Looks like PSP Minis might have a hand in opening the door for XBLIG developers to get their content rated by the ESRB. Not sure if you know this but every PSP Mini title has to have an ESRB rating in order to be put on their service. A story on Kotaku was one of the first blogs to bring this info to light. In the article it stated the cost being $2500, but the the ESRB has since responded saying that cost is now $800 for development projects costing less than $250,000. That's a much more palpable expense. Is there a possibility that Microsoft might be willing to offer a 2nd-tier XBLIG service for those developers that can afford to spring for ESRB ratings? Would any developers here be interested? If it's supported, then how would this effect the peer review process? Would the developers be able to bypass a portion of review since it no longer needs peers to validate for inappropriate content? Interesting possibilities that I figure might interest quite a few here.

Tommy McClain

Ugh, do we really want ESRB getting tangled up in our dev cycles? Splitting off the XBLIG games into separate zones for rated and unrated seems like a hassle and a detriment to the service. I don't think the average consumer actually puts much value into ESRB ratings. Other highly successful marketplaces (see iPhone) have done fine without it.

I don't see the value either.  In the retail box world, the rating is required to be carried in many stores such as Wal-Mart, but what would an Indie game gain by having a rating?  I'd rather spend $800 on music, art, and a QA person than a branded rating ;)

Not gonna happen and it's not needed.

One of the biggest reasons I'm for it as a customer is that with ESRB ratings comes the ability to run titles without being connected to Xbox Live. There have been many times I've taken my system on the road with no Live access & can't play my games. If Microsoft allowed offline playing, then I agree ESRB ratings would not be necessary. But I also could see some possible side benefits for developers for paid ratings. What about part of the payment allows you to skip peer review? Such that Microsoft would certify the games themselves similar to iPhone or PSP Minis? Or maybe you get achievements, leaderboards & possibly a schedulable release date? These are definitely some things as a customer I'd be interested in. The Peer Review/Ratings process has already shown that implementing these features would be difficult & problematic. Maybe having a ESRB rating & a separate paid process will help bring some of those features to light?

Given the fact that 90% of the developers on XBLIG can't be bothered to test their game against a 2 page checklist I don't think most of them would be able to do ESRB even at $800 each... oh and remember many folk complain about the $99 a year cost, now you want them to pay $800 per game!!!

http://www.romsteady.net/blog/2006/06/sin-yausb-in-english.html
http://www.romsteady.net/blog/2006/04/testing-ratings-board-submission.html

Also remember that ESRB is USA only - you would need the same thing for each country.

Microsoft talked a LOT with ESRB and all the rtings boardfs when they worked out the ESRB ratings, so you can bet there is a lot of similarity in some of the areas of concern.

AzBat360:

One of the biggest reasons I'm for it as a customer is that with ESRB ratings comes the ability to run titles without being connected to Xbox Live.

Are you sure about that? It seems to me that the connection requirement has more to do with fact that XNA games are run under a single title on the Xbox and the connection is required at launch to verify ownership.

I wouldn't pay $800 to get my game rated. On the plus side though, charging that much to get a game on the service would likely mean more people would put more time into creating a quality game because they'd want to be sure to recoup that cost.

We already have a sort of rating system now (those sliders we choose when submitting a game) though I do wish Microsoft would do something nicer to display them on the dashboard other than displaying them as text in the description.

Jeff Randall:

AzBat360:

One of the biggest reasons I'm for it as a customer is that with ESRB ratings comes the ability to run titles without being connected to Xbox Live.

Are you sure about that? It seems to me that the connection requirement has more to do with fact that XNA games are run under a single title on the Xbox and the connection is required at launch to verify ownership.

Thats what we have been told:
 
Here is the official replies from the Microsoft guys in the XNA developer forums.

http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/19178/101196.aspx#101196
and
http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/19178/101223.aspx#101223 (same thread just a reply further down)

But we're now off topic so lets get back to ESRB...

IMHO, another section is unlikely to appear since it would become nearly identical to Arcade. I doubt ratings would make that much difference for an Indie Game title... In fact if some XBLIGs get ESRB ratings while most don't, it would likely cause more confusion with the gamers. (although it might be a good marketing ploy if you were to get an M rating)

The reduced $800 fee for sub-$250,000 projects is good news for an indie that's going to Arcade.

The ZMan:

Also remember that ESRB is USA only - you would need the same thing for each country.

This is really the key here. $800 for the USA + more for UK + more for Spain + more for France + more for Germany + more for Japan + more for Sweden + more for Italy + more for Canada + more for any other countries. I wouldn't doubt you'd easily spend $5-$10K just on ratings. And frankly, most games aren't making nearly that much. It'd be a money sink. Pixel Man has made me about $1000 now. If I spent $800 on an ESRB logo, I'd be pretty pissed to have wasted 80% on a rating that I don't think will make any difference.

Thanks for the links. That helps explain things.

Anyway, clearly paying $800 for ESRB ratings is not for every developer. In fact, I would be surprised if I could count enough current developers on one hand that would be able to afford it. But the idea is to get those better games & usallly better games require better developers. If you offer some premium services then they'll come. Again, my whole idea of getting ESRB ratings was to remove the online requirement, but that looks like that may not solve the issue anyway.

Tommy McClain

Nick Gravelyn:

Unrelated I find it stupidly funny that the cost of making your game has an affect on the cost to get it rated. Because, you know, that makes sense.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html pricing rarely makes sense on anything.

As a side note the fact that indie games are unrated is, as far as I'm aware, the only reason the channel is not available to us Australians yet. 

Halfbrick:

As a side note the fact that indie games are unrated is, as far as I'm aware, the only reason the channel is not available to us Australians yet.

Quite possibly. You Aussies have some interesting issues with game ratings from what I've read. From that angle I can see the point in having this section for games that want to get rated, but I fear that what you'll see is five games sitting in there and nobody else. It'll be overhead for the XNA team and overhead for the Xbox/LIVE teams all for a very, very, very small percentage of the games who would even bother with the ratings.

I think it's rather safe to say that you won't ever see a second section of XBLIG for rated games. You can feel free to get a rating on your game if you want, but I think that'll just be wasted money.

Nick Gravelyn:

I think it's rather safe to say that you won't ever see a second section of XBLIG for rated games. You can feel free to get a rating on your game if you want, but I think that'll just be wasted money.

Ha just think, for all those super high quality XBLIGs (because you know every one is) it'll make the total dev costs cheaper if they were to say move to or do something on the real XBLA.

We have enough problems with XBox Live being as segmented as it is.  I've already heard plenty of people, including prominent journalists like Garnett Lee and John Davidson say that one of the reasons they don't take XBLIG seriously is because they're seperated from the rest of the content on the channel.  The XBLIG channel is already ghettoised enough as it is, let's not try and think of ways to make things even more convoluted.

The Shape of Games to Come:

We have enough problems with XBox Live being as segmented as it is.  I've already heard plenty of people, including prominent journalists like Garnett Lee and John Davidson say that one of the reasons they don't take XBLIG seriously is because they're seperated from the rest of the content on the channel.  The XBLIG channel is already ghettoised enough as it is, let's not try and think of ways to make things even more convoluted.

That argument doesn't hold any water. Indie Games is right next to Arcade and Games on Demand. It is no harder to find than any other section. Anybody saying Indie Games are hard to find either hasn't looked at the Dashboard in a while or is just saying things to say things.

Nick Gravelyn:

That argument doesn't hold any water. Indie Games is right next to Arcade and Games on Demand. It is no harder to find than any other section. Anybody saying Indie Games are hard to find either hasn't looked at the Dashboard in a while or is just saying things to say things.

Journalists don't get their games through the dash Nick... they choose what to download based on marketing and publicity. It's that a lot of people "in the know" about games I don't think do window shopping. They go on the dash with a goal-oriented mindset and whether or not the sections are close, they will always be hitting the "Arcade" button, not the "indies" button. Or more precisely, since whatever they are looking for is "in the news", the XBox dashboard is also probably advertising it.

That said, games journalists are clearly not the bulk of our audience. A lot of us would like to attract those journalists and other non-window shoppers, but first and foremost we're relying on the people who DO come to XBLIG.

Stegersaurus Games:

Nick Gravelyn:

That argument doesn't hold any water. Indie Games is right next to Arcade and Games on Demand. It is no harder to find than any other section. Anybody saying Indie Games are hard to find either hasn't looked at the Dashboard in a while or is just saying things to say things.

Journalists don't get their games through the dash Nick... they choose what to download based on marketing and publicity. It's that a lot of people "in the know" about games I don't think do window shopping. They go on the dash with a goal-oriented mindset and whether or not the sections are close, they will always be hitting the "Arcade" button, not the "indies" button. Or more precisely, since whatever they are looking for is "in the news", the XBox dashboard is also probably advertising it.

That said, games journalists are clearly not the bulk of our audience. A lot of us would like to attract those journalists and other non-window shoppers, but first and foremost we're relying on the people who DO come to XBLIG.

Oh I understand that. But the specific argument that they ignore XBLIG because it's separated is crap. If they want to say they ignore it because it's not advertised or they're lazy or whatever, that's fine. But XBLIG is no more separated than any other game content on the Marketplace.

Stegersaurus Games:

Journalists don't get their games through the dash Nick... they choose what to download based on marketing and publicity. It's that a lot of people "in the know" about games I don't think do window shopping. They go on the dash with a goal-oriented mindset and whether or not the sections are close, they will always be hitting the "Arcade" button, not the "indies" button. Or more precisely, since whatever they are looking for is "in the news", the XBox dashboard is also probably advertising it.

That said, games journalists are clearly not the bulk of our audience. A lot of us would like to attract those journalists and other non-window shoppers, but first and foremost we're relying on the people who DO come to XBLIG.

As a games journalist myself, I wish I could disagree with you and say that we do poke around the dashboard and try and find new items to put in articles.  To be fair, there are some of us that do, but that is definitely the minority.  Hell, I've seen several times where gaming sites will even miss Xbox Live Arcade game releases if the press release isn't spoon fed to them ahead of time.  That Tour de France game comes to mind, where no sites included it in their "XBLA Wednesday Update" announcement articles even though it was sitting nicely on the dashboard waiting for them.  That's why, unfortunately, if you want to catch journalist attention direct emails are probably the best way to go (thanks for the emails about the Battle Beat trailer a while back by the way).

Anyway, since I'm posting I feel like I should contribute to the actual topic at hand.  Most gamers (and from my experience several years ago as a GameStop employee during the release of GTA: San Andreas, most parents too) pretty much ignore ESRB ratings anyway, so I don't see much advantage for an XBLIG dev to get their game rated.  The main reason I can see for an XBLIG dev to get their game ESRB rated would be if they wanted to put it on any other service besides XBLIG.  I don't know exactly what the contract is to put a game on XBLIG, but apparently it's not too strict about porting games to other systems since Halfbrick is bringing their games to PSP Minis.  Could DSi Ware also be a possibility (depending on the game of course)?  Or a commercial release through Steam, Direct2Drive, or Greenhouse?  If a developer was looking to expand into any of those territories then ESRB rating would be good, but unless every XBLIG started getting rated by the ESRB I really don't see it helping.

"Oh," a gamer might say, "this XBLIG has an ESRB rating when none of the others do.  It was probably meant as an XBLA game and got rejected.  It must not be very good."  And so the gamer goes and downloads a non-ESRB rated XBLIG instead because that fits his perception of what "belongs" in the XBLIG section.

Nick Gravelyn:

The Shape of Games to Come:

We have enough problems with XBox Live being as segmented as it is.  I've already heard plenty of people, including prominent journalists like Garnett Lee and John Davidson say that one of the reasons they don't take XBLIG seriously is because they're seperated from the rest of the content on the channel.  The XBLIG channel is already ghettoised enough as it is, let's not try and think of ways to make things even more convoluted.

That argument doesn't hold any water. Indie Games is right next to Arcade and Games on Demand. It is no harder to find than any other section. Anybody saying Indie Games are hard to find either hasn't looked at the Dashboard in a while or is just saying things to say things.

That's not really what was meant, so let me clarify.  On the ListenUp podcast that was put out by Garnett Lee at 1Up until he left last week, one of the regular panellists was John Davidson, formerly the editor-in-chief of EGM, and John had a weekly iPhone game of the week segment.  While discussing iPhone games one week, Garnett posed the question to the panel of why they don't talke about XBLIG very much even though they talk about great indie iPhone games all the time.  And the answer that John gave, which the others agreed with, was that Microsoft has essentially ghettoised XBLIG on the service. 

When you talk about a great independent iPhone game you don't go "Hey, go into this seperate channel where there are these cool games that everyone is missing", you just say "Hey, check out this great game" and it's available through exactly the same channels as all the other iPhone games.  There isn't any distinction between an iPhone game from EA, Gameloft, or some dude in his basement - they're all just "iPhone games".

With XBLIG, though, Microsoft is essentially saying that the games are third-tier simply by the way they're categorised and (not) advertised.  It's not that Garnett and John don't know where to find the games, it's that they feel as though Microsoft is telling people the games aren't worthwhile by seperating them from the rest of the content on the service.  So what I was saying was that if people feel like that -and as far as I've noticed, a lot of people do - then creating yet another tier is only going to worsen the impression of the service as third (or potentially fourth) tier.

Ah I see. I'm not sure "ghettoised" is quite the right word for it. I mean, they don't put XBLA games in the same section as Games on Demand. Microsoft is all about tiers. We are, for a number of reasons, not equal to XBLA and Microsoft has organized us in such a way. I still think it's kind of a cop-out excuse, but I can understand that point more than them not being able to be found (which I have seen other people say before).

The Shape of Games to Come:

It's not that Garnett and John don't know where to find the games, it's that they feel as though Microsoft is telling people the games aren't worthwhile by seperating them from the rest of the content on the service.

That's just freakin' stupid! Why not just put all games into one category instead of separating them into genres? Indie games aren't separated from other content any more than XBLA games are separated from videos. It just makes sense to organize content instead of dumping them all in one place.

The Shape of Games to Come:

With XBLIG, though, Microsoft is essentially saying that the games are third-tier simply by the way they're categorised and (not) advertised.  It's not that Garnett and John don't know where to find the games, it's that they feel as though Microsoft is telling people the games aren't worthwhile by seperating them from the rest of the content on the service.  So what I was saying was that if people feel like that -and as far as I've noticed, a lot of people do - then creating yet another tier is only going to worsen the impression of the service as third (or potentially fourth) tier.

Going through the process, I have to say my impression is XBLIG is the dream of one person or team at Microsoft and not something really seen as part of Microsoft and Xbox as a whole.  When updates to the dashboard are considered "significant" effort, that is changing some menus, it's a sign that the service doesn't get many resources. 

On the flip side, Microsoft seems to go crazy coming up with different buckets to put things in on the dashboard, so it is more likely not a direct statement these are lower tier games but just another area where Microsoft is to big to focus well.

Hiring a community manager for XBLIG would be a great step.  Someone who puts together "new this week" emails for the journalists, makes little video segments for the dashboard, and follows up with community issues like review guidence.

Speaking of the game journalists (resisting the urge to put that word in quotes), listening to GiantBomb last week go off on Zombie Apocolypse for what seemed 30 minutes and not mention James Silva's zomebie game was painful.  At one point they event called it a "dual stick zombie shooter"!