Update: Fez Studio Rereleases Save-Corrupting Patch

[BeerTent]

Microsoft is being an asshole again? Who's surprised!?

I'm curious; how are MS being arseholes?

I see a developer with no business sense whatsoever and a shitty excuse for releasing a patch that fucks up the game completely for some of the players. Where does MS enter into this?

Exactly. It's striking that people are so quick to jump in on the side of Polytron and blame a problem with their game on Microsoft!

I personally find it quite childish of Polytron to whine now about terms they happily signed up to when they released the game. It smacks of trying to distract everyone from the fact they're not fixing the save-destroying problem.

"Well, we're not going to fix that problem because it would be too expensive... But you know who's a bunch of arseholes? Microsoft! Yeah, we made the decision to release on their platform and we agreed to the terms governing any patches. But they're still arseholes so yell at them instead of us!"

I absolutely have to say this: Your Name/Avatar is fucking awesome.

I kind of agree here. I can see a little annoyance with Microsoft, as such patches probably shouldn't cost this much to release, and expecting everything to be perfect (Especially with the industry standard today, why pay for QA?) is a little foolish. But I understand why we need this is a major deterrent, and furthermore bitching and moaning about the policies, as you've stated is absolutely abhorrent. If they're going to threaten Microsoft with Steam because they can't release a game-breaking patch for 1% of it's users, why even go in this business in the first place? (If Fez had gotten 100,000 sales, that's 1,000 people affected. Unacceptable in my industry.)

It seems Polytron is good for not much else other than complaining. We get it, your vocal about being bottom on the list because your new to the world. So am I, get the fuck over it.

 

[Ne1butme]

And why? Because, according to them, "Fez is a console game, not a PC game" and that putting it on a console rather than PC "matters more than sales or revenue".

Is there a source for this quote? I hadn't heard that and a rudimentary Google search didn't come up with anything worthwhile on the topic.

 

[Kekkonen1]

Surely he must have known about these things before hand and budgetet for it. I'm not saying tht Microsofts system is good, but It is my understanding that Fez has sold quite well and will most likely continue to do so for some time. Would it not then seem fair to take that financial hit to enable that 1% of fans who actually payed for your game and helped make it prosper?

I of course know nothing about the numbers for Fez, but just assume that it has/will over time have sold 500,000 copies. In that case 1% is 5,000 people that have bought the game for somewhere around 10 bucks. That is 50,000USD. Even if he only gets to keep half of that it is still 25,000 USD and should surely be enough to cover costs for another patch (and if he has sold 500,000 copies then 50% of that whole profit would be somewhere around 2,5 million USD, surely he could have budgetet 5% of that (125,000USD) for patches since he knew about the cost beforehand?)

This just smells of shittyness. I realize there will always be bugs, but as a developer you should at least aim to make the game-breaking bugs as few as humanly possible, if you sit there with a game you can't play that you payed money for you don't want to be told the developer can't be bothered to try to fix it because it costs too much.

 

[RaikuFA]

Actually, with SMB MS broke the contract. Part of the agreement to keep it away from PS was that MS had to advertise it. MS did not fufill their end of the deal.

And this relates to Fez how, exactly?

You asked how is MS is bad in these events and I pointed out that SMB did not get advertised despite the fact that MS was supposed to.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112912-Team-Meat-Wont-Go-Back-to-Microsoft

 

[lacktheknack]

Polytron cited the overwhelming costs of issuing a new patch, which requires re-certification and testing by Microsoft, which in turn would run the studio "tens of thousands of dollars."

He should sue them for so utterly and obviously NOT testing it the first time.

Certification != QA

I know, but it said "certification AND TESTING". I even highlighted it.

 

[Rad Party God]

So uhhh... why didn't you released the game for PC in the first place?, oh!, I remember, because "the gaem is meant to be played in a couch", right?, I hope you burn. Idiot.

 

[lacktheknack]

Polytron cited the overwhelming costs of issuing a new patch, which requires re-certification and testing by Microsoft, which in turn would run the studio "tens of thousands of dollars."

He should sue them for so utterly and obviously NOT testing it the first time.

Certification != QA

I know, but it said "certification AND TESTING". I even highlighted it.

The number of copies affected by the save glitch is less than 1%. If testing was 100% perfect, there wouldn't ever need to be patches.

Whoops, missed that part.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

If it's true (I've zero clue if it is) that it only affects one percent... Big deal? Yeah, it blows hugely for the people screwed by it and it's not okay or good that a product you paid for doesn't work as intended (legal shit aside). But... it'd be hard to drum up an rage with a one percent problem.

 

[Ne1butme]

And why? Because, according to them, "Fez is a console game, not a PC game" and that putting it on a console rather than PC "matters more than sales or revenue".

Is there a source for this quote? I hadn't heard that and a rudimentary Google search didn't come up with anything worthwhile on the topic.

Yeah, here:

http://www.nowgamer.com/features/950149/fez_interview_polytrons_phil_fish.html

Ok, i just read the article and the only thing that comes my mind is 'fuck him'. If he is so determined to stick to his principles (Console release only), then he deserves what he gets.

 

[Varya]

I'm behind Polytron on this, yeah, maybe it was a mistake making a deal with MS but when you're an indie developer you have to make bad deals to get your game published/advertised. I'm not gonna pretend to know the dealngs behind the curtains on this one, but if you honestly think an indie-developer "only has themselves to blame" i think you're an idiot. Thing is, even if you know about MS stupid-ass patch-pricing rules, doesn't make it right. And they're making the best of a bad situation. When their exlucitivity with MS goes out, I'll probably buy it and be able to enjoy a game that can actually be patched if something is wrong with it.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

And why? Because, according to them, "Fez is a console game, not a PC game" and that putting it on a console rather than PC "matters more than sales or revenue".

Is there a source for this quote? I hadn't heard that and a rudimentary Google search didn't come up with anything worthwhile on the topic.

Yeah, here:

http://www.nowgamer.com/features/950149/fez_interview_polytrons_phil_fish.html

Ok, i just read the article and the only thing that comes my mind is 'fuck him'. If he is so determined to stick to his principles (Console release only), then he deserves what he gets.

You're right, Fish gets no sympathy from me.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

As someone that wants to play it on PS3, my interest steadily wanes with every batch, or patch, of fail this game continues to make.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Actually, with SMB MS broke the contract. Part of the agreement to keep it away from PS was that MS had to advertise it. MS did not fufill their end of the deal.

And this relates to Fez how, exactly?

Who said it has to do with Fez? It has to do with the conversation. One which you were a direct element in (see next quote), so I don't see how this comes as "off-topic" to you. Though this just makes me wonder how hard you're jamming your fingers into your ears as people talk badly about what must clearly be your favorite company, because the level of denial in your posts is off the charts. Microsoft has shitty policies, end of story. Doesn't matter who's fault it is for entering into business with them, the point is that as this happens more and more, Microsoft is going to start losing games, and thus, revenue. So go ahead and live in denial if you want, but regardless of whether or not it's Fish's fault for entering into a contract with Microsoft, it doesn't make him somehow responsible for those policies being formed in the first place.

Um, have you been blind for the past few years? This story has been repeated many a time. Where an independent developer releases a game on consoles saying they prefer consoles over PC, gets screwed by Microsoft and then ducks into the Steam vault where they make a lot more money.

The same thing happened with the Braid creator and the Super Meatboy creator.

These aren't dumb people. Something is up.

Sounds like they made bad business choices, got burned and then decided to do something smarter. Again, how in hell is that Microsoft's fault? Or do you think Microsoft are somehow forcing them at gunpoint to sign the agreements?

Besides, the guy who made Braid is a pretentious shithead. Saying he's not dumb is inaccurrate.

 

[sonofliber]

good, f.y. polytron, you could have gone steam and make millions but instead you prefer to be micro$oft *****

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

The certification fees are not the big deal. It is the distribution fees. Microsoft doesn't really charge developers for bandwidth for distribution. They also don't want developers continually releasing patches for games, that eats up bandwidth on the XBL servers. They want developers to really get it right the first time.

Do you have any idea how cheap bandwidth is these days? It's non-zero, but it's a tiny, tiny fraction of the total amount they make off each sale of each game. If that weren't true, Netflix couldn't survive with people paying $8/month to stream hours and hours of HD video (less than the cost of a game for far more data), and YouTube couldn't work with an ad-supported model. I have a server with unmetered bandwidth that costs so little per month it might as well be free. That would've been unheard of not too many years ago, but these days it's not so much of a big deal.

I haven't looked at a recent breakdown of where the money from XBLA sales goes, but I strongly suspect that a rather small fraction of what you pay for a game covers the bandwidth cost for downloading the game and all future patches for it, and it doesn't significantly/directly impact anyone involved on that level (MS and whoever they do their hosting/CDN stuff with, sure, but not individual developers/publishers). It's not so much that they're not charging the developers for bandwidth but rather that it's being paid for from the percentage that MS keeps and doesn't give to the developer in the first place.

The certification fees do have a much larger effect on smaller developers than large ones though, because it's a dramatically larger piece of their total available cash. For a company that has millions or billions of dollars, it's not really a big deal, but many small, independent developers are working with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and after taxes and paying off debts accumulated during development they often make under $40k per person per year. They can afford to live off it and keep doing what they enjoy doing, but spending that many thousands of dollars just to release a patch is out of the question...and that's why Steam and iOS and so on have gotten so much more popular for things like that.

As far as Fez goes...I don't know what Phil Fish's personal financial situation is and what makes the most sense for him, but he sure doesn't seem to win himself any more fans whenever he opens his mouth. Heh.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Damn. You shouldn't have paid them, then. I want to play Fez, dammit!

 

[chimeracreator]

From what I understand most certification testing has to do with making sure that the game doesn't brick your console or exceed the limits of what whatever sandbox it's put in. As Microsoft doesn't want a lazy dev to screw up while implementing a cycle saving trick and end up writing files vital the OS it makes sense that they do this. Valve doesn't care about that as much because people are used to Windows having problems, and at this point most desktops are sand boxed sufficiently so you need to intentionally be doing something wrong while running as admin to break it.

 

[ashertaz]

1- no testing is ever perfect (even coming close to it would stretch dev time for years).
2- save corrupting even for 1% is not a reason do disqualify a game from certification ( the game is tested for stability and other grave/often errors and bugs).

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Who said it has to do with Fez? It has to do with the conversation. One which you were a direct element in (see next quote), so I don't see how this comes as "off-topic" to you. Though this just makes me wonder how hard you're jamming your fingers into your ears as people talk badly about what must clearly be your favorite company, because the level of denial in your posts is off the charts. Microsoft has shitty policies, end of story. Doesn't matter who's fault it is for entering into business with them, the point is that as this happens more and more, Microsoft is going to start losing games, and thus, revenue. So go ahead and live in denial if you want, but regardless of whether or not it's Fish's fault for entering into a contract with Microsoft, it doesn't make him somehow responsible for those policies being formed in the first place.

You're trying to dodge it, but they entered the agreement willingly. They knew what they were getting into, which means they either thought it was a good deal and are now lying to us to save a few bucks, or they are really just morons who can't read and just clicked "I agree!" automatically, a stance for which I have no respect whatsoever.

You want to hate Microsoft, and that is the one and only reason why you're blaming them. Quite frankly, it doesn't matter. Hate them if you want, they did nothing wrong.

I'm not dodging a damn thing! Go ahead and point-out the part of my reply where I said "They had no way of knowing what they were getting into". Go for it, I can wait. If you weren't neck-deep in denial, you'd notice how I said that I don't care who willingly went into business with who; it doesn't change the fact that Microsoft has horrendous policies, and numerous companies have complained about the hoops that are needed to jump through in order to publish games or release DLC for their system.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

"People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform," Polytron stated. "Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM."

Really? I suppose I get the attraction of XBLA, your game gets some free press if it's published there, but why would you pay them to be on there exclusively? Steam/practically any other method of distribution seems like it would be waaay better for this type of game. I agree with Fappy, seems like a dumb move on his part.

I'm wondering this also.

What possible benefit is there?