Why Phil Fish Ought To Patch Fez

Dennis Scimeca

New member
Mar 29, 2010
217
0
0
Why Phil Fish Ought To Patch Fez

Indie developers don?t always deserve special treatment.

Read Full Article
 

The Random One

New member
May 29, 2008
3,310
0
0
I broadly agree, but in this case I have to side with Fish, may DeGroot forgive me. Microsoft ostensively charges that due to their verification process. Shouldn't that verification have found the patch'es errors? I'm not saying that's not Polytron's responsability, but when Microsoft charges that much money to verify a patch they must also assume some responsability for it if it fucks up.

I find your second point flawless though. We all know Fish took Microsoft's offer for a buttload of cash, making it an exclusive even though Microsoft hasn't been a healthy place for indies in years, if it ever was. You reap what you sow.
 

RaikuFA

New member
Jun 12, 2009
4,370
0
0
I hope this guy just gets his head out of his ass.

Doubt it though this is Fish and I know I'm never buying this guys work again.
 

teh_gunslinger

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. did it better.
Dec 6, 2007
1,325
0
0
The Random One said:
I broadly agree, but in this case I have to side with Fish, may DeGroot forgive me. Microsoft ostensively charges that due to their verification process. Shouldn't that verification have found the patch'es errors? I'm not saying that's not Polytron's responsability, but when Microsoft charges that much money to verify a patch they must also assume some responsability for it if it fucks up.

I find your second point flawless though. We all know Fish took Microsoft's offer for a buttload of cash, making it an exclusive even though Microsoft hasn't been a healthy place for indies in years, if it ever was. You reap what you sow.
Isn't the cert just to make sure the game doesn't brick the console though? I really don't think they do QA; they just make sure no explosions happen when you start the game.

Fish can't dodge this one. If you make a deal to only release on XBLA then you eat the cost of patching if you find out that your QA wasn't up to snuff.
 

kitsuta

<Clever Title Here>
Jan 10, 2011
367
0
0
The Random One said:
I find your second point flawless though. We all know Fish took Microsoft's offer for a buttload of cash, making it an exclusive even though Microsoft hasn't been a healthy place for indies in years, if it ever was. You reap what you sow.
Polytron is very adamant that it was not paid by Microsoft. You can read the story here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118578-Fez-Studio-Rereleases-Save-Corrupting-Patch], but the relevant quote is, "People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform. Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM."

Ignoring any arguments about Polytron's past decisions, I'm genuinely wondering what people would think of the company if it shelled out the $40k for a new patch and subsequently went under. Or if it was really unlucky and its new patch made things even worse, and then that had to be pulled. Would people still demand the developer shell out another $40k for another new patch? Is there an upper limit to how much the Polytron should pay to fix this bug?
 

ReinWeisserRitter

New member
Nov 15, 2011
749
0
0
Independent developers never deserve special treatment, first of all.

Secondly, this is just poor customer service by people to whom good conduct seemed alien in the first place. It's not like the game become sentient and broke on its own; you released a faulty product, and it's your responsibility to your customers to eat whatever costs that results in to fix the problem. I don't feel bad for you because you're an independent developer; you of all people should know better than to let such a thing pass knowing what it could cost you financially and in the realm of reputation, and you've already fucked the latter up in the past. Playing the victim in response to your own mistakes could end up costing you more than this patch, and you'd deserve it.
 

Sylveria

New member
Nov 15, 2009
1,285
0
0
Fish is a smug, self absorbed, indie-primadonna. We've seen this time and time again. I'm sure his view is "I got my money and I have no obligation to fix this."

kitsuta said:
Ignoring any arguments about Polytron's past decisions, I'm genuinely wondering what people would think of the company if it shelled out the $40k for a new patch and subsequently went under. Or if it was really unlucky and its new patch made things even worse, and then that had to be pulled. Would people still demand the developer shell out another $40k for another new patch? Is there an upper limit to how much the Polytron should pay to fix this bug?
Why should they get special treatment? If Skyrim had some bug that deleted your save, we wouldn't say "Oh it's okay Bethesda, we don't want to hurt your bottom line. We'll just start over."

If you make and release a game, it better work. If it doesn't work, you better fix it. If you can't or wont fix it, you deserve the consequences. People paid for a product, they expect it to work.Since it's XBLA, they can't even return it or dump it. Welcome to the anti-consumer age of digital distribution folks, you've been clamoring for it, enjoy what you got.
 

DrunkOnEstus

In the name of Harman...
May 11, 2012
1,712
0
0
Anybody who has seen "Indie Game: The Movie" would be very aware of how compulsive and neurotic Mr. Fish is. I can imagine him having panic attacks, pacing back and forth and calling everyone else names because "this patching horror happened to me!!" I am of the firm belief that he didn't expect a patch to be necessary, that after over 5 years it was perfect, and there wasn't even a need to find out how gouged you get for needing to patch your game (when I imagine Microsoft stands to make more money from sales of the game being in fully functional condition).

Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the guy. I have crippling anxiety problems and I understand how circumstances can drive your mind into a frenzy where choices aren't fully thought out. I played the demo of Fez and enjoyed it, and I really wish he did have an option to put it on Steam and be treated right and have the opportunity to treat his customers better.

But in his dream of spending over 5 years making a game (something I applaud him for undertaking), one of the sacrifices he made was to be tied exclusively to Microsoft. If I put over 5 years of my existence into a creation, I know I would do what it took to make it the best it could be. Based on sales, he has the money to fix this, but is probably terrified that a different issue could pop up that would lead to a money sink. I guess the lesson is to read all the print (yes the fine print too) before you sign a contract handed to you by the devil.
 

kitsuta

<Clever Title Here>
Jan 10, 2011
367
0
0
Sylveria said:
kitsuta said:
Ignoring any arguments about Polytron's past decisions, I'm genuinely wondering what people would think of the company if it shelled out the $40k for a new patch and subsequently went under. Or if it was really unlucky and its new patch made things even worse, and then that had to be pulled. Would people still demand the developer shell out another $40k for another new patch? Is there an upper limit to how much the Polytron should pay to fix this bug?
Why should they get special treatment? If Skyrim had some bug that deleted your save, we wouldn't say "Oh it's okay Bethesda, we don't want to hurt your bottom line. We'll just start over."

If you make and release a game, it better work. If it doesn't work, you better fix it. If you can't or wont fix it, you deserve the consequences. People paid for a product, they expect it to work.Since it's XBLA, they can't even return it or dump it. Welcome to the anti-consumer age of digital distribution folks, you've been clamoring for it, enjoy what you got.
There's a difference between "hurting your bottom line" and "completely dissolving." The consequences are potentially much greater for a studio that can't just absorb the cost of a $40k re-cert. Recognizing that isn't special treatment, it's just understanding that some businesses can afford to make more mistakes than others. You're allowed to let that temper your judgement of a studio's actions without babying it.

The patch was originally released specifically because Polytron wanted to make the game work better for people. It fixed a lot of bugs, at least according to its blog post. That means the company already shelled out $40k to make the game work better, and then it got unlucky with a bug that only affected 1% of use cases. You can say 'they should have caught it,' but that's demanding absolute perfection of human beings, and even big studios screw up. Repeatedly.

The fact that the studio took responsibility for this decision doesn't mean it can actually afford the extra $40k. It even said that it still owes Microsoft money right now. That doesn't scream financial stability to me, so I'm inclined to believe the decision was more about 'will this patch be beneficial enough to outweigh the costs' than 'how much money can we keep in our McScrooge-like vault.'

That being said, there's a lot of criticisms to be made of Polytron's previous decisions - its insistence on sticking with XBLA consequences-be-damned is definitely high on the list. It could have absolutely avoided this situation just by being open-minded about a PC release. I would personally attribute its mistakes to naivety, but that doesn't make the mistakes any less boneheaded.
 

ranger19

New member
Nov 19, 2008
492
0
0
Great article again. I generally agree with your sentiments - he should (and almost has an obligation to) patch this, the only exception maybe being if doing so literally puts him out of business. But I'll flesh out my thoughts by quoting someone and contributing to the conversation.

kitsuta said:
There's a difference between "hurting your bottom line" and "completely dissolving." The consequences are potentially much greater for a studio that can't just absorb the cost of a $40k re-cert. Recognizing that isn't special treatment, it's just understanding that some businesses can afford to make more mistakes than others. You're allowed to let that temper your judgement of a studio's actions without babying it.

The patch was originally released specifically because Polytron wanted to make the game work better for people. It fixed a lot of bugs, at least according to its blog post. That means the company already shelled out $40k to make the game work better, and then it got unlucky with a bug that only affected 1% of use cases. You can say 'they should have caught it,' but that's demanding absolute perfection of human beings, and even big studios screw up. Repeatedly.

The fact that the studio took responsibility for this decision doesn't mean it can actually afford the extra $40k. It even said that it still owes Microsoft money right now. That doesn't scream financial stability to me, so I'm inclined to believe the decision was more about 'will this patch be beneficial enough to outweigh the costs' than 'how much money can we keep in our McScrooge-like vault.'

That being said, there's a lot of criticisms to be made of Polytron's previous decisions - its insistence on sticking with XBLA consequences-be-damned is definitely high on the list. It could have absolutely avoided this situation just by being open-minded about a PC release. I would personally attribute its mistakes to naivety, but that doesn't make the mistakes any less boneheaded.
This is a pretty good defense of the developer, and actually somewhat persuades me, so kudos to you. But even if this is all true, I would still take issue with how the guy presented the news to the world/his customer base: he went on about how much it would cost to fix, and how if it were on Steam, it would be fixed by now. But it's not like he was forced to put it on Xbox - in fact he talked about paying to be on Xbox. If that's the case, then he can't afford to patch it because he made some (seemingly bad) decisions when it came to deciding what platform to put the game out on. The customers, then, are not getting a patch, because the dev apparently chose the wrong console to release his game on. Without further explanation, customers are more than justified to be upset if a patch isn't coming.

Buretsu said:
So why wasn't the game released on Steam? If Fish did his due diligence and realized that he couldn't support Fez properly on Xbox Live due to the prohibitive patching costs, why didn't he pursue a different option?
Why not Steam? Because "Fez is a console game, not a PC game" and "It?s made to be played with a controller, on a couch, on a Saturday morning." To Mr Fish, "that matters; that?s part of the medium."
This seems to answer the burning question at hand. But if Xbox was so important, and so part of the design behind the game, the developer should not be suddenly blaming his choice of console once things go sour. And he certainly should not be proclaiming the virtues of another platform. I'm certain he knew the risks/costs well in advance.

I'd have more respect for the guy if he said "You know, it was really important to us that this game be on Xbox, and only Xbox. We knew that had risks, and we tried to patch once, but we plain can't afford to patch again without going out of business. I'm genuinely sorry." Then I would respect him. (And as a bonus, I don't know, offer to reimburse the people that were affected or something.) I don't think anyone could blame him if they did that. But the response as is - yeah, I'd be upset if I bought the game and got glitched like that.
 

Hooray

New member
Jul 20, 2012
1
0
0
kitsuta said:
That means the company already shelled out $40k to make the game work better, and then it got unlucky with a bug that only affected 1% of use cases.
The article you're responding to is great, and I just had to register an account to respond because you're the 20th person I've seen parroting the "only affected 1%" claim. This is a figure that Phil Fish made up - it's not based in reality. The patch was live for about 24-36 hours, and during that time it affecting a great number of people. Did all 100% of the people who bought the game sign on and download the patch during that window? Probably not.

If Phil Fish is right, then it only affected about 1,000-2,000 people (i.e. 1% of his 100,000+ sales). Based on even the comments section on his own site, there appears to be a disproportionate number of people who claim to have the issue - I'd wager much more than 1,000-2,000.

Is it possible that only a small chunk of people had 64/65 cubes AND were able to download the patch AND report a problem - and this is why Phil thinks it's only 1%?

I suppose we'll find out when the patch goes live again. I'd estimate it's more like 25% of customers - but it might be 100% of everybody who tries to finish the game.

At the moment, though, I feel like we're witnessing a guy with a pretty terrible victim complex doing anything and everything to shift the blame, even if it means understating how much damage the patch caused.
 

kitsuta

<Clever Title Here>
Jan 10, 2011
367
0
0
ranger19 said:
This is a pretty good defense of the developer, and actually somewhat persuades me, so kudos to you. But even if this is all true, I would still take issue with how the guy presented the news to the world/his customer base: he went on about how much it would cost to fix, and how if it were on Steam, it would be fixed by now. But it's not like he was forced to put it on Xbox - in fact he talked about paying to be on Xbox. If that's the case, then he can't afford to patch it because he made some (seemingly bad) decisions when it came to deciding what platform to put the game out on. The customers, then, are not getting a patch, because the dev apparently chose the wrong console to release his game on. Without further explanation, customers are more than justified to be upset if a patch isn't coming.
No disagreement here. The original blog post reeked of unbridled frustration and tried to place a lot of the blame on Microsoft. People sometimes dislike PR's tendency to oversanitize communication, but there's a lot to be said for measured, calm statements. You can still apologize (which Polytron did, fairly profusely), but the emotional tone of the statement made it seem like the studio was lashing out. Not the best idea.

ranger19 said:
I'd have more respect for the guy if he said "You know, it was really important to us that this game be on Xbox, and only Xbox. We knew that had risks, and we tried to patch once, but we plain can't afford to patch again without going out of business. I'm genuinely sorry."
This is a much better alternative, and I think it would have earned a lot of brownie points from the community at large.

Hooray said:
kitsuta said:
That means the company already shelled out $40k to make the game work better, and then it got unlucky with a bug that only affected 1% of use cases.
The article you're responding to is great, and I just had to register an account to respond because you're the 20th person I've seen parroting the "only affected 1%" claim. This is a figure that Phil Fish made up - it's not based in reality. The patch was live for about 24-36 hours, and during that time it affecting a great number of people. Did all 100% of the people who bought the game sign on and download the patch during that window? Probably not.
That's completely true - I don't have any solid information on how many people the patch actually affects, so I'm really just taking Polytron's word for it. I'm assuming/hoping that the figure is based on the company's internal testing. If it's egregiously wrong about the figure or even flat-out making things up, that's a much more serious issue for a lot of reasons.

My main concern with this backlash is that other indie developers might take away the message, "it's not OK to prioritize your company's financial solvency." So many promising indie/startup studios go under after their first games because they don't take care of their finances (see: 38 Studios). Startup studios especially need to think of themselves primarily as businesses that need to make profits - only once they get some clout and financial stability can they afford to put the customer first even when they make costly mistakes.

While making mistakes is obviously not ideal, the punishment is often way too severe. I don't think start-ups need to be coddled because they're special or anything - I really just want to see more new studios survive so I can have more fun, interesting games to play.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
24,759
0
0
kitsuta said:
Polytron is very adamant that it was not paid by Microsoft. You can read the story here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118578-Fez-Studio-Rereleases-Save-Corrupting-Patch], but the relevant quote is, "People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform. Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM."
We pay them. To exclusively publish a game. When we could be getting our game published elsewhere to wider audience. My Occam's Razor detector is beeping like mad.

Ignoring any arguments about Polytron's past decisions, I'm genuinely wondering what people would think of the company if it shelled out the $40k for a new patch and subsequently went under. Or if it was really unlucky and its new patch made things even worse, and then that had to be pulled. Would people still demand the developer shell out another $40k for another new patch? Is there an upper limit to how much the Polytron should pay to fix this bug?
If they can't make a game that works, they don't deserve to be in business. This is how the free market is supposed to work (though it doesn't) and this is what people expect when they purchase a product (Some reasonable assurance that it actually, you know, works).

I don't buy the 1% number, as this is the same sort of damage control everyone does (Look at Sony's DRE and Microsoft's RRoD for other examples). Further, he's being a massive jerk about it. I don't exactly feel sympathy that a company is asked to fix their errors, and less so when their figurehead is a complete ass.
 

MonkeyPunch

New member
Feb 20, 2008
589
0
0
Reading Fish related articles always results in a red face for me... I really need to remember to strap down my arms down whilst reading to avoid my facepalm reflex kicking in.
 

Some_weirdGuy

New member
Nov 25, 2010
611
0
0
whoa wait. What kind of *idiot* pays a platform to have their game be exclusive to it? That's the exact opposite of how it's meant to(and as far as i know always has) work(ed). Does he live in backwards land or something, where rain falls up, tv watches you and soviet russians make reversing jokes about the rest of the world?


like... seriously. You pay money to restrict your games saleability?
(And then actually complain about how much better you would have it if you'd not done so? What's stopping you from changing that then? If they're not paying you then what possible reason is there for you to remain bound to them alone?)