Nick Gravelyn

A common complaint in the XNA/XBLIG community is around the lack of exposure Indie Games get, especially when compared to other content on Marketplace like XBLA games, DLC, and even the new avatar clothes and accessories. While there is obviously no way to convince Microsoft to stop marketing those items (after all, they likely make Microsoft substantially more money than even a cumulative number of Indie Games), there are ways you can help Indie Games (and yourself) be in a better position to see promotion throughout the dashboard.

What You Give is What They Get

When you submit a game to Indie Games, you give Microsoft a title, description, a thumbnail, box art, and one to four screenshots of your game. This is all the content Microsoft is armed with to help promote your game. This means you need to submit the best content you can. Here are some tips regarding your game submission:

1. Don’t waste one of your screenshots on a menu or help screen, because those are unlikely to be interesting to gamers. Find some exciting, action-packed screenshots not only to draw gamers in on Marketplace, but also to give Microsoft something they could use if they choose to promote your game.
2. Give them four screenshots. Sure, you only need one to submit, but the fewer screenshots you provide, the fewer there are for Microsoft to pick from for promotion. Give them a bunch to work with.
3. Provide an interesting and useful description. Put something in there that sounds good and describes the game. Everyone – PLEASE make sure you proofread your description; there’s nothing worse than a great game with a silly typo in the description. Pop the description into Word or give it to a friend to check over for spelling and grammatical mistakes. If you can’t take the time to check for spelling errors – it doesn’t give anyone who might buy your game much faith you took much care making the game, either.

Remember Recurring Promotions

Xbox LIVE Marketplace does certain promotions regularly across all their content. Last year, seasonal promotions (Halloween, Christmas) throughout the Dashboard and Xbox.com included Indie Games. They have been doing Summer of Arcade for a while. So when you are starting up a game, think of some things that are coming up that XBL might be promoting across many titles.

Holidays are always a decent bet since there are usually XBLA/retail games, DLC, and now avatar content that they will likely bunch up and promote when appropriate. Use this to your advantage as you start to plan a game. There’s Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s, and Thanksgiving all out there to think about, so keep those in mind if you’re starting a new game project. The Winter Olympics are also approaching and there are bound to be promotions in regard to that.

Keep in mind, however, that you shouldn’t just  reskin an existing game nor should you put out “Santa’s Massager” or “Holiday Picture Viewer 3000”. The odds of Microsoft promoting one of those games is likely slim to none when they are likely to have better quality content that they could be promoting. Plus, you’ll just upset peer reviewers. So try and think up something fun and original and don’t try to just spin the holiday thing as a gimmick to cash in on.

Keep it Decent

Sure your “Super Drink’o’matic” might be a hit with the local frat boys, but odds are nobody is going to promote your overly racy game to the wider XBL market. When brainstorming ideas for games, stick to things that are a bit tamer on the content side. That doesn’t mean you can’t be unique, original, or creative, but it does mean that things like drinking games, slideshows of scantily clad women, and inappropriate joke and bodily noise apps likely aren’t going to be seeing any significant promotion any time soon.

There you have it. A few tips for how you can help game have a better shot tobe promoted by Microsoft. Keep in mind that none of this is official (I don’t work there after all) and that doing these things won’t guarantee you promotion, however this is still all good advice to follow if your goal is selling your Indie Game.