Gamasutra Expert Blogs: From design debates to publishing contracts

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Expert Blogs, industry notables write about diverse topics, including design debates at gamasutra, advice on publishing contracts, GameStop selling used digital games, and more.] In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share. We hope that both sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information about the blogs, check out the latest official posting guidelines. Here are the top blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Expert Blogs Thinking through publishing contracts: Tips and lessons Learned (Howard Tsao) Recently, Howard Tsao helped some friends review publishing contracts. Having read quite a few contracts by now, learning from theirs as well as his own experiences, he shares this post to help other indie devs with the complexities and caveats of the contract. GameStop selling used digital games - Not gonna happen (Ian Fisch) Despite a recent European court decision, Ian Fisch doesn't believe that GameStop's plan to sell 'used' digital games will ever get off the ground. The design debates (Christian Nutt) Lately there have been some design debates going on at Gamasutra, and it's been really interesting. This hasn't been intentional, in the sense that as the features director, Christian Nutt didn't set out to liven up the design section of the site... Lessons from CastleMiner and Avatar Paintball: How to make it on Xbox Live Indie Games (Thomas Steinke) One of the most successful Xbox Live Indie developers, Digital DNA's Thomas Steinke, offers advice on how to make a successful Xbox Live Indie title. The misconception of sales on the game industry (Josh Bycer) Many publishers these days cry foul over sales as a threat to the industry. But Josh Bycer says that a basic economic principle and his "secret buying strategy" says otherwise.