Left 'in the lurch'. 'Buried'. 'Debacle'. Xbox 360's new dashboard has done little to assuage general fears that Microsoft has turned its back on Indie Games.
But it's not as if the new dash design makes any major move to wipe Indie Games out altogether. They're still listed - all 2185 of them - in the Marketplace with more or less the same level of prominence as the last design - which is to say, very little.
The main way to browse them is to visit the Game Type menu in the Games tab of the Game Marketplace, which is found in the Games tab of the main dash. The Games tab, by the way, is four stops away from the Home tab on which the 360 starts up.
Currently you can also access Indie Games from one of the three slots in the carousel of the Games submenu of the Games Marketplace tab - how long this will stay visible, of course, is down to Microsoft's whim.
But what does the developer community think of it? "As with all paradigm shifts, it's confusing and scary," says DjArcas of Projector Games, developer of one of Indie Games' few big success stories, the $1.8 million grossing FortressCraft. "I'm not particularly sure about making it look like a WP7 device, myself, but it didn't take me long to find the Indie section."
FortressCraft, a Minecraft-inspired block-making online game, has sold over 600,000 since release in April
"The Indie games are now squirreled away under "Game Marketplace/Games/Game Type/Indie Games" as though Microsoft are trying to keep them out of sight," says David Johnston of Smudged Cat Games, who has experience of both the Indie and Arcade sides of the Marketplace, having recently released Growing Pains for XBLIG and The Adventures Of Shuggy for XBLA. "Once you find them - it took me a panicked ten minutes of searching the first time I tried the service - there is no way to browse by genre which seems an unusual exclusion."
"I actually had to ask around as to where XBLIG was located because I couldn't find it when I was looking," agrees Robert Boyd of Cthulhu Saves The World maker Zeboyd Games. "If I had trouble finding XBLIG when I was actually looking for it, I can only imagine that few people are going to stumble upon it accidentally."
For Mommy's Best Games' Nathan Fouts, creator of Shoot 1UP and Weapon Of Choice, the new dash gives with one hand and takes with the other. "On the positive side, the search system works great, the Related tab is fabulous, and I love that lists like Top Downloads and Release Date can be scrolled through all by box art," he says. But overall, the new dash is "likely a step down for Indie Games as whole - but not for Arcade or Games on Demand." That's because of Microsoft's choice of some obscure terminology to get to the Indie Game lists.
Nathan Fouts' Shoot 1UP is a smartly designed shooter in which you can use your accrued lives to boost your firepower
He points toward the "obtuse" Game Type tile on the Game Marketplace Games tab being the only way to access the full list of XBLIG and XBLA titles. "There's more intuitive phrases to be used than "Game Type". Off the top of my head: All Games, More Games, Complete Marketplace, Every Game, Buy Games, Full Game List, Game Marketplace... point is, Game Type is not a very good pick and it's the only way to get to Indie Games reliably."
While XBLA games are also listed in the high-level New Releases and Most Popular lists, XBLIG are not. "I understand they wouldn't want to clutter it with dozens of new games a week (and it was the same way on the past dashboard). But now just getting to the 'big list' of Arcade and Indie Games is more difficult." And with many users' appetites likely to be sated by the large lists of XBLA games elsewhere, there's little need to visit the Game Types menu.
Comments
14I really dont think Microsoft made any right decisions with the new dashboard at all. Putting games so far back on the list and making everything a frusrating path of links to get to.
Its a pain to navigate if you dont have Kinect. They put adverts all over it for a premium pay service. Theyve put the games section at the back when thats the 1st thing people go to their 360s for. Its actually worse than the PS3 navigation now with its scrolling left and right and up and down through endless lists of functions which dont really have too much clue as to where they are.
The whole "metro" look with different size boxes is just a mess thats frustrating to navigate. The BBC have taken up this style also with their new homepage and its been getting some very strong negative user feedback.
Putting games way down the nav bar is a bad move. Its not bad just for indie games but for all their games. Being a games console, games should be at the front and Microsoft have tried to push gaming to the side completely. I think this generally will impact sales of 360 games and maybe push devs further towards exclusivity with PS3 because of the lack of front page support for the products whether it be indie games or full releases. The lack of usability for normal controllers may also begin to push the user base away from the console and towards PS3 also. The amount of AAA exclusives Sony have currently are also pulling people towards that console now too. I know I'm tempted and this dash is just one more nail in my 360s coffin.
And discovering new games content on PS3 is a breeze of course. Oh wait, sorry, I meant buried within a separate application beneath a mountain of unfathomable menu choices.
Are you seriously suggesting that people will ditch the 360 and move to PS3 because Indie Games aren't immediately visible when they switch their console on? Yeah, right.
No Im not suggesting it just because of the indie games. Im saying it because Microsoft have made a lot of mistakes with the new dash which appears to have put games as a whole on the back burner in place of adverts, movies, tv and social apps which are all just clutter and obstacles which diminish usability and all this on a premium pay service! PSN is free and way more simple to use now. With PS3 putting exclusive AAA titles to the forefront of its future plans as well as gaining more momentum for its download titles I think PS3 will now be a go to platform for those buying a console for gaming and we may see devs finding it more beneficial to get more exclusives on PS3 over 360 as Microsft are making their gaming less prominent and in turn potentially less profitable. So while XBLIG may suffer most, XBLA and AAA exclusives may too with more devs maybe being tempted by the easier access and stronger growth for PS3.
Well, you've mentioned future AAA PS3 exclusives three times now, would you like to name one?
http://www.eurogamer.net/releases.php?platform=PS3&month=12&year=2012
Surely you don't mean Starhawk?
The Last Of Us is one that comes to mind. That list is a terrible example, clearly thats not all the games planned for next year.
On the positive side, the new dash board is faster (for me anyway) than it was before.
I am in the very small minority of people that mostly use the XBox 360 for Indie games. It took me a while to find the Indie games again with the new dashboard but I did eventually work out how to list the games by release again so everything is dandy (I am going though every game by release order).
It is clear though that people not deliberately seeking out the Indie stuff are now less likely to be drawn in.
I'm sure the big third parties hate competing with indies and given that MS can't survive on indies alone but it certainly can survive on major third parties alone then get who gets the cold shoulder.
Having indie games on the 360 is more about PR more than anything else. It gives the fanboys ammunition in their battle to prove that MS really cares about gamers and the community.
I think gaming as a whole will slowly take a back seat on the xbox. The xbox started off as a gaming console but it was MS' way to put a PC in the living room that they fully control.
It was over a decade ago when I read an interview in Next Gen with Bills Gates about the PC beating consoles and being the focal point of people's living room. That was never going to happen but they've found a way and as an added bonus it's completely closed off to anyone they don't want to allow onto the system.
You've more or less hit the nail on the head. MS make much more money from XBLA games than Indie ones so of course they get prominence. Likewise pushing movies and TV up fits with their content and marketing strategies. Differentiating themselves from the competition in ways consumers will find attractive. I'd bet my left bo**ock the amount of consoles sold on the promise of accessing Indie Games is in single digits.
I'm not sure what you mean about only services they choose to allow on, they just spent a lot of time and money actively courting and signing content providers. It's rather more a case of persuading them to come to the service rather than batting away a stream of potential providers. Looking at the list of providers I'm not really sure who would meet a quality bar who isn't signed up already. ITV I guess, at a push.
And as for games, if a bedroom coder can get his or her game on there even if it's a bit buried they're still in a market with 35 million users. I'd love to know what other service would give them that reach.
I've every sympathy for Indie developers who think they should be further up the discovery chain but really the whole programme has been characterised by one man bands thinking they were going to publish a game and sit back as the millions rolled in. Reality checks all round really.
I've actually got as many indie games as arcade and check through it often and download demos to see if I can pick up any cheap fun games. Gotta agree with WhizzBang with regards to the speed of the new menus - makes it much easier than it every was to browse though the indie games, once you know where it is it's easy enough to get to and the only thing i'd say they could work on is some better sorting options.
You can't really say Microsoft aren't doing their bit for indie devs when there are 2000+ available to all of their customers. Can't really blame them for burying it a bit either because out of all the indie games they've got on there, if i'm being generous, 3/4 of them are crap.
Besides, it wouldn't be very indie to stick them further up the menus.
Steam ........... Over the last couple of years I've played some of the best games of my gaming life. And all of them cost less than £10. Limbo - £2.00, Braid, £2.00 and Terraria £5.00, Plants VS Zombies £not much.
Do we ever hear of an Xbox live sale? Hell no.
Steam = no adverts, and AWESOME sales all year round, long may it continue.
Indie = PC, thanks to Steam.
@Tiffer45 What are you talking about? 360 has deals of the week and it has dlc and game sales. Also this article is about the 360 dash and their apparent attitude towards gaming on the console. Its not about some price war.
Pity, please, the Irish gamer who has been denied official access to the Indie market completely!
Instead we are limited to creating a second, false, uk account and even then are only able to access trial versions.
With each update I rifle through the blades, pages or sheets on-screen hoping to find the Indie games tab and, once again, have been bitterly disappointed.
While I acknowledge that Indie titles haven't sold a single console there's no reason the titles couldn't be App Store style marketed and made inti a great value selling point.
Oh, and the redesign sucks!
I don't understand why people have a problem. Obviously, they own a PC otherwise they wouldn't be on this Internet forum complaining about the new Xbox Dashboard. So why then don't they just use this:
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/Games/XboxIndieGames
I've actually spent more points since the update on the following games:
I happen to like the new Dashboard, it packs in more information and functionality in the console's expanded role as a media centre. I have no need to watch Sky TV through it whilst my Sky+HD planner is plugged in to the same TV, nor do I have time to tweet or use Facebook, yet it makes sense to integrate social media with your Xbox LIVE Friends lists so you can get a team together to coordinate cooperative multiplayer sessions, but I do look forward to the inclusion of the BBC iPlayer as the computer just isn't as relaxed a posture to watch a long video.
I feel the Indie games section isn't any more hidden than before.
Yes the games tab is poorly placed further away on the top.
Yes 'Game Type' Is a terrible title for a link to the subsections of different game err... types. But when your there it's equally as big and bold as the other 3 ranges.
No change on the Indie game inclusion I reckon, but I'm really unsure about the small tile/big tile navigation style.