If you count the directions keyed on the D-pad (or the left stick) it takes 17 button presses to reach the Indie Games section of the Xbox Live Marketplace under the new Xbox dashboard, which released this week. It takes only eight buttons to get to the Xbox Live Arcade and Games on Demand catalogs.
Indie developers, naturally, are pissed about this, feeling they've been ghettoized the new dashboard layout. They weren't easy to find under the old one, either. What's more, all Indie Games are listed in a single grouping, searchable by release date, rating, and most-downloaded. Sorting by title organizes them alphabetically, but if the one you want begins with Z, you'll be scrolling through a ton of listings.
"This is just a giant F-U to all of us. There is simply no other way to put it," Pouncing Kitten Games wrote in this developer forum. "Put 2000+ games in a single list and give less than a half dozen filtering options, not including genre? Good call. Whoever made that decision should be fired immediately."
Indie devs weren't happy with the last redesign. For Microsoft's part, a representative told the comment thread that he's gathering up feedback to guide how the channel is organized and presented in the new layout.
Indie Devs Unhappy With Xbox Live Dashboard Update [The Escapist]