So XBIG have almost been around for a year now, it would be great to have some type of yearly awards, where people vote for there best games in different categories, things like:
- Best Overall Indie Game
- Best Original Game
- Best Family Game
- Best Co-operative Multiplayer Game
- Best Competitive Multiplayer Game
- Best Singleplayer Game
- Best Innovation in XBIG
- Best Graphics
- Best Sound


Can vote up to 5 games per category... and then maybe Microsoft could host it on the dash or something to allow anyone to vote for the best in each category?
What are your thoughts?

This could be interesting.

They have done this twice for Live Arcade games...

http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/02/26/the-second-annual-xbox-live-arcade-awards.aspx

Screenshot

I like the idea as well.

Tommy McClain

I love the idea, though I'm not sure how easy it would be to get Microsoft on board to highlight the winners as voted on the forums. 

At the very least though, I plan on fighting to get a couple of XBLIGs nominated for categories at the end of the year on the site I write for.  Don't know if any will win (since I don't know how many other writers on my site actually play XBLIG), but there are definitely some that I feel deserve to be nominated with the big games this year.

I like this idea.  I love it, really!  More exposure for all XBLIG and more exposure specifically on the positives found within XBLIG.

We are community based, so maybe as a community we can choose the nominees, and have an XBLIG app (akin to the XBLA app) to have the gamers vote the winners.

Yeah, a website that allowed voting would be cool, i kinda doubt Microsoft will be doing this (at least anytime soon). Love to see this though.

Kris Steele:

Yeah, a website that allowed voting would be cool, i kinda doubt Microsoft will be doing this (at least anytime soon). Love to see this though.

I would think just an app would do, that was promoted on the Xbox dashboard like the XBLA voting app.  Could you vote on the XBLA games via a website, too?

Matthew Doucette:

Kris Steele:

Yeah, a website that allowed voting would be cool, i kinda doubt Microsoft will be doing this (at least anytime soon). Love to see this though.

I would think just an app would do, that was promoted on the Xbox dashboard like the XBLA voting app.  Could you vote on the XBLA games via a website, too?

App/Website would be different as there is no way for a website to access any data on the Xbox and vice versa.

If you did an app, I supposed you would then have to use something like Jwatte's distributed high score component to keep track of voting??? Unless Microsoft got involved, I think that's about our only option.

On a website, you could use SQL database which seems to me a simpler route to go. It's easier to browse online too, but I'm not sure if it would get as many eyes as an App would.

Matthew Doucette:

Could you vote on the XBLA games via a website, too?

Kris Steele:

Matthew Doucette:

Kris Steele:

Yeah, a website that allowed voting would be cool, i kinda doubt Microsoft will be doing this (at least anytime soon). Love to see this though.

I would think just an app would do, that was promoted on the Xbox dashboard like the XBLA voting app.  Could you vote on the XBLA games via a website, too?

App/Website would be different as there is no way for a website to access any data on the Xbox and vice versa.

If you did an app, I supposed you would then have to use something like Jwatte's distributed high score component to keep track of voting??? Unless Microsoft got involved, I think that's about our only option.

On a website, you could use SQL database which seems to me a simpler route to go. It's easier to browse online too, but I'm not sure if it would get as many eyes as an App would.

We want Microsoft's involvement to advertise the app on the dashboard, so I think this is what we should shoot for.  I could see a website app doing little to help promote XBLIG, where the only participants would be those already in the know.  I'm sure the XBLA voting app raised a lot of awareness to the top XBLA games.  We could do that for XBLIG, and that's why I'm excited about this idea.

EDIT: As Tommy said! :)

Yes, a Microsoft app would be ideal. Whether they would do this or not, I don't know (it would be awesome, but given Microsofts lack of advertising XBLIGs on the Dashboard I wouldn't expect it).

I do know that we could create our own, and that's very likely the only way we'd get something setup soon for 2009 voting. A website app would likely be better as there isn't a good datastorage method and we couldn't make the app free (which was mentioned already above but I like to repeat anyways).

I agree, a MS dashboard voting app would be really good for XBLIG. Connect would probably be the best place to suggest this (I think) since there's really no other way to contact them and suggest these types of things.

That said, they would have had to have thought of this months in advance, since I doubt they could put it together in just a week and a half! :) (XBLIG was launched on 11/19/08, or 10 days from now)

It doesn't necessarily have to be done so soon, we can just have a cut off date for games nominated to any game released before 11/19/09.

I've submitted this idea directly to creators@microsoft.com, I'll let you know if I hear anything... hoping the IDN Team can make it happen!

This is a great suggestion – we’ll see what we can do, and if not for our 1 year anniversary, maybe a variation of this idea down the road.