N+ developers Raigan Burns and Mare Sheppard have strongly criticized Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade platform, branding the vast majority of its games “shit” and essentially accusing the company of betraying its own ideals. In an interview with Gamasutra, the ballsy game creators talked about how those with the power and the money have negatively influenced XBLA by watering it down as if it were no different than retail.
“There’s all these big-budget [games] with big publishers making them, and the real problem, I think, is that the same people who are deciding what retail games get greenlit are deciding what Live Arcade games get greenlit,” explained Burns. “I guess it’s because they have a lot of power that no one has pointed out that that’s the primary reason. Those decisions that are ruining Live Arcade … it’s like, who greenlit Word Puzzle? Who green-lit that hoverboard game that’s just shit?”
Raigan was no more complimentary, stating that; “They all suck. It’s like, when we started out, we were excited, just like with N. There were 30 games on Live Arcade. If N was one of them, it would stand out. Now there’s like a hundred games, and they’re all shit.”
This last paragraph is usually where an associate editor would interject with his or her opinion, but frankly, why bother? Burns and Mare put it far more eloquently than I ever could, and you’d have to be an EA executive to disagree with them. Because they’re absolutely right.
