Developers had a limited amount of games that can be published at once.They can, however, determine if the player was playing in the demo format to add further nag screens or restrict content. Games had a mandatory timed demo period, which were enforced outside of the game, that could not be changed at all by the developer.The bottom-most tier were only accessible to games that had a small file size (50 MB prior to the rebrand, 150 MB afterwards). Games had to be priced in one of three tiers, and developers only received 70% of the game's profits.This was originally 150 MB, and was later upgraded to 500 MB. Games could only take up a very limited amount of space on the player's hard drive.It was later hidden further by the Indie Games section being part of the "Specialty Shops" section, away from other types of games in the Marketplace.
While the service received some notable original games (such as The Impossible Game, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, Aban Hawkins & the 1000 SPIKES, Bleed, DLC Quest, Streets of Fury, Techno Kitten Adventure, Beat Hazard, Flotilla, Mount Your Friends, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1, and the Arkedo Series trilogy), some of which were later made available on other platforms, it also received notoriety for its abundance of low-quality games (as none of the games were reviewed by Microsoft themselves), basic software (such as simple controller testers), and clones of popular games (such as Minecraft and the Call of Duty series).
Prior to the service's rebranding, it was a four-minute trial period. Once eight minutes are up, the player can no longer try the game out without buying it.
After eight minutes of runtime, the game is paused and the player is given the option to either quit the game or purchase the full version to keep playing.
One unique feature of XBLIG Games is that all games have an enforced eight-minute trial period, where players can download and run the game on their Xbox Live account as a free timed demo.
Prior to the service's rebranding, they were sold for either 200, 400, or 800 MSP (approx. XBLIG Games were only sold in the "Indie Games" section of the Xbox Live Marketplace (with limited visibility outside of the section) and were sold for either 80, 240, or 400 Microsoft Points (approx. While games can make use of some of Xbox Live's special functionality (including online multiplayer, party chat, and Xbox Avatars), other parts of the platform were restricted (with games not showing in players' game lists and having no support for the platform's achievement or leaderboard systems). It was not available in all regions.Īll games classified as XBLIG titles were developed using the Microsoft XNA framework and had limited Xbox Live functionality. It was introduced to the public on Novemand was later discontinued on October 7, 2017. Xbox Live Indie Games (formerly Xbox Live Community Games) was a line of downloadable games for the Xbox 360 that were created, peer-reviewed, and self-published by a community of independent developers for the Xbox Live Marketplace. Overview An example "cover art" for a XBLIG game.