Xbox Live Community Games renamed. Now – Xbox Live Indie Games

By: Xander

On: June 11th, 2009

As well as the XNA Creator’s Club Package being updated to version 3.1, one of the changes being brought about will be how Community Games will no longer be titled as such. Instead they will be headed by the title ‘XBox Live Indie Games’.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. It does seem to be part of a much wider movement to try and promote the more interesting XNA titles out there with a new User Ratings system which will hopefully give Hexothermic and its kin the recognition they deserve.

However, if this new branding is to include titles like “Clock 24-7” and “Remote Masseuse” then I can’t help but feel conflicted on this, as if this rebranding is simply using the wake of recent indie successes to make the questionable content of the Community Games catalogue somewhat more respectable in the public eye. I don’t mean to suggest any kind of ‘ownership’ of that word specifically, however after all the work from many communities across the world who have given the word such a prestigious weighting behind it, I just want to see it treated respectfully.

So, should we be concerned? Or do you think there could be some other positive to the name change after all?

Posted in Business, Developers, Xbox 360

http://www.glaielgames.com Glaiel Gamer

the debate is not “what is indie” it’s what will this do to the connotation of the word when microsoft associates it with shit.

As has been mentioned multiple times.
http://www.ophidianwars.blogspot.com Carl (Small Cave Games)

1. It’s more accurate.
2. It’s more appealing.

That should equal more awareness, which is absolultely good news, and perfectly harmless. People who choose to take notice can make a decision on whether or not the games are good or not, just like we do everywhere else. And my opinion is, it’s a mix of good and bad, just like everywhere else.

We can all relax. :)
RobF

Microsoft aren’t the ones associating it with shit though, man.

Let’s put this in simple terms.

The XBLCG or whatever MS want to call it is a place specifically designed for Indie folks to develop for the console and have some fun, possibly making some money to boot.

Given that the XBLCG is designed for Indie Games it makes perfectly logical sense for MS to label the service “Indie Games” because, well, it contains… wait for it… Indie Games. Huzzah. Much needed clarity for the service, something the public can actually understand and something that canny developers can use to their advantage.

The fact that a portion of Indie devs put shit up is neither here nor there because with or without MS, you’re going to get a great big fat pile of shit from certain segments of Indie developers – some deliberate, some as learning experiences, some because they don’t know better and some for the pure shits and giggles of it.

There’s plenty of hidden gems in there if you go a searching and more on the horizon. Just like there is here and every development community around.

And that’s fantastic. That’s precisely what should happen.

But heck, go right ahead and start policing what can and cannot be described as Indie and who can and cannot use the term Indie to relate to stuff because you’ve got personal issues with some of the content.

It’s not going to make a damn jot of difference to the indie scene (which funnily enough doesn’t just exist in the realms of TIGS as much as I adore this place and what comes out of it and happens around it – you’re a talented bunch but not a majority y’know), the public’s perception of the indie scene or cock all else in the short or long term.

In short, it’s a perfectly acceptable name to call a service that features Indie games, which is precisely what the XBLCG is.
Sergio

Chances are this will damage general opinion of indie games, but shouldn’t decrease the actual quality of indie games, so I’m not that worried.

This reminds me of a point in time when comics gained credibility and started being called graphic novels. I’ll just quote Alan Moore now…

“The problem is that ‘graphic novel’ just came to mean ‘expensive comic book’ and so what you’d get is people like DC Comics or Marvel comics â€” because ‘graphic novels’ were getting some attention, they’d stick six issues of whatever worthless piece of crap they happened to be publishing lately under a glossy cover and call it The She-Hulk Graphic Novel….”
sqrrl

this should not happen simply because it’s not true.
Microsoft doesn’t know what it means to be indie. This is just another attempt made by the corporations (i.e, the very thing we’re fighting against) to conquer and make a profit off of the indie devs.
Rew

As has been said before, the name change was asked for by the community perfectly descriptive of the content. It seems like people are arguing that these aren’t indie because there are things like clocks and massagers on there. Surely the argument should be against the use of the word “games” if anything, though the majority of things on there are games.

It also seems that people are worried about the word indie being stereotyped, when that’s exactly what those people are doing with the content on there by continually singling out things like the clock. Sure, there are some things on there that I don’t agree with, but there are also a lot of good games, and I don’t think anyone has the right to say that you can’t use a word because they don’t like some of the games that are being produced. It seems a bit elitist to encourage indie development, but only as long as they’re indies you approve of.
http://gamingdead.com Naught

Guys, Microsoft will be using the word “indie” accurately. If you want to get angry at anyone, get angry at the people that produce the dreck on xbox that you think is giving indie games a bad name.

@sqrrl: I really hope your viewpoint isn’t a common one in the indie community. That’s some messed up stuff right there.
http://www.dyson-game.com Rudolf

The more I think about this the more I am convinced this is really good news.

The name change should really increase awareness while the ratings are a good step towards highlighting the good things on the service. It needs more good content though, that is an inescapable fact.
http://www.dyson-game.com Alex May

Seems fine to me. I think a lot of you guys are just nitpicking. The rabid protectionist attitude seen in the community over this single word is amazing.
http://0xdeadc0de.org Eclipse

@Beachlog: lawsuits to microsoft? that made me lol hard. Microsoft can do whatever they want to do, they can even choose to leave out of the service games that uses the color red if they want to. The peer review process is done by xna community members, basically the very same assholes that upload such crap on the service.
At least i hope user ratings will put crappy games down a pit and expose more the cool stuff
bateleur

Alex May wrote:
> The rabid protectionist attitude seen
> in the community over this single word
> is amazing.

In effect, it’s our brand. The difference is, we can’t just sue Microsoft. ;-)
http://www.dyson-game.com Alex May

How is it your brand? And who are you referring to when you say “our”? Can you explain this to me?

Look, ‘independent’ is a word. It’s an adjective. It describes what you are and is an indicator to the methods used to develop your game, i.e. you did it without relying on anyone else. Microsoft is changing the name of their channel to reflect that. I honestly don’t understand the problem. You guys should be happy about this.
Quazi

you guys are being just as bad as tim, if not worse because your trying to protect an adjective, a word used to DESCRIBE something. and it is being used properly, indie as someone said, means independantly developed. those games, no matter how crap they are, are indie.
Fagman

Am I too late for the fagdance?
http://www.djangodurango.com Django Durango

We are NOT just like Tim. Tim is trying to monopolize a NOUN.

Seriously though, if worse comes to worse and the word “indie” is ruined, we’ll just have to pick a new word. Just like any other business would have to once the word they’ve been using becomes overused and meaningless.
sinoth

Henceforth all indie shall be referred to as `shwy`.
http://www.ophidianwars.blogspot.com Carl (Small Cave Games)

How can you look at Halfbrick and Quantum Squid (and like 30 others) and not consider them [solid] indie squads? There’s also a ton of crossover titles from current established indie developers. Sounds to me like people are creating opinions without really understanding or knowing about the platform or it’s content.
Paul Eres

“Some people are bothered because indie games are being labeled as indie games?”

to repeat: no, but 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.
http://www.dyson-game.com Alex May

@Paul:

But Yaris is on XBLA and isn’t indie at all.

To your example: Labelling independent films as such does not implicitly state that any other film is not independently made.
GoGo-Robot

@Paul:

Also, it was the request of the community to label them indie games, which they are. Should they be denied the opportunity to have their own games called indie, just because indie devs can also get games on XBLA?
Ilia Chentsov

I think the derogatoryness of the term comes from the “-ie” ending.
Guy

I say just drop the word indie all together. It just cause confusing.
The lines between indie and non indie games are blurring anyway.
You can invent yourself a new label if that will make you happy.
http://www.mawsoft.com/blog Impossible

Glaiel: There is a lot of crap on XBCG (XBIG), but its unfair to completely dismiss the platform because of it. There is some pretty good stuff on there and there will be more in the future. You’re doing the same thing as someone saying “all flash games are crap and not real games” and therefore assuming Closure (for example :)) is crap by association.

Microsoft will not stop accepting indie games on XBLA, although chances are they will suggest you release your game in on XBIG if it cannot compete with an average XBLA game quality wise. I think the main difference is all XBIG games are indie, not all XBLA games are indie.

I have a bunch of issues with the platform and XNA in general, but being up and arms about this name change is silly.
The_Lorax

“ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.”

When I looked through the window, I could not tell who where the AAA developers and who were the indies….
http://www.roachpuppy.com IceNine

People are up in arms about a name change someone in marketing made. They should get a promotion because look! People are talking about it! Is it not an accurate name? Are there any non-indies using this service? It’s a much more respectable name if you do publish your games on there since “indie” implies less amateur than “community”. I also see a lot of hypocrisy in calling games on one platform “shitty” when trying to defend another platform’s similar reputation. I would argue that there are EXPONENTIALLY more shittier games on PC but the distribution channel of the internet is much less public facing than XBIG.

Any change in policy is pure speculation based on absolutely nothing but sensationalism. MS is still taking applications for XBLA developer certification from XNA developers and is constantly updating it’s XDK XNA Extensions as new versions are released. No where does it say “Nah go use our community games service”.
Stwelin

These sort of posts are the reason TIGSource is no longer my homepage. I come here to see what people are making – and now half of the “news” is about publicity and image.
avoidobject

If a game is good, whether or not it is indie (or if you are “indie as fuck”) will not matter. People will only care that the game itself is good.

I rarely (almost never) hear anyone refer to Cave Story as a doujin game. They just refer to it as a great game.
Raptor-Owl

Yeah I must admit, the inward-looking ‘I’m so indie…’ attitude I’ve always found hard to swallow… The thread of the same name I found particularly grating, of course YMMV. And I hate MS, so it’s not that…

TIGSource, to the outsider, is in danger of appearing as an insular, self-congratulatory community with this kind of attitude and the proliferation of memes that mean nothing to the average gamer… although that’s just my 2c of course. This is not to say it’s not still a great place full of inspirational people.

On a side note, I found the Langdell saga fascinating, and he quite rightly should stand down from the organisation, but I also think it passed over a threshold into witch-huntery, complete with the hunchback at the top of the tower and plenty of burning torches – and the IGDA lawyer was actually not off the mark in pointing that out.
tamore

Too late, Raptor-Owl, too late…
avoidobject

The whole it’s not on XBLA arguement is stupid too. Microsoft has already shown that they are willing to put exceptional community games (or I should say, “indie” games) as XBLA titles. That’s what happened with The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai.

I find it hard to see this whole news post as anything other than “oh no, they stole the word that makes us part of the cool kids group.”
http://xona.com/ Matthew Doucette

As an indie game developer, if accepted into XBLA, I would not care for the lack of the “indie” label. Find me one upcoming indie developer that would. The complex conspiracy theories in this thread are wrong (my opinion), and the name change comes down to marketing BUT marketing comes down to “let’s describe what we are selling in as few words as possible”, which is not so evil as some of us like to assume. You have any idea the complications in explaining what it means that my game is a community game, to people who do not care? It was a huge marketing barrier and (maybe it worked at first) but would have been a mistake to keep it. Our jobs, as indie developers promoting our own games, just became easier. Which means better games.

As for XBLIG games that suck, most PC indie games suck, but you only hear of the best ones. Hopefully, with the rating system, the same will be true for Xbox indie games. You can’t stop sucky games from being made on open platforms. Be lucky the platform was opened. Some amazing games to come would have never been made without it.

I think I called this a brilliant move by Microsoft, but really it was an obvious move all along.
avoidobject

I mean, indie is not some sort of special club. It’s just a word that means independent, and games made on XNA fit the description. And when it all comes down to it, what matters more is the fact that your game is good, not whether you are “indie.”

Indie shouldn’t be a crutch to verify the existence of you or your games. If a game is good, whether or not it was made independent won’t really matter. People will care more about the fact that your game is awesome and the fact that it was made by a single person or two will be nothing more than a interesting (and trivial) afterthought.
temjin

I agree with avoidobject. The attitude around here in TIGSource should be geared more towards making things that we can actually play, not directing attention to the fact that you’re indie and then lashing out at others for “misusing” the term.

It’s not an entitlement or special term of endearment. It’s about as irrelevant as saying that your car is red. Indie just means independant.

Let’s not focus on who or what should be called “indie.” Instead, let’s focus on whether or not we’re making games that are worth playing. Anything can be indie. Indie isn’t just a word that describes awesome games. Awesome games describe themselves. The word indie does not.
http://www.stegersaurus.com/ Stegersaurus

Guys stop defending Microsoft. I wanna be known as “that asshole who makes XBL Indie games and helped ruin the name indie”, and I can’t do that if half of you agree that it’s a perfectly reasonable name for the service!

If this keeps up I’ll have to gain infamy by strangling kittens or something. And do you really want that on your conscience?
http://www.arrogancygames.com arrogancy

The funniest part about all of this is people saying “XBLCG are crap, they’ll ruin our image!” when there are 10+ of them that are better than the average games talked about here in their respective genres.
http://www.arrogancygames.com arrogancy

…and 10 out of 300 is better than 100 out of 10,000 or whatever ridiculously horrible good to bad ratio exists in all of independent gaming. The ignorance is understandable since editors here have admitted they know next to nothing about Community Games, so therefore don’t cover them, but still – do some research first.
http://gamingdead.com Naught

@Paul:

Nobody is bothered by Microsoft labeling indie games indie games? I’m not sure exactly what you’re saying “no” to. Certainly there are people in these comments who are bothered by that very thing?

I do understand your point, but I don’t really understand the problem. True, some of the better, technically indie games won’t be labeled “indie,” but I find it unlikely that will create a negative association with the word. Indie is already a commonly-used, commonly-known word, because of movies. The actions of one company won’t change anything

But, even if damage was somehow done to the word indie, would it really matter? Couldn’t people still release good games on other platforms, and not call them indie?
avoidobject

Again, games like Braid (or even The Dishwasher) being on XBLA doesn’t make them not indie. If anything, Microsoft making them available as part of the main service is proof of how good they are, not any indication of their “indie”-ness.

And like I said in the case of Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. Microsoft gives great games the chance to stand on their own as XBLA titles. But in doing so, it doesn’t strip away their indie status (which again, isn’t some kind of title and doesn’t really matter in the first place).
MikeK

Please don’t tell me this is the first sign of Tigsource becoming the Pitchfork Magazine of Independent Games.
avoidobject

It doesn’t matter what they call something, or if its on XBLA or XBLIG. If it’s a game made by a single person or small studio published independently and not by a big name company, it’s an indie game. That’s there is to it. I don’t see how you can dilute the word indie or have it mean anything else.

And their community games are indeed indie games whether you like them or not. And so are games like Braid. Both are indie no matter what Microsoft refers to them as.
Paul Eres

i think you guys are confusing the argument by saying it’s about words — it’s not about words, it’s about perceptions. connotations rather than denotations. nobody is arguing that they aren’t indie games or should not be called indie games. we’re just worrying a little that taking a set of games that millions of people commonly perceive as terrible games (even though that’s not universally the case) and call them indie it will not be good for how most people view non-mainstream games and may make the general gamer public less inclined to try out non-mainstream games if that’s their first and only impression of them. this has nothing to do with wanting to keep the word or whatever.
DrMistry

I wasn’t aware that you had to apply for “indie” dev status and if you used XNA and XBLCG you were excluded from membership. What is this, the Indie Game Police? I don’t work for anyone but myself. I wrote a game. I got it released on the XBox 360. I have released an indie game. I am an indie developer. That MS have changed “Community” to “Indie” because they felt it would help both them and us hard-up indie devs is to be aplauded. WE get most of the take for paid downloads, not MS, so the more attention the channel gets then the more sucessful good indie games will become – only an elitist or a rotter would complain about it.
http://www.glaielgames.com Glaiel Gamer

words are so fucking meaningless nowadays. Every time an article comes up about “art” or “indie”, people start arguing about definition in order to counter the people who are arguing about perception, which is pointless and only serves to muddle the playing field because definition is extremely subjective while perception is more cut-and-dry.

Gay means happy after all, but if I call you “gay” I’m certainly not calling you happy.
Xander

Ahh, as it’s kind of steering this way I have to reassure our readers that any kind of personal tone in this post is entirely my own thought and in no way representative of TIGSource as a whole.

This aside I think my worries have been eased thanks to some discussion here in the comments and in tigurk. I’ll keep an eye on things just to see how the XBIG service progresses and I really look forward to seeing the more worthwhile titles earn greater success for it.

I will also try to check out more of the XNA titles available on community games, but given that currently no games under the service are available for free (In fact it isn’t allowed by the service as it stands) I would have to work from free trials or actually choose which ones to buy and review like any regular consumer would. Which complicates things.

I’d also like to thank Stegersaurus and Mike Doucette for their input as XBCG/XBIG developers, though there may have been others I don’t know in here. It’s very much appreciated.
http://www.stegersaurus.com/ Stegersaurus

Don’t thank me! I’m threatening to strangle kittens!

Also, for notable XBLCG developers in this thread, you missed arrogancy who just released the obama-fighter style game “Angry Barry”. Just givin him his fair dues and props ;)
the sqrrl

ok, my bad, I thought the entire xbox live collection was going to be labeled indie.
nevermind, this actually sounds like a pretty good idea right now
http://www.ophidianwars.blogspot.com Carl (Small Cave Games)

This is not meant to be a plug (it’s not my site), but for those who are unfamiliar and think all of these games are total bunk, check out http://www.xblcg.info, – take a look at the top 20. Or check out some review sites. Maybe even play some if you can – they all have free demos. 2009 has seen some great releases.
avoidobject

@Paul Eres: But if a game is exceptional on its own merits, it doesn’t really matter if its “indie” or not. People didn’t play Braid because it was an indie game. People played Braid because it was an exceptional game that could stand on its own.

And the Xbox Live community games aren’t all crap like people seem to be assuming here. Just like on the PC, there are bad games and really good games.

If you want to make something that isn’t associated with crap, make a game that stands out from the rest. Something that goes beyond just being another indie game that people will enjoy playing no matter what its labeled as.
Alexitrón

This is silly at best .
SuperTroll

If you pretentious twats want to stop indie games being associated with the poor quality on XBLA then write better quality games and put them up. The only reason anyone links quality to a name is because of the quality of the product. A lot of people think indie games are crap, and they thought that LONG before Microsoft came into the picture. End of story. Only you indie devs can fix the image that their products get.