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[GoGo-Robot]

I'd have thought there'd be a lot more support for independent developers. Also, the name change was requested by the members of the community, so it's not like Microsoft just tried to jump on the bandwagon. It would be nice to see an attempt to help out the developers on there instead of just dismissing them. I think once people realise that things like clocks and massagers aren't going to provide the gold rush that similar kind of things provided for the iPhone, we should start seeing more games and less of these.

[Alex May]

http://kotaku.com/5287078/xbox-live-community-games-renamed

REALLY microsoft?

You know, there's plenty of indie games on XBLA, methinks this is just a subtle way of microsoft trying to put the little guy down, so they can go "hey, xbla is for the big people, go have fun at the kids table"

I don't get you. You're way too worked up over this.

[Alex May]

and now all this is indie.

great.

Are you saying it isn't indie?

I think you guys are just being way too overprotective over a word, and it's not even a word you own or have any rights to. If independent game development is some kind of paradise where everyone helps each other out, and I think that's pretty close to a description of what it is a lot of the time, then what's this attitude where some people can and can't be indie, and labelling one set of games as indie suddenly causes all other games not to be indie?

Microsoft isn't appropriating the word 'indie' at all; they're not cheapening indie games by saying these indie games are actually indie games; they're not making any changes to XBLA that restrict indies any more than they were already restricted (releasing on XBLA for a penniless indie is basically impossible without losing independence in some fairly compromising ways). They already booted most indies off XBLA a long time ago by giving publishers a bigger cut than developers for the same service, creating a mainstream climate by rewarding bigger sellers higher royalties, forcing release windows, forcing developers to add multiplayer (although I hear that has changed), and having standards processes that cost developers a lot of money to go through.

[William Broom]

I can see where you're coming from, Glaiel. It's comparable to something like Youtube branding themselves as a source of 'independent films'. Technically it's true that "This is Sparta Remix" and "Fight at my school" are independently produced films, but real indie filmmakers probably wouldn't be happy about being lumped into the same box.

That said, mainstream gamers don't give a shit about indie games anyway (c.f. "Im sorry but who is indie games?") so why worry?

[genericuser]

Obviously the only solution now is to change ourselves from being "indie" game makers to being "njABp7aPUF;fg" game makers. Let's see you market that name, Microsoft.

They can't. Langdell trademarked it.

[Alex May]

I can see where you're coming from, Glaiel. It's comparable to something like Youtube branding themselves as a source of 'independent films'. Technically it's true that "This is Sparta Remix" and "Fight at my school" are independently produced films, but real indie filmmakers probably wouldn't be happy about being lumped into the same box.

It's nothing like that at all William. You don't pay for the films you watch on youtube. The comparison is total nonsense. In addition it takes far less time and effort to film a school fight on your mobile telephone and upload it to YouTube than to make a game, even a simple one, with XNA and put it on Community Games.

[William Broom]

Fair enough, I didn't realise that you had to pay for stuff on Community/Indie Games. I thought it was more like Yoyo Games or somethin'.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

copied from my comment on the frontpage about this issue:

it is somewhat bothering that the indie games for the xbla are not labeled indie games – i.e. the only games microsoft is labeling ‘indie’ are the ones that aren’t good enough to get on the xbla. this will lead to a perception among xbox users that braid, geometry wars, etc., are not indie games. i’d be fine if they labeled both the community games and the xbla games indie games, instead of just half of them.

here’s an analogy: let’s say the imdb decided to name any movie that was never shown in theaters ‘indie’. while this is technically true, it leaves out those indie movies which have been shown in theaters, giving the perception that indie movies are less polished than they actually are, and that if a movie will just get good enough, it’s no longer indie. similarly, the perception this will lead to is that if an indie game just gets good enough, it’s no longer an indie game.

this is about as simple as i can make the point -- i understand that some people don't get what the big issue is, but i do think it's really an issue

[Alex May]

And as I said, there are non-indie games on XBLA. In addition stating that one set of objects falls under a certain label doesn't imply that objects outside that set do not also fall under the label. The set is not defined by the label.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

if that's the case, shouldn't the indie games that are xbla games also go in community games? since they're renaming it to indie games?

[Alex May]

No, because they went through the trouble of releasing on XBLA, which is a totally different set of finance considerations and a different market, different storefront etc. That doesn't make them dependies, as it were, unless they couldn't have done it without Microsoft's help of course (and even then...). It's a different service with a different name. The only stipulation between the two channels is that for XBL Indie Games, you probably have to be an indie to release on it. Otherwise, you look at your budget, your tools, and your business as a whole, and you make your choice as to which channel you go for. I am still honestly not seeing the problem here.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

couldn't they be listed in both? it still just seems very weird to me to have a category called 'indie games' which includes only the least polished and most amateur indie games.

[Alex May]

Yes, I think it would be totally valid to have a united storefront in the XBox dashboard that listed games in general, and listed their categories underneath (e.g. Game X, action, 200 points, XBLA; Game Y, RPG, 400 points, XBLIG). I think that would work far better than having two storefronts, one for XBLA and one for XBLIG. But I guess the latter is what will happen.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i agree that'd be ideal, but i still think this has the potential to lead thousands of people into believing indie games are all terrible -- this is the same problem i had with stalin vs.the  martians, although that was on a much smaller scale. i mean, tigsource doesn't write about the worst indie games for a reason: there are about 50,000 games on yoyogames.com, and all of them are indie games, but we don't hold them up as examples of them. tigsource's introductory list to indie games doesn't include terrible games.

whether the community games are all terrible or not doesn't even matter anymore, since the popular perception of them is that they're terrible. renaming a collection of games popularly perceived by millions of people to be a set of terrible games "indie games" seems like it'd be bad for people's impression of non-mainstream games.

[Alex May]

That is the only argument I've heard that makes any sense, yeah. Two things I think on that are that I don't think that it matters too much (I think that a lot of the people who are on Xbox Live are kids with no interest in this kind of game anyway), and that the community ratings and hopefully in the future other community features like recommending games will help ensure that the actual low quality software sinks to the bottom and gets less exposure.

I doubt Microsoft actually want their indie service to be known for crap games.

[team_q]

Yes, I think it would be totally valid to have a united storefront in the XBox dashboard that listed games in general, and listed their categories underneath (e.g. Game X, action, 200 points, XBLA; Game Y, RPG, 400 points, XBLIG). I think that would work far better than having two storefronts, one for XBLA and one for XBLIG. But I guess the latter is what will happen.

They might be taking steps in that direction, there are avenues in place to transfer your XNA games over to be XBLA compatible. I think the major opponents to a unified storefront would be developers and publishers that already have put money in for dev kits and things to publish on XBLA. It would seem like a waste if they were lumped into the same boat as the Indie games. I think there should be a ratings system to the community games, and the peer review process should account for how the initial reviewers feel about the quality of the game. When I had asked a Microsoft dude when he was giving a talk a couple years ago, it left me with the impression that there would be something like that in place, then again that was back when they were planning on making all community game available for free, my response was "why would I pay $100 for that?"

[arrogancy]

i agree that'd be ideal, but i still think this has the potential to lead thousands of people into believing indie games are all terrible -- this is the same problem i had with stalin vs.the  martians, although that was on a much smaller scale. i mean, tigsource doesn't write about the worst indie games for a reason: there are about 50,000 games on yoyogames.com, and all of them are indie games, but we don't hold them up as examples of them. tigsource's introductory list to indie games doesn't include terrible games.

whether the community games are all terrible or not doesn't even matter anymore, since the popular perception of them is that they're terrible. renaming a collection of games popularly perceived by millions of people to be a set of terrible games "indie games" seems like it'd be bad for people's impression of non-mainstream games.

Most people think most 'indie" games are terrible and associate successes with non independent gaming as a default. People don't think of Castle Crashers as an independent title, for instance, even though it is. Community Games has a better crap to quality ration than the PC independent gaming world.

[laserghost]

I really don't think this name change is a bad thing, though Paul Eres has so far presented the only reasonable counter-point I've heard.

Having Braid and other indie games from Live Arcade in both sections does seem like a good idea, if only to communicate to the audience that those games are in fact indie too.

But if it's just to add 'prestige' to the term 'indie,' I really don't see how that matters. Indie is like the wild west-- the good, the bad, the ugly. It is what it is and you can't control the quality there.

There's a price-point difference between Live Arcade and Community Games, which I think matters quite a bit. Live Arcade games make more money then do the Community Games. In order to generate that much more revenue, a bigger budget is needed. A kind of budget that only a few indie devs have access to. Community Games provides a platform for the majority of indie devs. But they can also strive for Live Arcade too, if they have the will and the money. Community Games is like a vast plane of freedom for all indies to share. Live Arcade is the high-stakes poker room for indies. You can get in, but you're playing with Microsoft, with Microsoft's rules. You can win big, but it's gonna cost ya. Some indies have taken that plunge and succeeded. That's great for them, but it's not a necessary step for indies to take. That's why there's a different section, with a different price-point for indies.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Most crap "indie" doesn't ever hit the public, it just stays in indie circles.

The problem here is that microsoft has pull, and they're naming a whole service (which the public perceives as a pile of shit) as "Indie Games". Sure, they technically are indie games. That's not the point. The point is, recent success of Braid, Castle Crashers, N+, Flow, and World of Goo have given "Indie" a strong, positive connotation to the public eye. Now see what Microsoft is doing? They know that the general public is starting to view "indie" in a positive light, so they're rebranding a service which hasn't been too impressive in quality or sales as "indie", for the sole purpose of marketing. Sure, in the short term sales will increase, but since it is the only service in the public eye labeled "indie", people will begin to associate the term "indie" with what is now "community games", i.e. "crap". And you can bet your sweet ass Microsoft is gonna run an advertising campaign trying to get people to associate "indie" with their service, because this cannot hurt microsoft in any way.

I think I would care less if other companies started using the term indie games for their own marketing reasons, the problem is it's just microsoft right now, and they have a lot of pull when it comes to public opinion, so people aren't going to associate "indie" with "independent games", they are going to associate "indie" with "shitty XNA games" (I realize not all are shit, but public opinion says this).

If everyone started marketing "indie" to the public, the term would become watered down, but it wouldn't necessarily create the same confusion/negative connotation as a single powerful publisher using the term to promote it's lower quality shit.

I completely understand the other side that is trying to argue "Well they're indie too! Why shouldn't they call themselves what they are! Nothing Microsoft is doing is wrong! Indie shouldn't be an exclusive club" and so on. Hopefully you understand my point too. You don't see Nintendo advertising all the shovelware for their system, they only advertise the good stuff, because they want the public to associate "Wii" with "Fun"

The last thing I want to have to do is avoid being labeled "indie" because 99% of the people out there would go "You mean like those shitty xbox games nobody downloads?", like I ALREADY HAVE TO DO with "flash".

[Stegersaurus]

There's a simple answer to this! it's been right in front of our faces the whole time and no one has seen it!

Just trademark the term "indie games". Then when Microsoft wants to use it you can threaten them into submission. What could go wrong? 

Seriously, it's the MS Marketing train. Was there this hubbub when MS called their normal downloadable service "arcade"? It's not a real arcade you know. Real arcades take quarters and most of them are boarded up with an "out of business" sign. You can't control a term so vague as indie. Just make good games and tell people "I made a game" if you don't like using the term "indie" anymore now that Microsoft has caught wind of it.

By the way, I also only download things from download.com, and only get my news from newspapers.