Fez

$40k to fix this game on Xbox which is why the patch hasn't come out, crazy amount of money expected from a small dev (2 people in this case) to stump up.
 
FeFiDoh said:
$40k to fix this game on Xbox which is why the patch hasn't come out, crazy amount of money expected from a small dev (2 people in this case) to stump up.
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It's the same for all devs on xbox live. The first patch to your game is free. Further patches cost an increasing amount of money - but I don't think it starts at 40k, or it didn't use to.

Microsoft's reasoning behind this is to force developers to release quality products. If you release a game with a bug in it, they give you a chance to patch it. If you still manage to screw up your game after your patch then you pay for it.

This information isn't a secret. Developers are told about it when signing up to xbox live. It forces developers to pay attention to quality and testing which is never a bad thing.
 
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ZombieFan said:
It's the same for all devs on xbox live. The first patch to your game is free. Further patches cost an increasing amount of money - but I don't think it starts at 40k, or it didn't use to.

Microsoft's reasoning behind this is to force developers to release quality products. If you release a game with a bug in it, they give you a chance to patch it. If you still manage to screw up your game after your patch then you pay for it.

This information isn't a secret. Developers are told about it when signing up to xbox live. It forces developers to pay attention to quality and testing which is never a bad thing.
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If you are implying this practice is valid, shame on you.

In practice, it just means that MANY games get left with bugs which would otherwise be fixed.

$10,000 to an Indie is a stupid amount of money, especially if trying to fund another project.

Microsoft and Sony do not do this as an exercise to "increase the quality of the worlds games". They do it to line their pockets.

I for one will be throwing money at Polytron when Fez comes to Steam.
 
Gimpymoo said:
If you are implying this practice is valid, shame on you.

In practice, it just means that MANY games get left with bugs which would otherwise be fixed.

$10,000 to an Indie is a stupid amount of money, especially if trying to fund another project.

Microsoft and Sony do not do this as an exercise to "increase the quality of the worlds games". They do it to line their pockets.

I for one will be throwing money at Polytron when Fez comes to Steam.
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It means that many games are tested to a higher standard than would be the case if this fee didn't exist. It is in the interest of Microsoft to increase the quality of games which exist on xbox live. Because any such service is judged by the quality of the products it provides.
 
ZombieFan said:
It means that many games are tested to a higher standard than would be the case if this fee didn't exist. It is in the interest of Microsoft to increase the quality of games which exist on xbox live. Because any such service is judged on the quality of the products it provides.
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That comment looks like it came straight from the Microsoft PR handbook.

A true game developer, especially an Indie one, loves their art and the majority do not want to release bad work.

Steam offers the opposite to what Live Arcade does and for the most part is much loved by the community for that. Xbox Live/Live Arcade has MAJOR hate within its community so such steps are not working across the board.

MANY MANY MANY games on Live Aracde/Xbox Live have bugs which proves your corporate tripe to be nothing more than a greedy money making exercise which is counter productive.

There is nothing wrong allowing a developer to fix their game free of charge.

Trying to beat them with a "Hey, get this right second time round or we will bend you over" stick is not right.
 
Gimpymoo said:
There is nothing wrong allowing a developer to fix their game free of charge.

Trying to beat them with a "Hey, get this right second time round or we will bend you over" stick is not right.
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Do you expect Microsoft to pay for the cost of it's own auditing and internal testing for each patch when a developer can submit unlimited patches to their games?

The Fez developers were not in the dark about this. They knew about the costs when they signed up to xbox live and they knew that they would have to stump up a large amount of cash if bugs were found after their first patch.

If they were unable to pay for the cost of a second patch then they should have damn well made sure that the game was perfect. Introducing a game-cripping bug when you know you can't afford to fix it is just idiotic.
 
ZombieFan said:
Do you expect Microsoft to pay for the cost of it's own auditing and internal testing
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They obvously do not do a good job as if they did, games would not be certified with "ground breaking" bugs.

May I ask how many "Perfect" games you have made in you career?

You obviously have no love for the industry, or the people who help make it what it is. You seem more interested in justifying Microsofts stance on the matter.

I will add this as my final input on the matter:

Polytron said:
Had Fez been released on Steam instead of XBLA, the game would have been fixed two weeks after release, at no cost to us.
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I bought this on XBLA and the bugs stopped me from being able to play for more than about 20 mins. I'll be sure to get this on Steam as it was awesome from what I did play.
 
Gimpymoo said:
That comment looks like it came straight from the Microsoft PR handbook.

A true game developer, especially an Indie one, loves their art and the majority do not want to release bad work.

Steam offers the opposite to what Live Arcade does and for the most part is much loved by the community for that. Xbox Live/Live Arcade has MAJOR hate within its community so such steps are not working across the board.

MANY MANY MANY games on Live Aracde/Xbox Live have bugs which proves your corporate tripe to be nothing more than a greedy money making exercise which is counter productive.

There is nothing wrong allowing a developer to fix their game free of charge.

Trying to beat them with a "Hey, get this right second time round or we will bend you over" stick is not right.
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Having worked as a compliance tester for the Xbox in the past, I'm not sure I agree. :o

£40k or even £10k is a lot of money for an indie game (and AAA title even) and I'm not justifying it, but it represents several days with a large number of testers, and when a game fails compliance and has to get bounced back and forth it can take a lot of test time. And to be fair on MS... their compliance rules are well written out and made available to devs, yet we had some games bounced back half a dozen times because of devs not being bothered to do it properly in one go.

That said.. I'm surprised it's that much money though...

They obvously do not do a good job as if they did, games would not be certified with "ground breaking" bugs.
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The compliance testing that Microsoft do isn't for game bugs, though they do get raised, it's still down to the developer to fix them or not.

Compliance testing is to ensure that the game meets the platform requirements and the rules that Microsoft layout for games. It's pretty dry stuff (informing the user not to turn the console off when saving data, appropriate messages and terminology are used when referring to console features and functionality, system functions are being used correctly and only correct data is accessed and transferred).

Compliance has to be done for every release of a game from the ground up usually. It's regression testing to ensure that the patch that's supposed to fix things hasn't caused the game to break compliance.

Note: I'm not saying that the guys behind Fez did a poor job at all, it looks amazing. I'm saying that calling MS money grabbing for doing it isn't really right.. I don't think Steam enforce any kind of compliance rules apart from Steamworks games, so there's no work to do. It comes with the console territory, and you can't expect people to work for free so that a developer can pump out dozens of patches.
 
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That was a well formed post and rather informative, thanks.

$10,000 to $40,000 to release a patch just seems obscene.

I can only assume that small devs simply do not bother after the first patch and simply take the money and run, I cannot blame them for that but it all seems counter productive to what MS say they are trying to enforce in which case maybe they should look at changing such policies?

Just seems very unreasonably strong handed.
 
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Gimpymoo said:
You obviously have no love for the industry, or the people who help make it what it is. You seem more interested in justifying Microsofts stance on the matter.
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I just want to say that this is far from the truth. I have a huge respect for the industry and especially indie devs. I just can't get behind a developer who willingly signs up to an agreement and then throws their toys out of the pram when they realise that they can't afford the terms of that agreement.

Yes. They could have signed up with Steam in the first place. But that is not Microsoft's fault.
 
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