XBLIG in the media

I’m not sure whether it counts as having reached critical mass or not, but there’s a fairly nice article on XBLIG over on Wired, going into some of the successes to be found on The Little Service That Could – mostly around a little game featuring z0mb1es.   Though it’s a bit of a shame that the article also highlights some of the misconceptions about XBLIG…

In fact, give the store a quick view and you’re treated to hundreds of games with terrible titles and even worse icons. There are five “massage” games that make your controller vibrate, 10 non-interactive screensavers and 15 games that feature your Xbox Avatar. Games based on Pong, Breakout, Minesweeper, Hangman and Sudoku appear time and time again and apps that help with TV Calibration are repeated ad nauseam.

You get the feeling that this list is based on hearsay – while there’s around thirty Pong/Breakout clones and forty-plus screensavers/slideshows, there’s only five Minesweeper variants, three hangman clones, five Sudoku variants and just two TV calibration apps buried amid the 850 titles which are now available.  Hardly an ad nauseam level of repetition!  Though admittedly, XBLIG does have rather more arena shooters and Bejewelled wannabes than it really needs!

It’s also a bit of a shame that it focuses on the big commercial successes, rather than the critical ones: it’d be nice to see mention of games like the Arkedo series, Dark, Fishing Girl, Soul or Weapon of Choice…

Still, if it gets more people to check out XBLIG, then it’s all good in the end!