We do fail games that are alphabetically racing to the top with their titles?  If not, it could be time for some Double-O Duality (just kidding).

Here's the top 20 as of the time of this post:

1337 Ship Deathmatch
15 Puzzle
2060 Cyber Racer
2176 Supernova Storm
2win Ghost
360 Mega App Pack HD
A Bomb's Way --> Bomb's Way, A
A Fading Melody --> etc.
A Frog Game -->  etc.
A Game of Tennis -->  etc.
A Kitchen Sink War -->  etc.
A Perfect Massage -->  etc.
A Robots Conundrum -->  etc.
A Wizard's Odyssey -->  etc.
A.I.R. Play
Aaron's Ping-Pong
Abronium Party
Abstacked
Aceball
Advanced Rock Paper Scissors
etc...

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-CA/games/catalog.aspx?d=7&r=-1&g=-1&mt=32&ot=0&sb=0&rl=0&p=1

We could remove all of these "A ... ..." games out of the A's listings.

We've called foul on most of the obvious attempts to do this and I think everyone has given in and changed their name but there's no rules about it. Its a pretty subjective call. These days though I dont think anyone is browsing alphabetically.

I think you don't have much competition in the Z's though

Considering there's several hundred games on the channel, thats a small number to me.

Yeah, I have to think this is a rather nonexistant problem. I'm betting that next to nobody actually looks through the alphabetical lists unless they know exactly what they're looking for. It's also rather arbitrary for one person to declare that another person is gaming a system over the name and would only lead to a bunch of silly arguments like the recent language debacle and whatever the next big argument thread will be over. I think it's best we just leave it be.

cool.  no big deal, i should have left this topic asleep but i was just curious...

This could have been a serious problems, if... that was the only way the list were sorted and/or people could browse the games list.  But this is not the case here, so I think its kind of no issue and just make those people look kinda silly.

It was a problem on the AppStore originally as they were no list based on ranking or whatsoever so people found the good way to get their name show up in those list by putting numbers or AAAA or other spaces or combination of symbols.  But it's also a no issue now (well except in the new release date, where after the date they use the title name for the sorting).

I think we can leave it to rest here ;-).

My game "!!!000" will rock you all, and I will be rich :-)

Nick Gravelyn:

I'm betting that next to nobody actually looks through the alphabetical lists unless they know exactly what they're looking for.

I agree.  In fact, I am curious how most gamers check out what's new.  I always do the same thing... go to the marketplace, move over to 'new arrivals', and then scroll up and down through XBLA, XBIG, Demos, etc.  I never scan alphabetical or by ratings or anything.  And I tend to ignore whatever is being advertised on the main tabs, since I'm tired of seeing Southpark characters EVERYWHERE.

My game is 1337 Ship Deathmatch, I didn't make the name to be at the top of the list (And I think numbers were actually at the bottom before weren't they?), it's been out for a few months and it gets about 10 trials a day. So I really doubt it makes much of a difference.

I think it's okay to have your title start with 'A' and 'The', but really shouldn't titles starting with 'A' and 'The' be ordered on the system by the next word?

There goes my plans for AAA Aardvark Wrangler.

I thought I was the only one who noticed the top sellers all began with A...

Some day we will come out with a Spanish version of our game What The?!, it will be called ¿¡Qué el?!  Well be right at the top, just above jwatte's game...  :)

My current project has a numeric name so it's good to hear everyone's sensible views on this.  Like others I seriously doubt anyone searches alphabetically unless they already know what they are looking for.  There are no screenshots or descriptions and with several hundred games in the system it's fairly pointless.

FWIW numeric named games appear top if you list all games, but actually appear last if you search alphabetically so it's as much a of hindrance as a benefit.  Although as mentioned I can't see either effecting sales at all as people just don't browse like that.

I agree that it would be easier to find these if all of the games that started with the word "A" were sorted by their second word. The ones that really annoy me, though, are the games where there's no sign of numbers in the box art so it's blatantly obvious that the numbers were added to try to get at the front of the list alphabetically. Like 2win Ghost (the box art lists it as Twin Ghost) or 2176 Supernova Storm (no numbers on the art).

LocoPuyo:

My game is 1337 Ship Deathmatch, I didn't make the name to be at the top of the list (And I think numbers were actually at the bottom before weren't they?), it's been out for a few months and it gets about 10 trials a day. So I really doubt it makes much of a difference.

My game is right around the same for trials and i'm way down in the N's, so I'd say this sounds like a non-issue. I suspect most of the browsing would probably be going through the ratings on down. My next game will start with an "AB" so I'll let you guys know if that makes any difference :)

< mod edit - deleted AAA nonsense that could be misinterpreted >

fog:

My current project has a numeric name so it's good to hear everyone's sensible views on this.

Me too!  Man, I was so worried I was going to have to cancel my new project, 1981