Metalov:

 because first current BETA is only open to US developpers 

Not true, its open to all developers, it's only US consumers who can download a published game.

Anyone outside the US can also peer review games

Metalov:

first current BETA is only open to US developpers and second I guess that serious teams are hiding their ground breaking product until it goes live for obvious commercial reasons.

Anyone could submit games in the beta. PLAYING them was open only to US.

Sure, devs are hiding their games for now, but still.... going from 20/month to 250/month is unrealistic. And even if we somehow get 250 in the first month (counting all DBP submissions which decide to submit to CG), it highly unlikely we will get a constant stream of more than 50 games each month... But all this is just speculations. We'll have to wait and see.

Metalov:

Did Ms publish any paper about their expactations/preview of CG volume , CC menberships numbers and quotas per country?

No, they didn't. And it is unlikely they ever will. These sort of documents are used for decision making inside the companies, and kept private.

Metalov:

you're assuming that each team publish its games when done

They can't very well publish them before they're done, and if they don't publish them afterward, we'll have even fewer games.

That being said, I have to contradict Nick: Peer review is not a substitute for testing. Each developer has to test his or her own game, the best they can. This probably includes sending it to friends, letting cousins sit down and try to play it, etc. A peer review will only reject a game if it's just plain broken -- any smaller kinds of problems (crappy menus, crashes when loading a game savedon the third level, etc) will fly right through, and your users will suffer.

jwatte:

That being said, I have to contradict Nick: Peer review is not a substitute for testing. Each developer has to test his or her own game, the best they can. This probably includes sending it to friends, letting cousins sit down and try to play it, etc. A peer review will only reject a game if it's just plain broken -- any smaller kinds of problems (crappy menus, crashes when loading a game savedon the third level, etc) will fly right through, and your users will suffer.

jwatte:

I have very little incentive to publish my game into the beta. Instead, I'm waiting for the real deal.

Agreed. Really, what's the point of publishing into the beta when we're this close to full release? I don't care how fast people will review my game and pass it; they have to pass it. I'm honest about my game's content, I test my code rigorously, and I don't do anything prohibited. I'm seriously anal about all three of those things, so there's simply no chance of my game being rejected by an ethical reviewer. The only question in my mind is how the sales figures will look - how many downloads, how many conversions, how does it chart over time? Which games do well? Which games don't? Which games simply aren't being produced for the service?

I can't get any of that from the beta, so there's really no point.

The beta is about helping Microsoft test the submission code. If your game doesn't submit becuase your icon has an odd size, or some other odd scenario then Microsoft missed a chance to fix that bug.

The more people who submit, the more testing Microsoft gets on the platform.. Its not always about your game or code... heck I expected people to follow my lead with SpaceWar and uploa all the starter kits and mini games to help the testing... we only had 2 versions of cornflower blue uploaded ;-) So lets hope when you upload your perfect game that the system doesn't fall over in a heap or the reviewers that pass your game are not confused by an untested UI...

I dont know the release date but Holiday 08 is a couple months away as is the usual XNA GS release so there is still plenty of bug fixing to be done. I was hoping for another beta of the Community games but no announcements on that front so far. Heck right now we can only test with 2.0 code and the 3.0 beta is almost upon us.

So it's likely that we will be flooded as Metalov suggests. And this also happens to be at the heart of why I began this thread. The possibility of making money changes everything.

The word "Rank" isn't the one I would choose to use - instead, I would say "classify". Just as budget games receive an 'A' classification. Unreal/Quake etc.. games receive an AAA classification. Games are already supposed to be review rated to ensure they're suitable for going into the marketplace.  All I'm suggesting is something that can, at the very least,  take into account a games game-play length & content (NOT quality of content) and replay value - suggesting that the game may perhaps have some extra longevity over a game where once you finish the 10 levels, save the queen and the world and then it's roll credits - game over. Trying to play the game again yields an almost duplicate play experience.

 Anyways - not feeling so great today so will keep the arguements short.

Nick Gravelyn:

Alternate State Entertainment:

I still think that having some community-elected approval board may be worth pursuing. Maybe instead of rating games based on point value (200,400,800) we'd have something like the industry uses, A, AA, AAA games. So there's "budget" games , mid-level and high-budget games grouped together. Now, while we ourselves aren't really dealing with a financial budget (for the most part) that would qualify or dis-qualify our game from this status - instead it would be the replay value, hours of unique gameplay (rather than a game you can play for days on end that is nothing more than a puzzle game), content quality etc..

I guess I don't see the point in this at all. You want a group of elected community members to do what exactly? Rank your game based on the price? Or have this group arbitrarily rate the content of your game, even though these people might not be the target audience for the game? I'm not really sure what this board is even supposed to do let alone how these people would be picked or how it would work. I think peer review (as it is: pass/fail for technical quality [i.e. does it work]) as well as a future (I'm still hoping) consumer rating system is really all we need. Anything else is just overcomplication and doesn't really provide anyone any good in my mind.

Now, we're all going to have to be responsible for our own testing - that much is for certain. If someone is found repeatedly trying to submit an unstable game then the developer is suspended from uploading games for a fixed time period.

That's what peer review is. If the game doesn't work, reject it. If they keep submitting it, either reject it or don't review it. If nobody reviews a game, it can't go to market. Therefore if the community feels a particular developer is not testing properly or getting the hint that the game is broken, simply leave it in peer review indefinitely. You can easily see a developer's name and simply ignore future submissions from them.

Some review/comment system similar to what EBay had/has also couldn't hurt - where customers can leave comments in the customer area, Creators Club comments in their own area. Anyways, just a couple brain farts

I think everyone agrees on this. However the trick is in the implementation. Let's look at YouTube for an example of the comments you are likely to see on some of the games (in terms of lewdness and profanity). These are things Microsoft can't very well show on the Marketplace so it becomes tricky. I'd settle for a simple 1-10 star rating system, myself. Anything so that consumers can see what other consumers think of a game.

Alternate State Entertainment:

All I'm suggesting is something that can, at the very least,  take into account a games game-play length & content (NOT quality of content) and replay value

That's very subjective. I might find fun in playing mario over and over again, while you might think it is the same experience once you've finished it.

And, as any subjective thing, I believe it should stay out of peer review, and only have value in user review. And because of the complexities of subjectivenes, I think the user reviews should only use a 1-10 rating system, as Nick said.

The ZMan:

The beta is about helping Microsoft test the submission code. If your game doesn't submit becuase your icon has an odd size, or some other odd scenario then Microsoft missed a chance to fix that bug.

The more people who submit, the more testing Microsoft gets on the platform.. Its not always about your game or code... heck I expected people to follow my lead with SpaceWar and uploa all the starter kits and mini games to help the testing... we only had 2 versions of cornflower blue uploaded ;-) So lets hope when you upload your perfect game that the system doesn't fall over in a heap or the reviewers that pass your game are not confused by an untested UI...

I dont know the release date but Holiday 08 is a couple months away as is the usual XNA GS release so there is still plenty of bug fixing to be done. I was hoping for another beta of the Community games but no announcements on that front so far. Heck right now we can only test with 2.0 code and the 3.0 beta is almost upon us.

Things brings up a good point - at this moment, I'm building using Game Studio 2.0, Visual Studio Prof. 2005 and will convert/port it all over when Game Studio 3.0 is officially released. This way, I can get the game finished and tested as best as I can under the 2.0 libs. I know I'm going to sacrifice time by porting to 3.0 (which really shouldn't take long) but anyone who's gone through the rigors of releasing a commercial game, any  change to the code base (no matter how slight or major) and the Q/A process starts all over again from scratch. But, that's the only way to truly ensure a solid product is released so the people are buying and playing a stable product.

Just recompiling the project using the released 3.0 libs and simply expecting it to all run pretty much the same would be fatal mistake. I thought about building using the 3.0 beta now but if there's one thing I've learned in development - especially developing software (of any kind) - it's always best to deal with "knowns". As good (or bad) or as stable (or unstable) the GameStudio 3.0 BETA may (or may not) be - it's just best to hold off until the final version is released. Because afterall, it's going to be our names going on the product.