22nd May 2008, 3:18 PM
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/22/underp...-delisted/
So they intend on culling the herd. I agree with that. The list is getting long enough now that it's easy to miss out on gems for all the trash.
That said, they shouldn't necessarily cut them off the grid completely. There's still money to be made off of those games for practically no investment from MS (relative to store shelf space and those costs, server space might as well be an infinite free resource, and it's only server space until it's actually downloaded). Further, this can punish people for liking unpopular games, and developers for making games for a small niche (as though poor sales don't already punish them enough).
My suggestion is rather simple. Underperforming games should be moved into their own download section, like a "bargain bin" only labelled something more... marketable I suppose. That way, they stay out of the way until someone decides to browse the list. MS could even sweeten the deal by providing deals on those, like say halving the price of unpopular games to move them a bit more. That way, not only do they stay out of the way, they can still attract buyers who might want to browse a list of cheap games to see what just got their leg up on the pile.
So they intend on culling the herd. I agree with that. The list is getting long enough now that it's easy to miss out on gems for all the trash.
That said, they shouldn't necessarily cut them off the grid completely. There's still money to be made off of those games for practically no investment from MS (relative to store shelf space and those costs, server space might as well be an infinite free resource, and it's only server space until it's actually downloaded). Further, this can punish people for liking unpopular games, and developers for making games for a small niche (as though poor sales don't already punish them enough).
My suggestion is rather simple. Underperforming games should be moved into their own download section, like a "bargain bin" only labelled something more... marketable I suppose. That way, they stay out of the way until someone decides to browse the list. MS could even sweeten the deal by providing deals on those, like say halving the price of unpopular games to move them a bit more. That way, not only do they stay out of the way, they can still attract buyers who might want to browse a list of cheap games to see what just got their leg up on the pile.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)