When Xbox Live copywriters get careless

by Tony Carnevale { May 14th 2007 at 11:26AM }

Eagle-eyed Quarter To Three denizen "XPav" spotted some Xbox Live Marketplace demo descriptions that are either terse, strange, or just plain nonsensical. It's obvious what happened: in each case, somebody banged out a rough draft as a placeholder and didn't remember to go back and rewrite the text for public consumption. Embarrassing for them, but fun for us. Could the "real" Dead or Alive 4 description have been any more enjoyable -- or accurate -- than "mighty magnificent stimulating graceful fighting?"

[Via QT3]

Tags: copywriters, XBL, XBLM

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Arno @ May 14th 2007 11:31AM

Yea seriously, I noticed that too when messing around with the new dashboard. Just seems like that description is something new to this dashboard, and Microsoft just forgot to take the place holders out.

Grog @ May 14th 2007 11:33AM

[Placeholder comment on this article]

sheppy @ May 14th 2007 11:38AM

I think I like "Sell Decription?" best on Farcry...

At least their honest at this point. "How the fuck am I supposed to sell this? Umm, you jump around an island and shoot... bang bang."

Jufafs @ May 14th 2007 11:46AM

LOL @ Grog

PhrawzT @ May 14th 2007 11:51AM

Happy fun comment super good time.

nullset @ May 14th 2007 11:55AM

[mighty magnificent stimulating graceful comment]

Heliophage @ May 14th 2007 11:59AM

I saw those too. I didn't think much more of them than 'wow, that was lazy.'

Huricos @ May 14th 2007 12:03PM

You think that's bad? You should see the Dutch Red vs Blue episode descriptions.

Their basically the English descriptions run through babelfish or Google Translate.

I never knew that Church is an actual church!

Bourega @ May 14th 2007 12:04PM

In UK:

Under Amped 3 it says "Sell Text"

The genre for Chromehounds is "test"

Under F.E.A.R : "Just buy this game and have fun." LOL

NFS Most Wanted: "Sell Text"

Ninety Nine Nights: "The ninety-ninth night is coming" eww

Quake 4: "download new maps" wow.

Those are all the highlights not mentioned, i'm quite bored as you can tell.

Barbie Fu @ May 14th 2007 12:09PM

they were written by borat, or a poster on these blogs....................

shoeshine @ May 14th 2007 12:16PM

How is this news? I bought a 360 a week ago and noticed them right away.

BPM @ May 14th 2007 12:44PM

Joystiq comment?

Boss Tempo @ May 14th 2007 12:47PM

It would be better if the descriptions were more accurate:

"Decent graphics but the game is terrible"

"Bargain title but still smokes every PS3 title to date"

"Fun on LSD but pretty lame otherwise"

Yuccadude @ May 14th 2007 1:19PM

Buy this game.

Why should I buy this game?

Just 'cause.

Xanto @ May 14th 2007 1:48PM

Ridge Racer 6 just has a 1 as its genre and description.

samfish @ May 14th 2007 3:02PM

DOA4 certainly is "stimulating", that's for sure.

Justin U @ May 14th 2007 3:45PM

So... Joystiq is scouring our wonderful QT3? Great...

There goes the neighborhood.

GoonieGooGoo @ May 14th 2007 5:12PM

Simply......awesome.

Grant @ May 14th 2007 5:53PM

I think it's the case of a random description field that devs have to include to get the game certified, and the default probably is labeled "Sell Text".

So people just wrote some sort of random junk assuming no one would ever see it, since it hasn't been utilized until now.
I don't remember what crackdowns description is, but i remember seeing it and thinking it was something stupid.

Cyber Akuma @ May 14th 2007 11:35PM

I remember seeing quite a lot of funny descriptions like that the day of the update. IIRC chronehunds has "test" as it's genra for US regions. I also created a Japanese and European account today to download the Eternal Sonata demo as well as any other JP/UK only demos and noticed on my Dutch account that some games had the description "Somebody Translate This!"