Microsoft investigating Indie ratings abuse

Microsoft is looking into ratings abuse among its Xbox Live Indie Games channel, after a Facebook post for one game may have led to an influx of low rankings for its competitors.

Steve Watts

March 30, 2011 10:00 AM

Microsoft is looking into ratings abuse among its Xbox Live Indie Games channel. The company tweeted that it is looking into "possible misuse" of the ratings, and promised more information as it develops.

Gamasutra reports that the issue first cropped up last week, when indie developer Robert Boyd pointed out a sudden influx in low ratings for several indie games, including his own Cthulu Saves the World from Zeboyd Games.

A Facebook post for the College Lacrosse series urged fans to provide a 5-star rating for College Lacrosse 2011; but some allegedly went an extra step and gave competing games 1-star ratings to drive Lacrosse up the rankings. The original post has now been edited, asking fans not to "rate other games low to help CL11." Any Xbox.com members can rank indie games, whether they've downloaded the title or not.

The rank-gaming may not technically break any current rules, but it's apparently serious enough for Microsoft to be checking into. We may see a change coming to the way indie games are ranked.

Steve Watts

Editor-In-Chief

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Shacknews

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March 30, 2011 10:00 AM

Comment on Microsoft investigating Indie ratings abuse, by Steve Watts.
- SporkyReeve
  
   reply
  March 30, 2011 10:27 AM
  
  Summary: Microsoft is looking into ratings abuse among its Xbox Live Indie Games channel, after a Facebook post for one game may have led to an influx of low rankings for its competitors.
  - multisync
    
     reply
    March 30, 2011 10:28 AM
    
    you should just not be able to rate a game unless you bought it
    - Gary the Llama
      
       reply
      March 30, 2011 10:29 AM
      
      That's pretty much the solution.
    - Proven28
      
       reply
      March 30, 2011 11:08 AM
      
      Seems like that's the way it should have always been.... kind of reminds me of IGN user ratings before the game is even released.
      - dantastic
        
         reply
        March 30, 2011 11:11 AM
        
        and... METACRITIC
    - humbleone
      
       reply
      March 30, 2011 11:14 AM
      
      But you can't as far as XBLA games is concerned - why didn't they just do the same here?
      
      Is there trials available for Indie games? (I can't access XBLIG because of it not working in my region..)
      - Haxim
        
         reply
        March 30, 2011 11:16 AM
        
        Yeah, you can trial any XBLIG game and it just gives you a 5 minute timer on the game.
- passingstranger
  
   reply
  March 30, 2011 1:14 PM
  
  I lol'd just seeing College Lacrosse 11 on here. It's an atrocious game with an even worse asking price.
  
  A friend and I (both former lacrosse players) downloaded both this year's and last year's version and they are laughable. Sometimes rules are simply ignored, like awarding the ball to one team every single time there is an out of bounds, even if they themselves just blatantly threw it out. It's just plain awful and I'm not surprised that they had to ask people for ratings help.