Games will be a home for more titles, but Krahulik doesn't feel the need to rush that aspect of their plans. "Right now our main focus is working any kinks out of the store and launching the [Penny Arcade] game. Once that's done we can turn our attention to other games," he told us. "The response from independent developers has been pretty crazy already but we're not at point where I can give you any titles."

Considering he and Jerry Holkins such long-standing critics of both games and gaming culture, Krahulik doesn't sound that intimidated by releasing their own game—even though all the news organizations and game publishers they've mocked in the past will have the opportunity to rub their faces in it if the game disappoints. "I'm really excited to see what people think of it," he told Ars. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous but we've been making stuff and putting it online for ten years now. If there is one thing we've learned it's that you can never please everyone.

"Just like with the comic, not everyone is gonna like it. The only thing we can do is keep making stuff that we like and hope it's appreciated. So far that strategy has worked for us and I think it will be the same with the game."