Why XBLA De-Listing Is a Bad Move

[Baron Samedi]

Lionhead and Climax veteran Tadhg Kelly has an editorial (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18816) over at Gamasutra arguing that the XBLA de-listing move for games of poor sales & reviews is a bad move and indicative of several problems with XBLA:

But why is proposing to remove the crap a death knell move? On the surface it sounds like a sensible plan because it means that the consumer experience would be improved. Indeed. But the problems are threefold:

1. Any such system is going to be wide open to collusion, politicking and will reward only those companies who are more sales-driven and ruthless about getting good review scores.
2. It reduces consumer choice.
3. It doesn't solve the main problems.

I hate the UI too. Too much scrolling.

[bapenguin]

I agree, but here's the counterpoint (http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/05/29/x3f-interview-load-inc-s-denis-bourdain/) from an Arcade developer.

While we don't know the conversion rate of Mad Tracks it does fall within the other two categories. Have you been notified by Microsoft about a possible delisting of Mad Tracks?

Not yet, I trust they will do it gradually. Our conversion rate is much higher than 6%, but Microsoft remains the only one calling the shots. They could delist Mad Tracks - or decide to keep it.

You seem pretty calm about something journalists and gamers are pretty concerned about!

You know prior to making XBLA games, we were making retail PC titles. You get removed without notice after 6 months in most stores. Mad Tracks XBLA is one year old on May 30th (Happy B-Day Mad tracks!) we feel privileged to have lasted this long.

[Heretic Machine]

"Death knell move"...? I was under the impression that XBLA is doing great. As for review scores, has anyone here even looked for a review of an XBLA game before buying it? I didn't, when I still supported the platform. That's why they have demos on every single arcade game. That gets you your initial customer base, and from there the game spreads by word-of-mouth.

I really don't see how any of his points spell "death" for XBLA, or even a serious problem for consumers or developers (as long as they aren't crappy developers).

[Micasa]

"1. Any such system is going to be wide open to collusion, politicking and will reward only those companies who are more sales-driven and ruthless about getting good review scores."

Yeah, they're going to shell out big bucks to get those 66% reviews.

[Wolvie]

No biggie, I don't pay attention to XBLA reviews anyways. Thats why they have those handy trial games. I played the Penny Arcade game today and knew I wanted it.

[WaltJay]

While I'd rather MS just move the crap to a different area in their virtual store, the only games that should be affected by this delisting criteria are crappy (< 65% Metacritic) games that don't sell well (< 6% conversion rate).

Hidden gems that don't sell well won't be delisted, so long as their Metacritic is > 65%. And any game that does sell reasonable well, crap or not, stays too.

I think this is all just a conspiracy to delist Space Giraffe!! :)

[Deadend]

While I'd rather MS just move the crap to a different area in their virtual store, the only games that should be affected by this delisting criteria are crappy (< 65% Metacritic) games that don't sell well (< 6% conversion rate).

Hidden gems that don't sell well won't be delisted, so long as their Metacritic is > 65%. And any game that does sell reasonable well, crap or not, stays too.

I think this is all just a conspiracy to delist Space Giraffe!! :)

Space Giraffe was well reviewed!!:)

I don't get the big, as all the games that are incapable of meetign either criteria are utter shit. I would be happy to see some of those Arcade ports go away and be replaced with enhanced versions.

[Savok]

It's not the scrolling that gets me, it's the loading when you scroll too fast.

[gzsfrk]

I don't think this would any way equal a "death knell" for XBLA, but I do think it would be stupid from a business point of view. Fact is, they have near zero replication costs for a product that is still trickling in income. Create a budget titles section (XBLA Value Titles), cut the price in half, and move the games that aren't selling well there, and just WATCH the $2 impulse purchases roll in.

The point is, they have very little to gain by axing any titles from the system (a very slim increase in the perceived quality of XBLA as a whole by the hardcore gamer demographic who frequent gaming forums?), and yet are giving up a recurring (even if small) income stream that is basically pure profit. What's the point?

[Hemalin]

Space Giraffe was well reviewed!!:)

I don't get the big, as all the games that are incapable of meetign either criteria are utter shit. I would be happy to see some of those Arcade ports go away and be replaced with enhanced versions.

None of the games are really going away, they are just hiding them. If you really wanted the game you could still get it, but with Microsoft delisting the games, you're not going to know whether you want it or not.

[Gott]

And what exactly are the "main problems"?

This is a pointless editorial. Do people really care that some crap games are being taken out of the rotation? I'm all for it. Less stuff to wade through.

[EternalGamer]

I agree, but here's the counterpoint (http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/05/29/x3f-interview-load-inc-s-denis-bourdain/) from an Arcade developer.

How is "it's not as bad as retail" a counterpoint? It does nothing to justify the act of removing a game from the service. The reason they are moved from stores is because of limited shelf space. You don't have limited shelf space in a virtual store.

[EternalGamer]

I don't think this would any way equal a "death knell" for XBLA, but I do think it would be stupid from a business point of view. Fact is, they have near zero replication costs for a product that is still trickling in income. Create a budget titles section (XBLA Value Titles), cut the price in half, and move the games that aren't selling well there, and just WATCH the $2 impulse purchases roll in.

The point is, they have very little to gain by axing any titles from the system (a very slim increase in the perceived quality of XBLA as a whole by the hardcore gamer demographic who frequent gaming forums?), and yet are giving up a recurring (even if small) income stream that is basically pure profit. What's the point?

Why don't they simply make a category titled "Delisted" titles with the descriptor "Older Titles that are no longer being highlighted in the XBLA store." At least then they will be accessible without having to know someone who owns it.

They aren't gaining anything by delisting the titles as they still have to keep them on the server for redownloads and "suggest to a friend." All they do is lose possible sales.

[bapenguin]

How is "it's not as bad as retail" a counterpoint? It does nothing to justify the act of removing a game from the service. The reason they are moved from stores is because of limited shelf space. You don't have limited shelf space in a virtual store.

An arcade developer says why this isn't such a big deal and that's somehow not a counterpoint to this article which says it is a big deal?

I think it's pretty fucking stupid too to remove these titles from visibility - but that doesn't mean other perspectives are wrong.

[Yeti2005]

The point is, they have very little to gain by axing any titles from the system (a very slim increase in the perceived quality of XBLA as a whole by the hardcore gamer demographic who frequent gaming forums?), and yet are giving up a recurring (even if small) income stream that is basically pure profit. What's the point?

I think they have a lot to gain by axing the titles. The easier it is for customers to find good games and not wade through crap, the easier and more likely they'll find the good games and make a purchase.

Many have suggested adding new sections or something for the delisted titles but isn't that going to just clutter up the Marketplace? And even if it didn't, doing more development work (adding sections, tagging, etc) for games that didn't review well and aren't selling well has got to be the worst return on investment EVER.

[Hemalin]

I think they have a lot to gain by axing the titles. The easier it is for customers to find good games and not wade through crap, the easier and more likely they'll find the good games and make a purchase.

Many have suggested adding new sections or something for the delisted titles but isn't that going to just clutter up the Marketplace? And even if it didn't, doing more development work (adding sections, tagging, etc) for games that didn't review well and aren't selling well has got to be the worst return on investment EVER.

Wouldn't a better solution be to better organize the marketplace? The games aren't selling in the first place so what affect do they have on other titles. If they were really concerned about quality, they'd get rid of all low scoring games especially the ones that are selling well and taking revenue away from higher quality games.

[compta]

What does it really matter anyways? If you want to purchase a game that has been delisted just find someone online (EvAv) who has it and have them use the "recommend to a friend" feature and you can then purchase it.

In an interview with a MS XBLA employee, the titles are simply being moved into a back room so to speak. They are still there, you just have to ask for them, they just won't be "on the shelves" so to speak.

[RMan]

I think they have a lot to gain by axing the titles. The easier it is for customers to find good games and not wade through crap, the easier and more likely they'll find the good games and make a purchase.
Honestly, I don't understand how the solution is not completely obvious, just add filters. If someone doesn't want to see older games, or games with low meta-scores, just let them set filters and make the commonly desired filters the default. There's no reason for delisting virtual products, IMO, since I don't accept laziness as a reason.

[Yeti2005]

The games aren't selling in the first place so what effect do they have on other titles.

The bad games clutter up the list of games. If you choose a genre or all games do you really want to scroll through the crappy games? Or worse maybe download a demo for one and find out it sucks hard.

If they were really concerned about quality, they'd get rid of all low scoring games especially the ones that are selling well and taking revenue away from higher quality games.

It's not just about quality. It's about quality and revenue that's why there's a two part criteria. Metareview is supposed to "measure" the quality and the conversion rate "measures" the revenue. I know some people will bitch that it should just be about quality but MS and the companies that create these games aren't necessarily in the videogame business because it makes them happy (in the end it's all about profitability).

I think people are really bitching about this because they somehow think they're losing something. It doesn't matter that they're losing something worthless.

[Micasa]

How is "it's not as bad as retail" a counterpoint? It does nothing to justify the act of removing a game from the service. The reason they are moved from stores is because of limited shelf space. You don't have limited shelf space in a virtual store.

You don't have limited shelf space, but you do have limited DISPLAY space. Having pages and pages of games that people generally DON'T want to buy really feeds that "it's nothing but garbage" mentality that some people have.

They could dump them off into another list, one that's only called up when you ask for it, but what do you do when that starts to get cluttered?

It's great to say "just add a search" but that does absolutely nothing about the problem - it's getting too cluttered to browse through.

The PS3 and Wii stores are the same way. If you don't know what game you want, you're in for a lot of paging through garbage.

[Hemalin]

The bad games clutter up the list of games. If you choose a genre or all games do you really want to scroll through the crappy games? Or worse maybe download a demo for one and find out it sucks hard.

So add a filter. Let me decide whether to hide all games with less than metascore of 65.

Delisting is just a band aid. What are they going to do when the marketplace has twice the content and is even more cluttered, delist games with a metascore less than 75% and a conversion less than 10%?

[Yeti2005]

Honestly, I don't understand how the solution is not completely obvious, just add filters. If someone doesn't want to see older games, or games with low meta-scores, just let them set filters and make the commonly desired filters the default. There's no reason for delisting virtual products, IMO, since I don't accept laziness as a reason.

Building a filtering system for products that don't sell well is a waste of money (not laziness). You could argue filters could help in other areas (older games, best rated games, etc) but you'd still have to create AND test the "delisted" filter. How can you justify that work for something that's not well liked (reviews) or making money? You could also argue that the "delisted" filter could also take up valuable screen space for the other more important filters (but that's not even remotely the main issue).

I think most people here just don't understand ROI.

[Hemalin]

They don't need a "delisted" filter. They just need a metascore filter. If I only want to see games with a metascore of 90 or higher, why can't I?

[robotfighter]

What is delisting going to hurt Microsoft? It certainly doesn't hurt regular retailers who pull products all the time when they don't sell, it unfortunately just hoses the developers, who were promised a fair shake on XBLA. If Microsoft's proven anything with the Xbox and the 360 it's that gamers won't abandon them. Microsoft can pretty much change things up however they like, and gamers will stick around. C'mon, there are people who have suffered 1/2 dozen RROD's and still keep buying the thing. Once you're invested in a system, you don't abandon it because you can't find a copy of "New Rally X" in the marketplace. It just pushes devs to work more with Sony and Nintendo, who likely aren't going to keep archives of unselling games around either.

Actually, what they really need is a recommendation engine, like Netflix. Because I don't want to scroll through the list, even if it was pared down. I want to see "You played Assault Heroes and Boogie Bunnies recently, other players who have tried and enjoyed those games liked these..."

[Yeti2005]

They don't need a "delisted" filter. They just need a metascore filter. If I only want to see games with a metascore of 90 or higher, why can't I?

A metascore filter still doesn't solve the issue. By default you'll see all the crap (in a genre or all games) UNLESS you use a filter to see the best or the worst. You can't assume every user is a "power user" who knows how to or wants to use the advanced tools (filtering in this case). MS is aiming for an easy to use experience that even the casual gamer can easily use.

Here's a crazy analogy for you. It's like a waiter is going to take away your shit sandwhich and you say "Hey leave that here. I may want to eat that later." In reality, no you don't :)


Actually, what they really need is a recommendation engine, like Netflix. Because I don't want to scroll through the list, even if it was pared down. I want to see "You played Assault Heroes and Boogie Bunnies recently, other players who have tried and enjoyed those games liked these..."

They do have a recommendation system for friends to recommend games but it's not as advanced as what you described. I like your idea though.

[RMan]

Building a filtering system for products that don't sell well is a waste of money (not laziness). You could argue filters could help in other areas (older games, best rated games, etc) but you'd still have to create AND test the "delisted" filter. How can you justify that work for something that's not well liked (reviews) or making money? You could also argue that the "delisted" filter could also take up valuable screen space for the other more important filters (but that's not even remotely the main issue).

I think most people here just don't understand ROI.
You don't seem to understand what filter means, it's not 'built for one type of game', that's the point of a filtering system, the idea that everyone doesn't want exactly the same thing. Robust sorting/filtering systems make any large list browsing easier, and it's one of the great advantages that virtual presentations can have over physically shelved products. Honestly, I don't see how anyone can argue against this type of thing, it exists in all the best software. I don't think Google, for instance, is cluttered by it's inclusion of filters, and it does precisely what I'm talking about (default settings eliminate explicit material). I'm sure once MS includes it, you'll suddenly think it's a good idea :).

[EternalGamer]

An arcade developer says why this isn't such a big deal and that's somehow not a counterpoint to this article which says it is a big deal?

I think it's pretty fucking stupid too to remove these titles from visibility - but that doesn't mean other perspectives are wrong.

Yeah it is not a counterpoint at all because he doesn't give a good reason. It being not as bad as physical store situition is not an argument for delisting. You seee "counterpoint" implies he has a counter argument that addresses the argument. "I dont' think it's a big deal" is not a counterpoint. It is an opinion, and one that is not being backed up very well.

[PrivateJohn]

Relying on the conversion rate to determine a game quality is like saying Psychonauts or Beyond good & evil sucks because they didn't sold enough. What's the point of having digital distribution?

So...why is it again XBLA is the place for small time developer? Maybe not.

Failure of building a better UI for game browsing, their solution is removing the game...what the..
What Microsoft should do is make these unpopular game cheaper or create a new category for old & discounted arcade titles. You know, average pricing of 800 MS for XBLA games still abit expensive.

[EternalGamer]

You don't have limited shelf space, but you do have limited DISPLAY space. Having pages and pages of games that people generally DON'T want to buy really feeds that "it's nothing but garbage" mentality that some people have.

They could dump them off into another list, one that's only called up when you ask for it, but what do you do when that starts to get cluttered?

It's great to say "just add a search" but that does absolutely nothing about the problem - it's getting too cluttered to browse through.

The PS3 and Wii stores are the same way. If you don't know what game you want, you're in for a lot of paging through garbage.

Then they need to find a better way to browse it. iTunes solution is not to take away stuff that doesn't sell. By your argument Amazon better stop selling 90% of their merchandise as well.

[Johan]

I think the best evidence for or against de-listing will be whether or not people can identify the titles that have been delisted a year after they've been dumped.

If the titles can be remembered, perhaps there's a problem and a real clamor within the community not to de-list.

We'll see!

[Demo_Boy]

Placing the burden on me to sort through all the crap by clogging the system with 50 point games is not a good solution, because it just suppresses me from finding games I want to buy.
And there very much is limited shelf space even in Digital Distribution: your shelf is the attention span of the player.

So example: There's 1000 games, 90% are crap. You the buyer have 1 hour to play. Theres a good chance you won't find anything worth buying. No sale.
There's 100 games, the are all awesome. You the buyer have 1 hour to play. Result: Might even sell 2 games in that hour!


I want the waiter to take away the crap sandwich.

PrivateJohn: Just because a developer is small does not give him the right to ship crap.

[Johan]

And there very much is limited shelf space even in Digital Distribution: your shelf is the attention span of the player.

That is a REALLY good point. Really good point...

[Hemalin]

A metascore filter still doesn't solve the issue. By default you'll see all the crap (in a genre or all games) UNLESS you use a filter to see the best or the worst. You can't assume every user is a "power user" who knows how to or wants to use the advanced tools (filtering in this case). MS is aiming for an easy to use experience that even the casual gamer can easily use.

So set the default filter to hide all the crap. Problem solved.

Here's a crazy analogy for you. It's like a waiter is going to take away your shit sandwhich and you say "Hey leave that here. I may want to eat that later." In reality, no you don't But he's leaving behind the shit taco. Just because more people order a shit taco over a shit sandwich, doesn't mean that I'd prefer the shit taco over the shit sandwich. Let me decide which is shittier shit.

[PrivateJohn]

Just because the game conversion rate is crap doesn't mean the game is crap. It could be underrated, too expensive, lack of maketing?

Removing game is not a solution. People move to digital distribution for some reason, apart from other issues like cost etc

Itunes has tons of crap on their server but it doesn't force them to remove it, instead they have a great UI with rating system so when you search for C.R.A.P, the one with highest rating will come first.

You also don't see Steam removing games, why? They have all the rating system and well categorized UI integrated into the system.

[Mrcheesyelf]

The problem with using the metacritic score to remove games is that the reviews for these types of games are flawed, for example Mad Tracks has a game rankings score of 61%, pretty poor. I personally have really enjoyed Mad Tracks and some of the best times with my 360 have been on 4 player split-screen games, so i checked the reviews, having read the poor 3/10 Eurogamer review it seems the main gripe was the length of the game and poor singleplayer. Now i dont care about the AI or the length of the single player game when playing with friends and that is what i bought it for, so to me the review is flawed. I wonder how many games have low metacritic score because the reviewers didn't like a certain aspect of the game but the user can happily ignore the problem.............i think that makes sense

Anyway surely this could all be solved with a 'Bargain Bin' on the marketplace and these games would only be displayed in that area?

[PrivateJohn]

Not necessary official metacritic scoer, but user rating perhaps? Something like the...XNA community games?

[Mrcheesyelf]

A user rating would be a very good idea, only problem would be people attempting to either artifically increase or decrease a rating, would need to be only people who bought the game who could rate it, even then i can see it being abused somehow

[PrivateJohn]

That could happen, but the good > bad. It works almost everywhere on the internet...say, youtube?

Besides, the damage is minimum on XBLA because it's 360 games only not platform specific...so don't expect any fanboy to rate it down like gametrailers?

[mister_slim]

You don't seem to understand what filter means, it's not 'built for one type of game', that's the point of a filtering system, the idea that everyone doesn't want exactly the same thing. Robust sorting/filtering systems make any large list browsing easier, and it's one of the great advantages that virtual presentations can have over physically shelved products. Honestly, I don't see how anyone can argue against this type of thing, it exists in all the best software. I don't think Google, for instance, is cluttered by it's inclusion of filters, and it does precisely what I'm talking about (default settings eliminate explicit material). I'm sure once MS includes it, you'll suddenly think it's a good idea :).

MS already has genre filters, so they can obviously filter on more criteria. Of course they don't use the filters they have properly. If you go into the game store "All Games" is the default choice and it just shows you all 400+ games in a list. You have to go to the second game store page at the bottom to find the genre filter. They need filters based on the first letter of the title, retro vs. new, owned by your friends, number of players online, number of players offline, co-op vs. competitive, ESRB rating, popularity, and whatever other characteristics are useful. Some of these filters are already in place in the Video Store, though that's getting pretty crowded as well. Does anyone know if MS is delisting movies? There's already almost as many movies as games.

[Micasa]

Just because the game conversion rate is crap doesn't mean the game is crap. It could be underrated, too expensive, lack of maketing?

Why do people keep looking ONE aspect of the criteria as though that's the ONLY aspect?

Games need to meet ALL of them - not just one - to be delisted. If a game is old, shitty, and not selling...why are you complaining that it's going to be taken off open listing?

[Craigtheplague]

Just because the game conversion rate is crap doesn't mean the game is crap. It could be underrated, too expensive, lack of maketing?

Removing game is not a solution. People move to digital distribution for some reason, apart from other issues like cost etc

Itunes has tons of crap on their server but it doesn't force them to remove it, instead they have a great UI with rating system so when you search for C.R.A.P, the one with highest rating will come first.

You also don't see Steam removing games, why? They have all the rating system and well categorized UI integrated into the system.

I was thinking about a user rating system before reading this post. It's the best solution. Simply having a list or filter for "delisted" games wouldn't cut it. People would see this list and think: "This must be the games I must avoid"; even though some of them may be good.

A user rating would be a very good idea, only problem would be people attempting to either artifically increase or decrease a rating, would need to be only people who bought the game who could rate it, even then i can see it being abused somehow

That could happen, but the good > bad. It works almost everywhere on the internet...say, youtube?

Besides, the damage is minimum on XBLA because it's 360 games only not platform specific...so don't expect any fanboy to rate it down like gametrailers?

I'm pretty sure users could only rate a game if they had purchased it. Nobody is that fanatical enough to buy a game just to give it a high/low score. User ratings are for the most part fairly accurate. Newegg is another great example where user ratings immensely help in the decision to purchase a product.

[vherub]

so is there any good game that has bad reviews, sells poorly and has a bad conversion rate out there?

the greater shame is the huge backlist of awesome titles that are either too difficult or too expensive to purchase- those have been "delisted" due to far less stringent criteria.

[robotfighter]

Hey...one good thing, Yaris would get pulled, right?

[Hemalin]

Hey...one good thing, Yaris would get pulled, right?

Isn't that free? The conversion rate is most likely very high on that game.

[ALLoGISTIC]

I agree that streamlining the UI makes more sense then removing titles. though I'm not upset about it either. 6 months is long enough to determine whether or not you are interested in an arcade title that is getting bad reviews AND not selling. you wont be losing out on hidden gems that no one bought like beyond good and evil or psychonauts because those games got good reviews, so titles that fall into that category wouldn't be up for delisting. The restaraunt analogy is pretty fun though: it seems like there is always an entree getting removed from a menu that I alone really liked, but if it isnt selling to anyone else Im not crying sourgrapes! What happens if they dont take things off the menu that aren't selling? Customers can't find something they like. If your first and second dish were't very good are you willing to go back and try a third? not usually. more likely you go look for a new restaraunt...PSN, WIIware

[Micasa]

Good point.

There used to be this juice I liked at 7-11, the only place I ever saw carry it. Some kind of orange smoothy-style juice, it was expensive but SOOOOOO GOOD.

They stopped carrying it. Where were the pickets then!!!

[the soUL TRAder]

Not so sure why this "process" announcement is getting so much attention, especially all the negative.

It's important to keep the "shelves" (even virtual ones) clear of crappy games that might turn off the consumer, and stop them from buying the "good" games. And, as Demo_Boy said, the attention span of purchasers is the most limited space there is, so it's very important to make the UI as user-friendly and streamlined as possible.

Not to mention, the threat of delisting maybe good for some of these games, by either spurring interest in a good game that is struggling, or giving real reason to publishers to cut the cost of overpriced ones.

Either way, it's sounds as though they are going to keep the game accessible, even if it's unlisted, so it's still a better deal than the retail model for publishers.

[Tel Prydain]

Yeah, this is a storm in a tea-cup.
A better option would be to have a 'crap game' section, but delisting them is better then turning off potentual customers.