Heads up.  Get those engines rolling.

What?  There's a deadline for the registry itself?  Thanks for the heads up!  I almost missed it.  I would have been pissed......

Yikes, i better get a move on. I'm still learning xna although if I am not happy with my progress I'll enter next years one if there is one :D

Damn... I just wrapped up my game yesterday, but I didn't know there was a separate deadline to register your team until today.  Why can't there just be one deadline?

This separate deadline is a stupid idea.

I was going to get some buddies to sign up and missed it... since it was a nice chance to be able to allow them to easily beta test my game (without paying $100 for a CC membership they won't otherwise use) on their own time with their own Xbox 360.  This is something that, if it were easier to do, I am sure game quality of Indie Games would improve... since beta testing is one resource us indies don't have resources for.  Peer-review / play-test a week before release is WAY TOO LATE to do significant best-testing for the first time, and even if it reveals issues, which it always does, the solutions are way too complex or hard coded in to fix quickly, so they stay broken.

JasonD:

This separate deadline is a stupid idea.

I was going to get some buddies to sign up and missed it... since it was a nice chance to be able to allow them to easily beta test my game (without paying $100 for a CC membership they won't otherwise use) on their own time with their own Xbox 360. 

To be fair, DBP isn't giving out subscriptions for your buddies to playtest your game. It's a nice perk, but that really isn't the motivation behind those free trial accounts

Upload your game to playtest... you will have a month of everyone being able to beta test for you.

I missed it..

DBP was pretty much my last chance at getting my game published, or atleast seen. Starting a company here requires so much capital and I'm attending university this fall, which will make it very hard to focus on anything else. I had no idea that there was a deadline for registration, I should have read the rules more carefully. I'll try to email Microsoft tomorrow but I doubt there is anything they can do now that the competition has started.

Good luck everyone!

I'm guessing "here" must be a country that you can't release an XBox LIVE Indie Game in? That's a bummer. But there's always next year. This gives you quite a while to keep adding polish and content to your game so it will wow them next Dream Build Play. If it was almost ready for this one, then it will be perfect for next year.

Nick: I know the free accounts aren't for people to help play test the game, but currently this is the best method of play testing games.  The play test section is great to have, but what about all the beta testing that should happen way before the game is near completion / before it's reading to be sent to play test?

Zman: There are known issues with the game, so I'd be wasting everyone's time to get them reporting such issues.  I certainly will make use of the play test when it won't be a waste of anyone's time.  It would just be nice to be able to give the game easily to others during the most of the development period.

To those who missed: George is right.  We are entering DBP 2009 with the same game as we entered DBP 2008.  Making good games with polish take time.  So, keep at it!

JasonD:

The play test section is great to have, but what about all the beta testing that should happen way before the game is near completion / before it's reading to be sent to play test?

You can use playtesting as early in your game's development as you want. You don't have to wait until it's practically done to start playtesting.

I agree - PlayTest is for everything from concept testing to final test pass before review. Just fill in the notes field accordingly. If you want specific guided testing than you can specify that too.

Oh, wow, thanks, I didn't know that.  I thought it was an immediate (optional) precursor to the peer review.

With a game of quality, which I believe Duality ZF is, if we submitted it to play test on occasion with new things to test out, I don't think this would be a waste of anyone's time, since people would be eager to see what's new.

Thanks guys.