We know that the Xbox 360’s Community Games don’t sell and don’t make any money. Aussie developer Halfbrick has a solution.
The biggest problem for the Community Games channel – other than we can’t access it here in Australia – is that Microsoft only highlight new releases. Speaking to Kotaku earlier today, Phil Larsen from Queensland studio Halfbrick, reckons they could be doing a lot more to promote the games.
“The Microsoft team is keen to support the community with technical advice and software updates, but a few key issues are severely limiting the consumer response. Namely the lack of any ratings system which gives the more acclaimed games better exposure. After a game is pushed from the New Arrivals section, it’s lost in the archives forever. Gamers don’t want to dig through the catalogue because they assume most, if not all of the XNA games are lousy, and without a rating system to show them that many are actually really good, there’s no reason for them to think otherwise.”
It’s hard to argue with that. Community Games already has a peer review system in place to ensure all games available for purchase are free of bugs, glitches and offensive or copyrighted content. Why not add a simple 5-star rating system that let users help each out in identifying the best the service has to offer? Come on, Microsoft, it can’t be that hard.
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