As I said, I don't want to be super negative here. There's no denying that they're opening their console up more than anyone in the history of the industry, and I think we can all agree that this is a universally Good Thing. Democratization of development can do nothing but help the medium, and I look forward to playing all the insanely awesome stuff people manage to come up with.
But it seems like there were two ways Microsoft could have gone about doing this. One would be a system where Microsoft held all the keys to all the doors, taking submissions, reviewing them for content, and deciding on pricing. You know, basically a more lax version of Live Arcade targeted at the hobbyist and indies who don't have the cash to front an ESRB rating, the programming chops to not use a middleware solution, or other crazy development hurdles.
They don't have enough people to cover XBLA as it is. Things still have to be cost effective.
Or they could have genuinely tried to be the YouTube of games, where anyone can post any XNA game they've made for free with no expectation of returns but the opportunity to post their stuff in front of a massive audience.
Then it would be Newgrounds and nobody would ever been able to make even decent money on their games.
As it is we get some sort of mix between the two. They don't want to really be YouTube - you can't post games for free, after all (there's no way to monetize your content in Microsoft's favor that way!), and the submission system is still a giant black hole of mystery. Your game still needs approval to be put up, but a wishy-washy sort of "Your peers will decide your fate" approval. Which I'm even less comfortable with than if Microsoft had simple guidelines about content restrictions. Again, games with blatantly inappropriate content and/or IP infringement will get stopped in their tracks... but, if Dishwasher Samurai is any indication, tons of violence is totally cool? How do we define what's inappropriate? What happens when this committee of peers can't reach a conclusion of whether my violent/sexual game is tasteful or over the edge?
The reviews are based on whether the content matches what YOU say it is. You can't release a game with "no violence" and have heads cut off. Other than that, the only restrictions are realistic depictions of gruesome violence and strong sexual content (besides copyright decisions).
You do realize that the service has been beta-ing for a while now, right?
All of which raises another question: How are these games going to be rated? I doubt that commercial games released to a mass audience on a major console platform and published by Microsoft are just going to subvert the entire ratings process. At the same time, I concede there's not really any other way to do it - an ESRB rating costs far too much for a game that'll sell for $2.50 a pop and would be lucky to reach 5000 sales. But I wonder how other indies vying to get into Live Arcade would feel when they're forking over cash for a rating Microsoft's other digitally distributed games don't have to pay for. Alternately, I wonder how they'll fund an actual ESRB rating should that be the way they go about it - maybe you don't see a dime until they recoup the cost of getting you a rating? Who knows.
You rate your own game's content.
All told, I'm happy this has come about, and I applaud Microsoft's efforts in trying to bring game development to a wider number of people. It just seems to be shrouded in really bad/confusing business decisions, and I have serious reservations about how well this is going to come together without being given more details.
A lot of the details have been given, as the service has been in beta for a while. The only new issue is the pay system.
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