<cite>Braid</cite> Creator Explains His XBLA Certification Experience

Update: Blow responds in the comments:

I just want to comment that, reading this article, my opinion of working with Microsoft comes across as being more negative than it actually is (and I don't blame the interviewers for that because I don't remember the full interview -- it was pretty long). There were negative aspects to it, but also some positive ones -- see my comment on the Gamasutra posting for details.

I don't want this to blow up into some kind of big "Microsoft sucks" internet controversy; if it does, I will be disappointed.

Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade certification system favors triple-A titles, and unnecessarily hinders even the best independent games, believes Jonathan Blow, creator of indie critical-darling Braid.

"I put in a tremendous amount of work meeting all these requirements, when I could have put that work into the actual game, and made it even a little more polished, little bit better," Blow told Gamasutra.

Though the process has often been cited by Microsoft brass as the only safeguard between the current XBLA roster and glut of crap titles, Braid feels that the system as is "actually decreases the quality of games, because people spend so much of their energy on these things that users don't even really care about."

Still, Blow doesn't find the XBLA development process entirely disagreeable. Though it has hurdles, he qualifies them as "nothing quite bad enough to cause me to cancel releasing the game on Arcade."
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Image courtesy Jonathan Blow*

Blow: 'Unnecessary' XBLA Hurdles Hurt Game Quality [Gamasutra]

Headline updated to reflect Mr. Blow's comments