Blow: 'Unnecessary' XBLA Hurdles Hurt Game Quality

Independent designer Jonathan Blow's award-winning Braid made its Xbox Live Arcade debut just last week, but Blow says Microsoft's certification requirements might have impeded the game's final quality.

Talking to Gamasutra as part of a larger interview to be published in the near future, Blow says the cert process for XBLA is more geared toward triple AAA games than perhaps is useful.

[power of Green]

WTF is this fool talking about?, I guess he doesn't know either.

[gaffyh]

You do know that this guy just released possibly one of the better titles on XBLA. So I think he knows what he is talking about, but I think he is pissed off with MS because they are overcharging for his game (and he probably isn't get nowhere near as much as he should be getting from it).

[foodbox]

"pissed off with MS because they are overcharging for his game"

Dont make shiat up.

He is talking about the certification process, which is geared to larger organizations with bigger teams.

He makes some sense, people have said this before. But MS wants quality (read; bug-free) titles on Xbox LIVE Arcade.

XBLA is where the "big budget" professional games are going, the "download" AAA titles; and XNA Community is where the smaller-team projects are going.

This is a *terrific* response to the cert-troubles the smaller teams were having.

As for your "MS overcharging" fiction, well, $15 for Braid is a EXCELLENT deal.

You're talking out of your arse.

[KingME]

This guy knew the certification standards going into the deal with Microsoft. If he didn't agree with them, there perhaps he should have taken that up with MS prior to signing the deal. If they couldn't come to an agreement he could have taken his wares elsewhere. But, being that he did sign the agreement he really needs to just shut up and start collecting his money.

Also, I don't buy his line about it not being about the money.

[Mr_Potato_]

lol @ pog

Each time it's something against MS he doesn't understand :))

The ultimate fanboy.

[gaffyh]

@foodbox - Could you please not reply like a fanboy, I was just stating my opinion, you don't have to start crying

[Caxtus750]

It was actually in the news recently that he wanted it to cost less.

[juuken]

Did you read the article PoG or are you going to call every article that doesn't seemingly praise the 360 bullsh*t?

[InMyOpinion]

Blow said he also wanted to stress the positives of his interaction with Microsoft -- "they were also cool about a lot of things," he said.

"They didn't try to dictate the game design, as many publishers might -- they were very hands-off there, and what is in the final game is exactly what I wanted to put there."

"They also bent a lot of XBLA rules, in order to help me make the game the way I wanted, which was pretty cool of them," he said -- one example, the way in which Braid launches and places the player directly in the game is "technically illegal if you go by the book, but they saw what I was trying to do and went with it."

"For the most part, working with Microsoft has been great," says Blow. "There have been occasional problems, including one that I was very upset about -- but there are people at Microsoft who really got the game and worked very hard to help bring it to completion, and it would just be wrong to slight their contribution with some kind of blanket 'Microsoft = Bad' attitude."

I bet no one read that part.

[Silogon]

This guy sounds like he doesn't care for Microsoft at all. Maybe he should've made this for the psn or wii or something, man. This guy has a case of ass against Microsoft. In that he was actually kind of rude and a little blunt towards the end. He just doesn't care I suppose.

Great game, but man the guy seems upset.

P.S. I didn't disagree with you POG. I hate when people disagree and don't say anything and then when the next guy post it looks like he did it. Lame as hell.

[chaosatom333]

This confirms it.

:).

[SmokeyMcBear]

AAA games on xbla now thats funny

[foodbox]

Xbox LIVE Arcade is *widely* accepted to be the premier service.

GeoWars
PacMan CE
Golf Tee It Up!
Ticket to Ride
Alien Hominid
Carcassonne
Happy Tree Friends
Penny Arcade
Settlers of Catan
Castle Crashers
Ikaruga
Sensible World of Soccer
TMNT

And on and on.

Xbox LIVE Arcade is putting the other services to shame with the top quality, new titles.

[FantasyStar]

Cause if it does...that might be a problem for XBLA.

[xhairs9]

give it up, GeoWars != SSHD. Nor will it ever be as good as SSHD. Take your squares and triangles back to school I wanna blow sh!t up not learn math...

[poindat]

Well, are there requirements on the PSN too? I really doubt they let developers do whatever they want. You need requirements and standards to have good games, and this goes for both services. While it may have hurt the quality of this specific game, that doesn't mean that happens with every game. I'm sure many have actually better by having to meet requirements and standards.

[Jackthepwnsaur]

theres no doubt that there are requirements on the PSN such as certification requirements. No one wants a bugged game. one such requirement are trophies, they are going to be mandatory on a specific day for each developer who are going to start to work on a game. The thing with the PSN though is that they don't put any size limits on you, meaning a better game.

Bionic Commando Rearmed is an example on why Size limits are bad. they were about to make the PSN version look better than the XBLA version, because size limits were imposed on XBLA, meaning textures that would not look as good as the PSN version. Luckily, Microsoft allowed Capcom to let the game slide on XLBA in all of its glory to look exactly like the PSN version by increasing the limit. If Microsoft removed Size limits on XBLA games, then these games would be awesome.

[foodbox]

Yes, there are requirements on PSN too.

But, being English speakers, we dont hear all the "inside scuttle-butt" from the people working with PSN.

[poindat]

Ah, I forgot about the size limits. On that note, why exactly are there size limits? Surely $50 a year from each user is enough to cover costs, especially when the PSN has none and is free.

Size limits definitely can be a huge limiting factor on large games, I agree.

[Dark_Vendetta]

I think the size limit is because of the Arcade owners. There are just 512mb memory cards out there so they would pretty fast run out of space

[Mr_Potato_]

That's one of the reasons why Xbox Live Arcade = crap et XBL < PSN

[jack who]

"For the most part, working with Microsoft has been great," says Blow. "There have been occasional problems, including one that I was very upset about -- but there are people at Microsoft who really got the game and worked very hard to help bring it to completion, and it would just be wrong to slight their contribution with some kind of blanket 'Microsoft = Bad' attitude."

[kazuma]

triple AAA games.
that's AAA AAA AAA. that's DAMN GOOD.

[outlawlife]

a lot of you need to read the comments on the original article, he(the developer) comments several times and clears up his statements because the original article made him seem anti microsoft and extremely negative

all he is saying that the certification process made it difficult for him at some points and he had a few disagreements with MS suits, which isn't out of the ordinary...any independent thinker is going to disagree with a corporation at least a little

he seems like he is in it more for the artistic side of it than the money so he wanted things to work exactly how he want, but sometimes you have to compromise

he also praises ms highly for the work they did and the fact that they even bent some of the rules for his game

as for size limits they are there for a reason, the encourage developers to economic and not unnecessarily bloat the size of their games which makes for faster downloads, service stability, and the size limit is also there because some people still use memory units/cards and they want to have the option to play too

there is no reason to have unlimited size on the games, if you have an arcade game that is going to be say, 1gb but only offers 10 or so levels before completion then something is wrong

the fact that devs are required to compact their game design helps the arcade remain an arcade otherwise we'd have games that we 2gb and 40 dollars per download

it makes sense to me , especially when considering what some of them have accomplished within those limits with games like Braid and the upcoming castle crashers game

[NMC2007]

Where the F are all the "Arcade" games on XBLA? The last arcade I remember going to XBLA is either TMNT or Ms.Pac-Man or Double Dragon, WTF MS?! Where the F is my TMNT TIT or The Simpsons Arcade or X-Men Arcade or X-Men Children of the Atom? WTF MS!?

[outlawlife]

geometry wars 2?
castle crashers coming in a week or 2
bionic commando rearmed also coming
galaga legions also coming within weeks

plenty of "arcade" games...you just arent looking
if the arcade was meant to only remake old games it would be stale...like virtual console