XBL Community Game Exploits

ElysiumGX

First this...

http://www.sfx-360.com/reviews/blueprint-racer-4d
http://www.redringcircus.com/2009/04/blueprint-racer-4d-xbox-360-community.html

Now this...

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/offers/00000001-0000-4000-8000-000058550222?partner=RSS

The Microsoft Games Community believes that if you take an existing game, and replace a few textures (with the same single texture), the game belongs to you. Quick way to make a few hundred bucks. It seems there are many more reskins being sold, this is simply the most obvious.

The blueprint game was removed from the Marketplace after being the Most Popular game for a couple weeks. I've been keeping a close watch on the Community games section since finding my own work submitted to it without my knowledge. It sad how quality control is almost non-existent, making it difficult to find well made games within the large pile of garbage it is becoming. It wouldn't be as much of a concern if they didn't have prices attached to them.

Both of these are rips from the XNA Starter Kit game
http://exdream.no-ip.info/XnaRacingGame/
http://creators.xna.com/en-US/starterkit/racinggame

adam

Someone spent their time & energy finding a texture on the net and overwriting files with it. They should be paid for their time!

SHEPEIRO

i was going to say something hilarious about the money we spend on sequels with updated textures then i failed to find anything funny about it

notman

I bet they wouldn't feel the same if you retextured halo and sold it that way.

jerry

I develop with XNA and obviously came across the starter kit. The lameness of this is huge, but the fact that some reviewer says this is worth the money is fairly disturbing as well. I don't know the site and if it's popular or anything but obviously i don't wanna know. Shamefull on both ends, more on the ripdeal offcourse.

Edit: I don't like the way Microsoft handle the admission of games. The heap of crap submitted makes finding the gems so much harder :thumbdown:

adam

God I hope you guys know I'm joking. :P

ElysiumGX

jerry wrote: »

I don't like the way Microsoft handle the admission of games. The heap of crap submitted makes finding the gems so much harder :thumbdown:

It is. And I have to wonder how promising it looks to a small indie developer to think their submission would be lost in all that. I have to browse through each and every game in alphabetical order, only to find one well made game that I've never seen in the "most popular' list. They should implement a rating system...after a more thorough review system.

The problem is so many people, including small review sites, treat these "reskins" as entirely new games built from the ground up by the listed developer. It'll likely be taken down again soon after it's earned a small profit.

Now, I must get to work on Bar Code Racer.

leilei

What if FPS Creator made XNA games....
EDIT of Critical research failure: 10 already does, but the version before is the plague one

Daaark

Rating system is coming this summer.

The reason the game went up is because there is a debate whether or not these should be allowed, because it's technically not against the license. Those games are put there as XNA programming starter kits and are licensed to be used as the base of your own game.

Anyways, check out Angry Barry. Great looking game just came out this week.

Kevin Albers

ElysiumGX wrote: »

The Microsoft Games Community believes that if you take an existing game, and replace a few textures (with the same single texture), the game belongs to you.

This isn't really true at all. Community Games developers don't make the rules...Microsoft does.

Plenty of developers are bothered that someone who can't make a game is allowed to swap out some textures and release a 'starter kit' without actually modifying the starter kit. Most of the developers who accept Microsoft's rules as being relatively fair think that releasing re-skinned starter kits is super-lame, even though it should be allowed.