Maybe Go Ahead and Download That Fez Patch After All

@iAmJohn said:

@deerokus said:

@iAmJohn: Well the main reason was that he thinks PCs are for spreadsheets.

It's almost like he had this game that he really wanted you to buy on 360 instead of waiting for it to potentially come out on PC or something. I thought PC gamers are supposed to be smart and able to read between the painfully obvious lines.

sure, but other developers release games on xbla exclusively without feeling the need to make stupid comments about other platforms to justify their decision.

@TheSouthernDandy: calm down take a breath sit down check your pulse, it was just some sarcasm.

I'm happy this made it out in the public everywhere and people start to learn of their antics but, BUT!
 
..how much did he make out of Fez sales?

@rebgav said:

I guess Fez didn't sell enough to recoup costs, huh?

I don't think the dev/publisher starts seeing the actual money from XBLA sales for a certain period of time after the game releases. It's possible Polytron hasn't actually earned anything from the sales that Fez has garnered.

I could be wrong, though.

@DeanoXD: Pretty calm already actually. Didn't think there was anything in what I said that made me sound angry but if you took it that way... *shrug*

@Cirdain said:

@VargasPrime

@Parsnip said:

So many uninformed comments in here about all of the things.

So educate. Be a part of a discussion instead of just making it sound like you know more than everyone.

Wow jeez, being a little bit of a prick there :) From what I'm reading there is no discussion, there are multiple separate discussions and complaints. It gets a bit difficult when there's a mass of uninformed people like this.

I wasn't really trying to be a prick. His comment didn't contribute anything other than seemingly to indicate that he had some knowledge of the situation that others here don't.

Why post something like that just to let everyone know that you're more informed? Shed some light on the uninitiated instead of just sniping and walking away.

I suppose it's good that he's being open about why it is he's not fixing anything further, but I can't find any sympathy for him after all the shit he talked about PC gaming and QA testers. I'd hate to be in the number affected by this decision, too. Doubt any of them will be particularly accepting of it.

The problem I have with all of this is what Phil Fish has already gone and said about PC gaming, saying that PCs are for Excel and being on a console is all part of the Fez experience. In fact, to quote from an interview with Phil: 

“Fez is a console game, not a PC game,” he states, emphatically. “It’s made to be played with a controller, on a couch, on a Saturday morning. To me, that matters; that’s part of the medium.” I get so many comments shouting at me that I’m an idiot for not making a PC version. ‘You’d make so much more money! Can’t you see? Meatboy sold more on Steam!’ Good for them. But this matters more to me than sales or revenue. It’s a console game on a console. End of story.”

@MrXBob said:

I love the fact that everyone here seems to be hating on Microsoft as if they're the only people to do this. Sony do it. Nintendo would do it if they allowed as many patches as other systems do.

Fact of the matter is, they cannot let patches fly out for all games whenever the developers decide to do one, for many reasons - the main one being that if something fucks up, it makes the console manufacturer look bad. Patches need testing and certifying, and that costs money to pay people to do.

The Fez patch was tested for what it was made to do - the problem is, nobody seemed to check what happened to older saves, and that is why the corruption error slipped through.

Please, enough of the circle-jerk.

@MrXBob: Thank you for breaking up the near constant stream of ignorance and stupidity in this comment thread. It's as if the CBS Interactive acquisition brought with it a bunch of Two and a Half Men fans, and the lower level Gamespot comment trolls.

People who enjoy games really wouldn't want to live in a world where there were no consequences (to devs and publishers especially) for putting out patches on premium platforms. It definitely hurts the earnest little guys, and that indicates there should be some sort of shift in policy, but to condemn the entire practice is idiotic.

@TheSouthernDandy: Sorry

@VargasPrime

@Cirdain said:

@VargasPrime

@Parsnip said:

So many uninformed comments in here about all of the things.

So educate. Be a part of a discussion instead of just making it sound like you know more than everyone.

Wow jeez, being a little bit of a prick there :) From what I'm reading there is no discussion, there are multiple separate discussions and complaints. It gets a bit difficult when there's a mass of uninformed people like this.

I wasn't really trying to be a prick. His comment didn't contribute anything other than seemingly to indicate that he had some knowledge of the situation that others here don't.

Why post something like that just to let everyone know that you're more informed? Shed some light on the uninitiated instead of just sniping and walking away.

Cos' he's got an opinion but lacks the mental capacity to engage in a discussion about it (its quite common) :)

I agree with you but I'd've just said:
"Would you care to share your knowledge kind sir?" And then he probably wouldn't respond and remember, at least you are reading YouTube comments... :D

Microsoft needs to introduce some flexibility into their re-cert process. It sounds like their current pricing structure is designed around implementing patches for large companies with AAA games that have the liquidity to throw 5 figure sums around without affecting their bottom line. But for something like this? Context needs to be considered.

It's an early save-game patch, you put a tester into a room and have him try to re-create the old bug for 4 hours, if it doesn't happen you green light it and have it put in the pipeline for later that week. If you wanted to be truly thorough you put 5-10 guys in a room and have them spend a day completing it (it's a goddamn ~5 hour game), and if nothing's been broken from the new patch, you give it the damn green light and have it put in the pipeline for later that week.

This should not cost so damn much, and the good-will/positive environment Microsoft would create for the indie gaming community by cutting or even waiving the fee would be worth it in the long-run too. MS probably could've had Binding of Isaac, if they hadn't pissed off Edmund McMillen so much

I understand that the cost is high, but you would think that after 5 years of development, you would want all that insane amount of work to amount to a highly polished experience for the player.

Also, now that the game has been on XBLA for sale, how do you not have $10,000 in your budget (after Microsoft's cut) to put up a patch? Did Polytron seriously not plan ahead for *gasp* a game that might have bugs at launch?

I have to agree with some people's comments that an indie studio does not get a free pass on releasing a buggy game. As people have said, if it was EA or Ubi, people would be losing their shit (and rightly so) for them not supporting the game.

Indie developers need to stop aspiring to be AAA and then using their Indie shield to avoid an flak when things do go right.

And also Phil, you do not get to bitch about the big mean Microsoft vs Steam. You gave up that right when you decided to switch platforms mid development from PC to 360. This was your short sighted doing. Fuck you.

@stalefishies said:

The problem I have with all of this is what Phil Fish has already gone and said about PC gaming, saying that PCs are for Excel and being on a console is all part of the Fez experience. In fact, to quote from an interview with Phil:

“Fez is a console game, not a PC game,” he states, emphatically. “It’s made to be played with a controller, on a couch, on a Saturday morning. To me, that matters; that’s part of the medium.” I get so many comments shouting at me that I’m an idiot for not making a PC version. ‘You’d make so much more money! Can’t you see? Meatboy sold more on Steam!’ Good for them. But this matters more to me than sales or revenue. It’s a console game on a console. End of story.”

I'm sorry, but if playing the game on a fucking couch matters more to you than money, but you put at least a $40,000 price tag on pretty much ruining the game for even 1% of your audience, then you're talking bullshit. I hate how Phil Fish always tries to put himself as the victim in everything he says as if he's perfect and everyone around him is an idiot. Yes, the patch shouldn't cost $40,000 dollars, but if you're going to talk complete shit about a platform and then do a complete 180 °, then a holier-than-thou attitude about the whole thing really annoys me. If he'd have one line along the lines of 'we fucked up the patch and it's our fault' or 'I know I'm going back on what I said, but Steam's pretty great' then I'd be much more sympathetic, but at no point in the entire post does he seem like he wants to take any blame for this, and that it's all Microsoft's fault. Basically, Phil Fish is an asshole, what else is new?

well, judging by the article, he's gone full-reverse on what he said, and is looking forward to releasing on steam now *shrugs*. doesn't make him less of a dick for saying those things, but at least he seems somewhat willing to acknowledge that he was wrong.

@iAmJohn said:

@deerokus said:

@iAmJohn: Well the main reason was that he thinks PCs are for spreadsheets.

It's almost like he had this game that he really wanted you to buy on 360 instead of waiting for it to potentially come out on PC or something. I thought PC gamers are supposed to be smart and able to read between the painfully obvious lines.

sure, but other developers release games on xbla exclusively without feeling the need to make stupid comments about other platforms to justify their decision.

I haven't played Fez in a long while so I believe I missed this patch the first time around. What did it address in the first place? I didn't personally have any technical issues aside from the slight occasional stutter in scene transitions (which I can deal with). I think I'll just stick with the vanilla version of the game, if theres a chance this 'patch' messes with your save.

@SubTact said:

@MrXBob said:

I love the fact that everyone here seems to be hating on Microsoft as if they're the only people to do this. Sony do it. Nintendo would do it if they allowed as many patches as other systems do.

Fact of the matter is, they cannot let patches fly out for all games whenever the developers decide to do one, for many reasons - the main one being that if something fucks up, it makes the console manufacturer look bad. Patches need testing and certifying, and that costs money to pay people to do.

The Fez patch was tested for what it was made to do - the problem is, nobody seemed to check what happened to older saves, and that is why the corruption error slipped through.

Please, enough of the circle-jerk.

@MrXBob: Thank you for breaking up the near constant stream of ignorance and stupidity in this comment thread. It's as if the CBS Interactive acquisition brought with it a bunch of Two and a Half Men fans, and the lower level Gamespot comment trolls.

People who enjoy games really wouldn't want to live in a world where there were no consequences (to devs and publishers especially) for putting out patches on premium platforms. It definitely hurts the earnest little guys, and that indicates there should be some sort of shift in policy, but to condemn the entire practice is idiotic.

I get not buying into the whole "MS is the evil bad guy here" attitude, but if MS's policy of testing/certifying patches (and charging money to do so) is so fair, shouldn't this save-breaking bug be their responsibility as well? If they test and certify every patch that gets released, aren't they just as responsible when the patch gets released and creates a new bug that Polytron did not anticipate? Is it still fair for them to charge Polytron the normal certification fee for the new patch when this new bug made it past their testing process?

This game sold a boat load, and it is really crappy that games that sold no where near the numbers get solid patches.

@damnable_fiend

@iAmJohn said:

@deerokus said:

@iAmJohn: Well the main reason was that he thinks PCs are for spreadsheets.

It's almost like he had this game that he really wanted you to buy on 360 instead of waiting for it to potentially come out on PC or something. I thought PC gamers are supposed to be smart and able to read between the painfully obvious lines.

sure, but other developers release games on xbla exclusively without feeling the need to make stupid comments about other platforms to justify their decision.

Sure, but I also don't care because I'm not an idiot.

@Cirdain: You're right, I could have been more polite. I was responding to the snarky attitude that I interpreted from his original comment. It came off like "I know more than you people, but I'm not actually going to back that up."

@VargasPrime said:

@rebgav said:

I guess Fez didn't sell enough to recoup costs, huh?

I don't think the dev/publisher starts seeing the actual money from XBLA sales for a certain period of time after the game releases. It's possible Polytron hasn't actually earned anything from the sales that Fez has garnered.

I could be wrong, though.

I think it's three months or so.

With both Trapdoor and MS Studios listed as co-publishers, I'm guessing that Polytron didn't self-finance the development and publication of Fez. If they can't stomach the 40k to release a new patch I assume that either they can't afford the cost or they don't actually care to fix it.

@iAmJohn said:

@damnable_fiend

@iAmJohn said:

@deerokus said:

@iAmJohn: Well the main reason was that he thinks PCs are for spreadsheets.

It's almost like he had this game that he really wanted you to buy on 360 instead of waiting for it to potentially come out on PC or something. I thought PC gamers are supposed to be smart and able to read between the painfully obvious lines.

sure, but other developers release games on xbla exclusively without feeling the need to make stupid comments about other platforms to justify their decision.

Sure, but I also don't care because I'm not an idiot.

I don't see how paying attention to what a developer says makes me an idiot

Well, they had the money for a five year developement and a patch - and still failed pretty hard in terms of programming quality.

Making Microsoft the bad boy here is shameful and dishonest,

@DeanoXD: sall good

The people calling Fish a sellout are ridiculous. Paying tens of thousands of dollars to put out a patch is harsh for a small developer. This has nothing to do with his artistic integrity.

I regret buying this game and supporting him now. I don't give a flip about your issues with Microsoft or their policies. I want a game that works. Something you have now failed to deliver on.

@stalefishies said:

The problem I have with all of this is what Phil Fish has already gone and said about PC gaming, saying that PCs are for Excel and being on a console is all part of the Fez experience. In fact, to quote from an interview with Phil:

“Fez is a console game, not a PC game,” he states, emphatically. “It’s made to be played with a controller, on a couch, on a Saturday morning. To me, that matters; that’s part of the medium.” I get so many comments shouting at me that I’m an idiot for not making a PC version. ‘You’d make so much more money! Can’t you see? Meatboy sold more on Steam!’ Good for them. But this matters more to me than sales or revenue. It’s a console game on a console. End of story.”

I'm sorry, but if playing the game on a fucking couch matters more to you than money, but you put at least a $40,000 price tag on pretty much ruining the game for even 1% of your audience, then you're talking bullshit. I hate how Phil Fish always tries to put himself as the victim in everything he says as if he's perfect and everyone around him is an idiot. Yes, the patch shouldn't cost $40,000 dollars, but if you're going to talk complete shit about a platform and then do a complete 180 °, then a holier-than-thou attitude about the whole thing really annoys me. If he'd have one line along the lines of 'we fucked up the patch and it's our fault' or 'I know I'm going back on what I said, but Steam's pretty great' then I'd be much more sympathetic, but at no point in the entire post does he seem like he wants to take any blame for this, and that it's all Microsoft's fault. Basically, Phil Fish is an asshole, what else is new?

This person has written something very informative and most importantly backed with actual facts, and I'd just like to applaud him/her. Also I fully agree with the sentiment that everything I've ever heard from Fish is in some way placing blame on third parties and hinges on overbearing negativity. $40,000 is a lot of money but that doesn't change the fact that essentially he's saying "I'm not going to take responsibility for my errors because it's going to cost me too much money."

@wilsonk said:

This is garbage, if i know how stupid Microsofts patching system is then Phil Fish sure as hell should and if he wasn't happy with it he shouldn't have sold people a game he was going to patch once or twice and then abandon.

Yeah, fuck people who make mistakes! I don't care if he has to sell his house to make it happen, I want that <1% to not have to replay a video game they like.

Another reason hate M$

For Fish to try to pass the blame onto Microsoft is super lame. The guy went into XBLA exclusivity knowing about the costs of patching. If you had no intention of paying them or negotiating relief into the contract then why did you do it...Unless you didn't give a shit about customers and to some extent the integrity of your work.

Surely, it sounds like a terrible business model to charge devs for trying to remedy flaws, but then Fish had how many years to polish this game if he didn't want to pay for patches. Lame situation of business pointing the finger and customers getting screwed.

@AaronChance said:

@Deusx said:

I agree, Phil shouldn´t have said that and many PC gamers will not buy his game for that reason. Me included. Still, I understand this issue. I think that if I were in that same position, I wouldn´t pay for the new patch either. It´s too much.

I agree. I don't think Phil Fish is the bad guy in all this, but he really brought this on himself. Microsoft's policy is absurd, but he's the one who signed up with them, and burned all other bridges to get there.

Can you really blame him for seemingly regretting signing with Microsoft though? How could he have known about all of the problems he would face? He signed that deal like four years ago, which was a long, long time before anyone was being public with any of the problems they've had with XBLA.

@stalefishies said:

The problem I have with all of this is what Phil Fish has already gone and said about PC gaming, saying that PCs are for Excel and being on a console is all part of the Fez experience. In fact, to quote from an interview with Phil:

“Fez is a console game, not a PC game,” he states, emphatically. “It’s made to be played with a controller, on a couch, on a Saturday morning. To me, that matters; that’s part of the medium.” I get so many comments shouting at me that I’m an idiot for not making a PC version. ‘You’d make so much more money! Can’t you see? Meatboy sold more on Steam!’ Good for them. But this matters more to me than sales or revenue. It’s a console game on a console. End of story.”

I'm sorry, but if playing the game on a fucking couch matters more to you than money, but you put at least a $40,000 price tag on pretty much ruining the game for even 1% of your audience, then you're talking bullshit. I hate how Phil Fish always tries to put himself as the victim in everything he says as if he's perfect and everyone around him is an idiot. Yes, the patch shouldn't cost $40,000 dollars, but if you're going to talk complete shit about a platform and then do a complete 180 °, then a holier-than-thou attitude about the whole thing really annoys me. If he'd have one line along the lines of 'we fucked up the patch and it's our fault' or 'I know I'm going back on what I said, but Steam's pretty great' then I'd be much more sympathetic, but at no point in the entire post does he seem like he wants to take any blame for this, and that it's all Microsoft's fault. Basically, Phil Fish is an asshole, what else is new?

well, judging by the article, he's gone full-reverse on what he said, and is looking forward to releasing on steam now *shrugs*. doesn't make him less of a dick for saying those things, but at least he seems somewhat willing to acknowledge that he was wrong.

@wilsonk said:

This is garbage, if i know how stupid Microsofts patching system is then Phil Fish sure as hell should and if he wasn't happy with it he shouldn't have sold people a game he was going to patch once or twice and then abandon.

Agreed. Sounds like so-called indie Phil Fish going to fit in with big business quite nicely. That's where he always belonged.

Phil will cold blooded fucking murder someone at Microsoft if they don't let him patch for free.

@Humanity said:

$40,000 is a lot of money but that doesn't change the fact that essentially he's saying "I'm not going to take responsibility for my errors because it's going to cost me too much money."

You know, part of the reason MS charges so much money for companies to patch their games is because they test/certify everything that gets put on XBL.

So, by that right, this bug that is now affecting 1% of the people who bought Fez is just as much their responsibility as it is Polytron's. For MS to charge them to now fix a bug that their certification process missed seems just as unfair, if not moreso, than Polytron deciding that they could not afford to pay the cost to recertify.

@wilsonk: I believe he signed the deal something crazy like 4 years ago. Indie games were in a very different place then.

@dvorak: The patch is supposed to fix all that.

...everything I've ever heard from Fish is in some way placing blame on third parties and hinges on overbearing negativity. 

Wow, there's quite a few people on here who like to call Phil Fish a dick, Assume what he knew and didn't knew, and make utter guesses as to his motivations. If I was Phil Fish and I read half the unwarranted, negative crap that gets thrown at him, I wouldn't spend 40 grand on a patch either. You go make a great game in this day and age and people just bitch and moan. This is the kind of thing that happens when someone who just wants to make a great game, clashes with someone who just wants to make money.

@smitty86 said:

* patiently waits for Fez on Steam*

This.

Yeah, well, there's one thing for an XBL developer to say something like: "We're not commenting about a PC release," and another for them to say "PC'S ARE GARBAGE SPREADSHEETS CONSOLE EXPERIENCE." I don't understand how his comments left any room for interpretation about the destination of his game.

@rebgav said:

@VargasPrime said:

@Humanity said:

$40,000 is a lot of money but that doesn't change the fact that essentially he's saying "I'm not going to take responsibility for my errors because it's going to cost me too much money."

You know, part of the reason MS charges so much money for companies to patch their games is because they test/certify everything that gets put on XBL.

So, by that right, this bug that is now affecting 1% of the people who bought Fez is just as much their responsibility as it is Polytron's. For MS to charge them to now fix a bug that their certification process missed seems just as unfair, if not moreso, than Polytron deciding that they could not afford to pay the cost to recertify.

So, Microsoft should absorb the cost of fixing Polytron's shitty work because they didn't find a seemingly rare bug?

Here's a better idea; Let them patch for free but pull the game from XBLA until it actually works as intended. The game gets fixed, no-one buys it while it's broken, both sides absorb the cost through lost or deferred sales.

"Absorbing" the cost is probably a misnomer. The other part of the reason MS charges that insane amount is as a deterrent from rampant patching. The fact that it's a blanket policy no matter the reason for the patch is the problem, I think.

I see no problem with your suggested idea of pulling the game in order to fix it. But I would be very surprised if MS was flexible enough to allow that. Polytron's choices seem to be: pay to recertify, or leave it as is. They can't afford to do the former, so for now, it gets left alone.

@2HeadedNinja said:

@smitty86 said:

* patiently waits for Fez on Steam*

+1

+1

Can't wait for this to show up on Steam/PSN, whichever comes first.

@ProfessorEss said:

Yup. You can say that MS's practice of charging for patches is shitty but I don't see how anyone could argue that Fish's decision to say "fuck it" and pass those problems onto the customers who supported him as any less shitty.

I could care less about his public persona and his personal issues and through all the shit I've remained pretty indifferent but this move, this is a legitimately shit move.

I'm not on Microsoft's side here, I'm on the customer's side. Do people really think Polytron is "sticking it" to Microsoft somehow? Because the only people I see getting stuck here are the customers who bought Fez.

This is so true

@VargasPrime said:

@rebgav said:

@VargasPrime said:

@Humanity said:

$40,000 is a lot of money but that doesn't change the fact that essentially he's saying "I'm not going to take responsibility for my errors because it's going to cost me too much money."

You know, part of the reason MS charges so much money for companies to patch their games is because they test/certify everything that gets put on XBL.

So, by that right, this bug that is now affecting 1% of the people who bought Fez is just as much their responsibility as it is Polytron's. For MS to charge them to now fix a bug that their certification process missed seems just as unfair, if not moreso, than Polytron deciding that they could not afford to pay the cost to recertify.

So, Microsoft should absorb the cost of fixing Polytron's shitty work because they didn't find a seemingly rare bug?

Here's a better idea; Let them patch for free but pull the game from XBLA until it actually works as intended. The game gets fixed, no-one buys it while it's broken, both sides absorb the cost through lost or deferred sales.

"Absorbing" the cost is probably a misnomer. The other part of the reason MS charges that insane amount is as a deterrent from rampant patching. The fact that it's a blanket policy no matter the reason for the patch is the problem, I think.

I see no problem with your suggested idea of pulling the game in order to fix it. But I would be very surprised if MS was flexible enough to allow that. Polytron's choices seem to be: pay to recertify, or leave it as is. They can't afford to do the former, so for now, it gets left alone.

It seems like Polytron could do the former, but think it's unfair because "patches should be free". Instead he'll just throw the old patch back up and run to twitter. Honestly both sides have valid points, but the way Fish throws all the blame at Microsoft is very juvenile.

Stupid indie hipster game made by a douche bag that took 5 years to make comes out a mess.

The issue to do with how much MS charges for certification. For a company who claims to support Indie Developers on XBLA, they don't seem financially geared for such support. It's not as if the certification is perfect either, other bugs have slipped through for many other titles, many of which were AAA products well into their life cycle where timeliness wasn't of essence so they can hardly justify their pricing model.

@VargasPrime said:

@rebgav said:

@VargasPrime said:

@Humanity said:

$40,000 is a lot of money but that doesn't change the fact that essentially he's saying "I'm not going to take responsibility for my errors because it's going to cost me too much money."

You know, part of the reason MS charges so much money for companies to patch their games is because they test/certify everything that gets put on XBL.

So, by that right, this bug that is now affecting 1% of the people who bought Fez is just as much their responsibility as it is Polytron's. For MS to charge them to now fix a bug that their certification process missed seems just as unfair, if not moreso, than Polytron deciding that they could not afford to pay the cost to recertify.

So, Microsoft should absorb the cost of fixing Polytron's shitty work because they didn't find a seemingly rare bug?

Here's a better idea; Let them patch for free but pull the game from XBLA until it actually works as intended. The game gets fixed, no-one buys it while it's broken, both sides absorb the cost through lost or deferred sales.

"Absorbing" the cost is probably a misnomer. The other part of the reason MS charges that insane amount is as a deterrent from rampant patching. The fact that it's a blanket policy no matter the reason for the patch is the problem, I think.

I see no problem with your suggested idea of pulling the game in order to fix it. But I would be very surprised if MS was flexible enough to allow that. Polytron's choices seem to be: pay to recertify, or leave it as is. They can't afford to do the former, so for now, it gets left alone.

Do we know for certain that it's CAN'T do the former rather than just won't do it? VG doesn't have sales figures for Fez but wasn't it a succesful title which a ton of people downloaded? If it did anything that Meatboy did then they should have plenty of money to pay for that patch. Things like these leave an impression on people. Down the road some people might say "oh yah those are the guys that didn't patch their game and it was broke as hell" and the hyperbole will just continue to grow over time. If Fez didn't gross over $100,000 of pure profit for Polytron, with the cut already taken out for his partner, then I guess that kinda sucks and I get why they wouldn't patch it.