Helping Xblig

I have spent a lot of time trying hard to figure out the best way to get the word that there is god stuff on Xblig out there. Heck, i am busy right now working on as many avenues as i can, as many leads as i can... following them hoping that one of these methods i come up with might just possibly lead to people visiting Xblig, and of course my games.

Everyone stands to benefit from more people going to the Xblig tab though on their Xbox. I am sure you have some doubts. I do not and here is why:-
1. There are some great games on Xblig
2. Players can come look and get a game they will enjoy for a rock bottom price
3. The developers will make more sales and more money, so are likely to stay around and do  another great game.
4. MS makes money from the sales too, therefore solidifying Xbligs place in the grand scheme of MS and Xbox things.

It is ALL win. I do not se a particularly bad situation. So what do we need? We need more people/players visiting the Indie games section of their dashboard. This is of course the part i have struggled with. spending way too much brain power on this problem. I am one of those developers that actually spends money on advertising. I also spend money on other types of promotions. I have some of my original ways of advertising listed somewhere in this blog. However none have so far proved useful. So how do i get more people to lok at my games. I have a great conversion rate, but i need more downloads.

Here is the latest idea i have. It does fall onto MS shoulders, and not developers. so far to be a dev and get the word out for Xblig is virtually impossible. so it must logically fall to whoever can make a difference. MS can do this. Though people have realised this and i have read numerous posts how MS should do this or that to save Xblig. I do not really agree with them. Or at least not whole heartedly. Mainly as they are all asking for too much. We need Leaderboards.. well with leaderboards come great responsibility. No way can peer reveiwers check to see if the game is pinging the servers too often etc. So that is out. Next up is the give us Achievements crowd. This is also not gonna happen. There is back end that would need to be done, and peer reveiwers again would have to check that it all worked as designed. This is a very tall order.

So what do i suggest that MS do i hear ya moan?
They give us some tiny Gamerscore. We do not hand it out. We do not control it. Therefore there is no XNA or C# changes required. So what is it exactly ?
Whenever anyone buys an Xblig game, they some small amount of gamerpoints.
1 dollar games get 5 points
3 dollar games get 10 points
5 dollar games get 15 points.

This could all be controlled by MS, behind the scenes for the most part. the values i choose are low compared to what you can get out of a full priced game for example. 1000 points in a 60 dollar game is good value. 200 points form an XBLA 15 dollar game is great too.

Yes people could look at this as buying points, but what are they doing when they buy 60 dollar games? Those first few points are always giveaways (10G you finished your first level etc).

I am sure some people will think this bad. But it is a relatively easy thing for MS to create. It should lead to a lot more interest in the Xblig area. Just look at all those sites that tell you the easiest games to garner gamerpoints from. I think the interest level for Xblig would go up. I think coverage on these sites would happen. who would really lose out? MS would get their 30% and Xblig devs would get their 70%.

Seems to me like a possible Win-Win situation. Now all i need to know is how to ask MS about it :O

Let me know what y'all think.
Laters

Update:-
theBigDaddio showed me this Link talking about exactly this kind of thing and all the noise that surrounds it. Thanks mate!
Achievements for Xblig

Xblig, the land of the Avatars!

Hear them ROAR!

The land of the Avatar games is on your Xbox. If you haven't found this fabled land. Then you need to get yourself over to the Games Download section and choose Indie games. In there you will find all manner of Avatar games. Created by talented and not so talented people. Games that will make you laugh, or wince or cry out loud.

Xbox Live arcade (XBLA) is the big brother of Xbox Live Indie Games(XBLIG). It has a lot of quality games on it. Games that have been vetted by microsoft and then put through some pretty rigorous testing and work. These games are professionally created and usually show that in all aspects. The Indie games are not so heavily tested. Or vetted in any way.

What does this mean? What are ya waffling on about?
The land of the Avatars is popular. Most Avatar games seem to be garnering a considerable amount of downloads (even if some have not got a good sell thru). so what we know is that Xbox owners really love to play games with their Avatars in them. Not really a surprise. The surprise is the lack of choice in the XBLA area. The reason is pretty simple. It takes a lot of time to create an XBLA title, whereas an XBLIG title can be created from the examples in a week or so. So XBLA cannot hope to bring out a large number of games featuring the lovely little Avatars. But XBLIG can (also MS has several restrictions for XBLA titles pertaining to lots of stuff like leaderboards and presence etc). For XBLIG once again, there are no real restrictions. I am sure if there were we would have a lot less Avatar, or any other games to peruse on the service .

Why do I care?
All developers on the Xblig service are seeing the large download numbers, on some really crap games. It makes it hard not to jump on that bandwagon and create something. I myself am considering this as a form of advertising or marketing. It would get my company name out there to maybe 40K potential buyers. That is an impressive number. If i can then lead them to my other games of better gameplay and quality, then is this virtual advertising? Would it work?

At the moment i am looking for funds to finish my current game in a way that will make me more proud. I will be pondering my options as i go along this next couple of months though for sure.

Good Night and Avatar well.

Note: Of course some people think that MS are already being over restrictive on it's rules for Avatars. This however is MS decision, and i guess they have good reasons for controlling them. Though it does make reveiwing games with Avatars more difficult.