Xbox Live recently released a ‘do not do’ list for indie developers who would like to include Live avatars in their games. Some might call these restrictions stifling or censoring, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. Live avatars are Xbox IP, and they do not belong to the players or the community. I’m surprised that Xbox Live even allows this type of partially moderated use of their IP as it is. Also note that this is not “here are the few things that you are allowed to do”, it is instead “here are the few things that you cannot do”. With that in mind, all of the rules really boil down to three basic tenets of avatar use. I’ve categorized the rules below. You can check out the original post to the developers community here. (more…)