One of the more interesting duos in the UK independent games scene are, of course, the Pickford Brothers, responsible for games that stretch from the awesome Zub on the ZX Spectrum all the way to Wetrix, Future Tactics, and, uhh, Sticky Balls for the Gizmondo.

Anyhow, the intriguing, turn-based, play by email Naked War was the duo's first indie PC release after striking out on their own, and Ste Pickford has just written up a mammoth blog post called 'The First 30 Seconds' which talks about the reception to that title, Jeff Minter, and the future of independent games in smart, very readable terms.

Also, it outs that the duo are working on an Xbox Live Arcade game: "The game John and I are currently working on is being developed with Live Arcade in mind, and as the follow-on project to another brilliant game which got great reviews and didn't sell too well (Naked War, of course!), the Space Giraffe story is something I've been paying close attention to."

But this is the key bit: "For the second time in my life I think I'm seeing a seismic shift in video game design; in developers' attitude and approach to their customers. It's the result of the explosion of casual games, the rise of download systems like Live, and the increased availability of playable demos even for retail games... More than ever before a player's first impression of a game is critical."

There's another couple of thousand words of smart musings from there, including this very relevant note: "If anything, the changes being brought about by free downloads and demos are actually forcing today's video game designers to think more like coin-op designers." Read, link, and enjoy. [Somewhat via Rock Paper Shotgun - thanks, lads!]