Another Editorial on Why XBLA Delisting is a Bad Thing
By Chris on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 4:41 PM PST In Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Gamer Life, Games, Microsoft, Microsoft
In the ongoing saga of Xbox Live Arcade’s new delisting policy, another developer has spoken up about their thoughts on the radical change. While Chris Kohler at Game|Life summed up the feelings of many outside of the development world, one developer actually approved of the changes. The latest, Tadhg Kelly previously of both Lionhead and Climax, couldn’t disagree more, and feels Microsoft is going in the wrong direction.
Over on Gamasutra, Kelly has published an editorial entitled “Aggregation Vs Portals: Where Microsoft Is Going Wrong With Xbox Live” which dives into the problems and possible solutions Xbox Live Arcade is facing.
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.
Kelly goes into detail on each of those problems and offers seven possible solutions, all of which would be excellent decisions for Microsoft to make, none of which involve delisting games — imagine that! What a novel concept; keeping your games library intact.
Read the full editorial here.
I still think this story is being blown way out of proportion. It’s like the gaming media doesn’t have enough to talk about, so let’s keep picking on this scab and see if it bleeds. If a game has less than 6% conversion rate, then the consumer has spoken and he has said, “No thanks.” If you didn’t buy the game in the first six months, what on earth makes you think you’re going to buy it after eight months? You’ll suddenly get the urge to play Paperboy a year after its release?
As I’ve said several times now, but WHY are they doing this. Please, try to explain to me the logic and benefit of removing choices in this situation, and how it’s fair to the millions of people who pick up a 360 in the future and will never even have that choice.
I’m against delisting. It may sound like a good thing on the surface, but I am certain Microsoft has nefarious reasons for doing this. They really should give the consumers the choice of what games they want to purchase. Some of the titles being removed are actually enjoyable games for some.
This basically just sounds like if a game doesn’t sell enough digital copies, Microsoft can’t be bothered with it. Personally, I think the bigger the collection, the better.
One solution that would make delisting unnecessary. Don’t let the crap on in the first place!