Game Publishing/Business

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

raytaller — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:20:23 GMT

Barkers Crest:
...that has a bug in it worthy of pulling the software off the shelf after 1 day ..

That was my mistake. The moral of the story is : let your game on the market, at least someone will know its name...
Sure, it would have cost me some time to reply to the complaining users that managed to go to level 30, but it cost me a lot of time to make a website, a flash port, to write comments on blogs, etc.
Comon, it is community games... This bug passed the tests because the game is made on my small spare time, because I have a real job like many others here, because you can't live from XBLCG, because you have to dedicate a lot of time to an activity that may not be lucrative at all. The bug passed the playtests because no-one is paid here to review the games.
I work in the videogame industry and I know how it is hard to write bugless games, no matter the QA budget.

Indeed, it was not very profressional. Who is a XBLCG full-time professional here ?
BTW, the 3.1 will encourage the developers to publish games that are not completely finished so... yes, I encourage any developer to let its game running on the market.

Sorry but believe me, falling from 50 to 1 sale a day just because I did care is very frustating, especially with these nice feedbacks.

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

Barkers Crest — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:33:59 GMT

Bradleat:
Barkers Crest:
The moral of the story is don't put a game on the marketplace that has that kind of bug. You are the only person responsible for the situation your game is in.

Yeah... okay... bugs are a fact of life... Halo 3 even freezes from time to time....

It is to raytaller's credit that he took his game of marketplace to fix the bugs... I agree the New sections should be based on how long a game has been up in total...

Yeah, bugs are a fact of life but you are missing the point. If you ship a game ( any software for that matter ) that has a bug in it worthy of pulling the software off the shelf after 1 day it shouldn't have been shipped in the first place.

Honestly, the opinion that the system should be modified to support this kind of edge case, is not professional in any sense of the word.

What would you say if Halo 3 were pulled from the shelves 1 day after being shipped?

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

Bradleat — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:47:48 GMT

Barkers Crest:
The moral of the story is don't put a game on the marketplace that has that kind of bug. You are the only person responsible for the situation your game is in.

Yeah... okay... bugs are a fact of life... Halo 3 even freezes from time to time....

It is to raytaller's credit that he took his game of marketplace to fix the bugs... I agree the New sections should be based on how long a game has been up in total...

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

Barkers Crest — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:22:43 GMT

The moral of the story is don't put a game on the marketplace that has that kind of bug. You are the only person responsible for the situation your game is in.

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

raytaller — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:59:48 GMT

Yes I am actually working on a website !
But our case is really too bad because we missed the first few days when a game is in the new arrival list (and starts to gain in popularity) just because we care about quality ^^

First 24 hours : 48 sales
One month later : 1 sale per day...

I think that counting only the upload time in the "New arrivals" list would be kind of fair.
Thanks for answering

Pocoro : a simple and polished 200 points puzzle game !

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

Nick Gravelyn — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:13:04 GMT

Zenfar:
I still would like to see an Updated folder

They're adding update notifications to the system so users will automatically be prompted to update a game when they start it, just like XBLA or retail games. Though technically those two require users update the game, but XBLCG will simply offer them the choice to download it; users can decline the update if they want. So there's no need for an updated folder.

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

Zenfar — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:41:34 GMT

Pheel:
Nope. It's not a new game as it was previously released (regardless of how long it was up for). If nobody knows about your game, as the publisher, you need to do something about that

I agree with Pheel here, set up a web site and start reaching out to gamers, you can do it. Raytaller what is the name of your game you never mentioned it in your post, you should have your games in your sig at a minimum.

I still would like to see an Updated folder and an App category.

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

Pheel — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:34:29 GMT

raytaller:
Hello,
One month ago, I published a game on the marketplace. A fews hours later, we had some feedback : the game was good (we really had nice feedbacks), but there was an annoying blocking bug at level 30.
I could have let the game online, fix the bug, and update the game when it is ready again. Instead, I refused to sell a buggy game and I removed it from the market.
It took about 1 month for the game to be online again (the second test pass failed for some reason).
Now it is back again on the marketplace, but is not displayed on the new arrival list.
The problem is that it IS actually a new game, because on the past it was on the marketplace for only 24 hours before being removed. So today, nobody knows our game...
Is there a way to give the game the position it had on the list before I remove it ?

Nope. It's not a new game as it was previously released (regardless of how long it was up for). If nobody knows about your game, as the publisher, you need to do something about that

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

raytaller — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:56:01 GMT

Hello,
One month ago, I published a game on the marketplace. A fews hours later, we had some feedback : the game was good (we really had nice feedbacks), but there was an annoying blocking bug at level 30.
I could have let the game online, fix the bug, and update the game when it is ready again. Instead, I refused to sell a buggy game and I removed it from the market.
It took about 1 month for the game to be online again (the second test pass failed for some reason).
Now it is back again on the marketplace, but is not displayed on the new arrival list.
The problem is that it IS actually a new game, because on the past it was on the marketplace for only 24 hours before being removed. So today, nobody knows our game...
Is there a way to give the game the position it had on the list before I remove it ?

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

Zenfar — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:44:16 GMT

A couple of top level categories would be nice:

New Release
Popular
Updated
Featured
Spotlight Genre

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

DrMistry — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:10:16 GMT

Hehe, yea looks like I made an assumption there and I should have stated it. I don't want to set the thread a-wandering, but I can't think of a more pain-free way for MS to implement this, but of course that's a relative term ;0)

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

The ZMan — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:51:27 GMT

Actually there's been no details of how this will work beyond the comment in the press release AFAIK. Fingers crossed that you are correct and its the same, or very similar to the regular update process.

http://creators.xna.com/assets/cms/docs/marketing/GDC09/XNA%20Game%20Studio%20Fact%20Sheet.docx
"and a notification for consumers when changes are made to purchased Community Games titles. "

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

DrMistry — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:31:11 GMT

I'm sure I've read somewhere that this is part of the next update, maybe with 3.1 and the associated runtime update, which I think will have to be a "general" XBox update. Users will be notified at game start-up if a newer release is available and download it at their behest and with no cost to them. Could be wrong, but I think I read it somewhere there was a discussion about the upcoming avatar and video support. If that doesn't say MS see this is a long-term project, I don't know what does!

Regards,
Mike

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

UberGeekGames — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:56:47 GMT

This may be for another thread, but thing that bothers me about the new rule is that there is now no way for gamers to know if a game has been updated (aside from your marketing of course, but you can't possibly reach everyone), so if a game has bugs or needs improvements what motivation will Creators have to fix it if they know that hardly anyone will find it? There should be another section for "recently updated", but then again my point may be rendered moot since I read in one of the GDC announcements that we'll be getting update notifications... Still, something to think about.

Re: Why are game "updates" on the Xbox new arrivals list?

Flowchart Revival LLC — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:30:08 GMT

Aeon:
I believe they had already fixed this along with the 7 day waiting period for posting games up for review. Are you telling me you are seeing previous games show up on the new arrivals list even though they had already been released? If so, that's a bug.

Ooh - you may have caught me. I definitely *was* seeing this and had assumed it was still happening, but I haven't checked recently. The increase in re-released titles here is what prompted the message: http://catalog.xna.com/en-US/gamescatalog.aspx

I will keep a closer eye on it before I post again ... :) .

Regardless, its good to know that the general idea is that re-releases shouldn't make the new arrival list.