This week's new Xbox Live dashboard goes a little too far in its efforts to streamline your access to XBLA content – at least, if you're an indie games fan. The update doesn't list Indie Games in the Genre section of the Marketplace. Instead, the sizable section's relegated to a single, separate list, organized by neither genre nor title. As GameMarx shows, browsing the whole thing (which you may have to, if you're looking for a particular game) is liable to cause hiccups across the board.
Indie games also can't access new features such as Cloud Saves, Beacons or presence on the XBLA iOS app. This isn't the first time indies have felt slanted by Microsoft's service: for a long time now, XBLIG titles have had to make do without features such as Achievements, Leaderboards or the ability to launch without an XBLA connection.
The new update comes alongside a revision of Microsoft's Terms of Service, which must be approved before players can access XBLA. The new TOS severely limits Microsoft's liability and restricts subscribers' options in the event of a dispute, forcing XBLA users to submit to binding arbitration and forbidding participation in class-action legal proceedings against Microsoft. This is in line with the revisions by Sony to the PSN's TOS earlier this year.
If all this trampling of indie devs and legal rights has you steamed, you could consider blocking advertising in protest. For now, anyway – we've a hunch advertisers' concerns may be addressed more promptly than those of bedroom coders. Then again, perhaps you should be grateful: in territories such as the Pacific, ratings hassles prevent XBLIG titles from showing up on the dashboard at all...
