Maybe Go Ahead and Download That Fez Patch After All

@Dixavd: Huh, that's awful. So, even if Phil Fish is kinda of a dick you can sorta see that there weren't many choices on that time when they came to a developing point on Fez that said 'yo we need money to keep working on this', I wonder if Sony was an option at that time too... Well, can't wait to get Fez on Steam and I have to agree with most people that, even if Phil is right he's sort of a dick.

While patching costs probably don't need to be in the tens of thousands this guy should own up to the fact he released an unfinished game or perhaps he should of released a non buggy patch. He can shift blame all he wants but it's him and his company 100% responsible for this mess.

Can't wait for the PC version.

Sounds like they did some shitty quality checks and trying to pass the blame.  Couldn't care less about the dev or their game.

@dixavd when did I state a preference? Also I've worked for MS. Trust me it's not about doing good for indie devs. The exclusivity agreements that seem so beneficial are more about denying Xbox competitors content than they are nurturing new devs. Valve on the other hand while still running a business is ran by people who love games and have reasons other than profit to help new devs get a shot. Steam is packed with great indie games that had middling sales on Xbl but sold very well on pc. Steams publication guidelines give far more control and vastly less cost.

@k4el: You're right, I was wrong on Steam not existing then. But I was totally right at it being a horrible choice for an Indie developer to ain for when trying to get funding for a title they are making. Steam only allowed non-Valve games in 2006 where almost all of them were badly ported big titles from other big developers. XBLA had already had two years of their Xbox Live Indie Games service (At the time called Xbox Live Community Games). There was no proof what-so-ever at the time that any non Valve games were actually profitable on Steam at the time. Steam wasn't giving any help funding new developers yet to make their own games for them. Their was no Steam Community features there yet to actually help promote Steam titles (that was introducted in late 2007) making their service, which even though it had have millions of users, basically no-go zone as their was no proof that they were just there for Valves own titles. XBLA on the other hand had masses of advertising available (given in contracts by Microsoft) where big video game websites were actually featuring those XBLA-only titles since the market for Xbox owners was much more well-understood as a good demographic to aim content at since they could effectively set up advertising towards them (something Steam took over later when they started their frequent showings of sales and the types of games that their users play). Steam also was nowhere near the giant that would become and many thought it could easily have been overtaken while it was growing by other platforms possibly forcing Valve to change it into what Blizzard does their their own store for their games. Also, I will reiterate how much effort Microsoft was seen as to be putting into their online service and promotion for downloadable titles, something which they eventually turned away from and instead focused on only promoting a few specific titles (Which would eventually become their Summer of Arcade promotion) but at the time it was the most common belief that they were to continue their effort into the field and that the funding, stong pomotion and the great sales of the console alone would continue to increase the possible player-base; so setting up a game for an XBLA-exclusive release (even for an indie developer) was a very smart decision.

Are you sure you are not just clouding your view of indie games on consoles because you perfer the PC market?

I'm going to go ahead and throw this out here. Those of you commenting on this that don't or haven't worked in the industry and haven't been through this process should probably be quiet. You all sound pretty ignorant. This stuff is complicated and frankly it's crappy for all parties involved. In this case the mismanagement is on both sides of the fence.

@Dixavd said:

@Madz: Because it was 5 years ago, Xbox Live was still new and Microsft was really pushing it making it at the forefront of the most talked about Indie games and Steam didn't exist.

Oh man. That was great. Post more please. Steam... 5 years. XBL good for indie games... this is good material. You should do stand up.

@groverat: As far as I can tell, everything which makes Steam even worth while as a platform and gives it anything over any other digital service was released after 2007. Before then it didn't offer anything else to customers to make it even worthwhile trying to sell a game through it over Xbox Live.

@ArtisanBreads said:

@Madz said:

Wait, why did Phil even sign a contract with MS in the first place then?

Yeah this is kind of my question here. In their post they said they also have to pay Microsoft to be a part of their service. Then they have to jump through all the hoops of certification and all that, then this patch thing...

Why would you ever do it then? I know there is an audience you are tapping into but it wouldn't seem worth it going by what he says.

Polytron was just fulfilling all of the requirements that licensed 360 developers have to go through. They have to pay to become a licensed developer and gain access to development hardware and the SDK. They also have to go through certification just like everyone else.

@Madz said:

Wait, why did Phil even sign a contract with MS in the first place then?

Yeah this is kind of my question here. In their post they said they also have to pay Microsoft to be a part of their service. Then they have to jump through all the hoops of certification and all that, then this patch thing...

Why would you ever do it then? I know there is an audience you are tapping into but it wouldn't seem worth it going by what he says.

@Dixavd said:

@Madz: Because it was 5 years ago, Xbox Live was still new and Microsft was really pushing it making it at the forefront of the most talked about Indie games and Steam didn't exist.

Steam's been around for 9 or so years now.

@Madz: Because it was 5 years ago, Xbox Live was still new and Microsft was really pushing it making it at the forefront of the most talked about Indie games and Steam didn't exist.

@CosmicQueso said:

His failure to provide support for his product is "the business angle". All I've said is that it's bad business for him to not support the game fully and to blame Microsoft rather than take responsibility. He is choosing to not patch the game, thereby saving himself a few thousand bucks, and in turn hurting his customer and his own long-term business.

Well it's your opinion it's bad business not to fully patch out all the bugs. I'm not sure it's that black and white, there's tons of games with known bugs that never get patched out when it doesn't make financial sense. This one is just being held up as an outrage because it's a very public display of why that often happens.

@CosmicQueso said:

His selling his game for profit basically removes any "emotional angle" as well. Were he giving it away, or selling it for charity or some other thing then yes, it's different. Here, he is selling his game for profit and therefore the burden of responsibility of having a fully functional product is on him. It doesn't matter if it's two guys or two hundred people.

See I don't get this at all. Maybe I'm just more capable of connecting with other human beings. I don't particularly feel that as soon as someone tries to sell me something I am no longer capable of having any kind of emotional connection with them and their creative process. Sounds pretty cold hearted to me. If I'm buying a sandwich from some local Deli I feel a better connection with the guy behind the till who owns the shop than I do with some minimum wage kid at MacDonalds. In both cases I'm buying food from a for profit entity but there's a big difference in how I relate with the people involved. That you instantly disconnect from anyone selling you something seems pretty damn strange to me.

@CosmicQueso said:

And I haven't "whined" at all. Not sure why you're reading anything like that in what I've written.

Not sure you know what whining means. That's all you've done.

@CosmicQueso said:

It's the customer's personal choice what to do with his or her money. I'm just stating that if Fish wants to do this long-term, he's going to run out of people who will be willing to support him. No one likes working with an asshole.

Seems pretty unlikely that people are gonna boycott his next game because less than 1% of people who'd nearly finished Fez lost their save data. Fez was a wonderful game, can't wait to see what he does next. The whiners will have a new game they're hating on by next week and will forget all this.

Wait, why did Phil even sign a contract with MS in the first place then?

This is a gross situation, and I don't think either party is handling it particularly well. Fish is trying to play the martyr, but at the expense of the fans of his games. Microsoft is enforcing arbitrary guidelines that were likely established well before the industry became what it is today. Both are trying to do the right thing. Fish trying to get rid of this fee. Microsoft trying to keep developers from abusing the ability to patch. Neither are doing it the right way, and WE are the ones suffering.

@Perrin said:

In tl;dr terms my problem with your position is that you're unwilling to accept the emotional angle that is just two guys so cut them slack, you're unwilling to accept the business angle that it doesn't make sense for them to patch it, and mostly you're just whining about something that doesn't affect you but are acting like you've been personally wronged.

His failure to provide support for his product is "the business angle". All I've said is that it's bad business for him to not support the game fully and to blame Microsoft rather than take responsibility. He is choosing to not patch the game, thereby saving himself a few thousand bucks, and in turn hurting his customer and his own long-term business.

His selling his game for profit basically removes any "emotional angle" as well. Were he giving it away, or selling it for charity or some other thing then yes, it's different. Here, he is selling his game for profit and therefore the burden of responsibility of having a fully functional product is on him. It doesn't matter if it's two guys or two hundred people.

And I haven't "whined" at all. Not sure why you're reading anything like that in what I've written.

It's the customer's personal choice what to do with his or her money. I'm just stating that if Fish wants to do this long-term, he's going to run out of people who will be willing to support him. No one likes working with an asshole.

I'm sorry but if he cared at all about his supporters he would've eaten the cost of the patch and hopefully made up for it in the PC version. Saying that "Hey, maybe you guys should buy the PC version if you want your problems fixed." doesn't cut it.

If Polytron aren't ever planning to release another patch, then shouldn't they air on the side of caution and pull the current one down permanently? I don't know about everyone else but I'll take a 100% chance of minor bugs over a 1% chance of having my late-game save destroyed any day of the week.

Cant wait untill this is released on steam, Im glad microsoft alowins indie developers to release games on their platform, but their platform fucking sucks.

I understand that if - as an "indie" dev, he'd have put the game on the XBLA Indie channel, he'd have been able to pipe updates to it as much as he'd wanted to, but chose not to for reasons of (at a guess) more money / greater exposure on the Dasboard (all of which seem reasonable to me) so then had to comply with the demands of putting a game throught the regular XBLA system.

It's not all MS' fault but no doubt most people will side with the little guy.

...so a Steam version huh?

@Kosayn said:

You know, back in the day I was playing some Alpha Centauri with friends, directly connecting to each other without any need of an online gaming service.

And we had a bug, so we all went and downloaded this tiny zip file, some of us from the official site, and some from fan sites. These sites incurred almost no cost from the download because THE INTERNET. We copied the contents out all by ourselves into the game folder. Some of us might have been using Winzip, or WinRAR, or even the native Zip support built into Windows XP. The choice was ours, and anyone with half a brain was capable of accomplishing it. And you know, for the people that couldn't figure out how, frankly, I wouldn't want to be playing a high level strategy game with them anyway.

Compare the modern game patching experience. How is it better? Only in removing a barrier to entry for people who are barely capable of gaming.

Closed consoles are garbage. It's only about consolidating all the power and responsibility in the hands of the publishers, and disempowering the players and developers, not about convenience. There is no net gain of convenience. Consider the current xbox menu system when you take the position that closed consoles and IOS are about convenience.

Every single video game out there today could be one .EXE file that never even gets 'installed,' if we want to talk about convenience.

Hey, hold your horses there, buddy and leave the PC elitism at the door.

You know, back in the day I was playing some Alpha Centauri with friends, directly connecting to each other without any need of an online gaming service.

And we had a bug, so we all went and downloaded this tiny zip file, some of us from the official site, and some from fan sites. These sites incurred almost no cost from the download because THE INTERNET. We copied the contents out all by ourselves into the game folder. Some of us might have been using Winzip, or WinRAR, or even the native Zip support built into Windows XP. The choice was ours, and anyone with half a brain was capable of accomplishing it. And you know, for the people that couldn't figure out how, frankly, I wouldn't want to be playing a high level strategy game with them anyway.

Compare the modern game patching experience. How is it better? Only in removing a barrier to entry for people who are barely capable of gaming.

Closed consoles are garbage. It's only about consolidating all the power and responsibility in the hands of the publishers, and disempowering the players and developers, not about convenience. There is no net gain of convenience. Consider the current xbox menu system when you take the position that closed consoles and IOS are about convenience.

Every single video game out there today could be one .EXE file that never even gets 'installed,' if we want to talk about convenience.

@Distrato: Money isn't the problem, i'm sure they have plenty of it now. Phil just won't bother to spend the money for another patch.

I can understand it being used as a way to deter buggy games by having a financial hit, and I agree with it. If there is nothing motivating game publishers both Indie and Mainstream to bring working games to market and not broken ones other than the standard complaints in gaming press and forums leading to the usual PR response - it is a simple hit to the bottom line to make them think twice or at least in some cases budget accordingly.

It's nice to say it will come to Steam but a PC audience is more technically savvy, and used to buggy games, due to variety of hardware and software configurations on their end. The same cannot be said of the common console owner who expects it to work, plug & play, no problems, just like any appliance in their house. The Indie scene has to understand that they can't do that on a console platform as the audience is much different and must plan accordingly, so no sympathy from me for not being able to afford to update.

Next time don't send out a broken game or just plan to have fixes.

@P_Pigly_Hogswine said:

Appreciate it's a shit model for devs to be stung like that, but if your product is faulty, you need to fix it. At no point does Fish say he can't afford it. He's saying he's aware a small percentage are affected and he's choosing to keep the cash.

What if a car company said the same thing? Less than 1% of cars we sold don't work properly. We can fix it, sure, but hey ... the money.

Fish has pretty much demonstrated he's more interested in his bottom line than his customers. Why cut him slack? EA does the same thing and we cry out against them.

Fish released a product with bugs, then wasted his free update by still not ironing the bugs out. Onus is on him now, I'm sorry. He's said "Not doing it, too expensive" to which consumers will say "Not buying it, too buggy".

Right. Fish is no white knight, both Polytron and MS look like douches. But...I see no upside at all to the MS policy, where I can see some benefit from Fish's "let MS screw MS customers then" attitude - you gotta roll in the mud to wrestle with pigs.

I actually prefer gaming on the Xbox, but MS is definitely flashing their "the customer cash is always right" policy around right out in the open like a perv on a playground. It's distasteful and indecent, you expect at least the decency for them to pretend they give a rat's ass about games and gamers and kick a little sand over the feces they leave scattered all over metro.

Sometimes I hate MS the same way I hate my drug dealer...and they both know it, and they both don't care - for the same reason.

I think Polytron has an obligation to fix bugs, especially if their game was a success. It sucks that it costs a ton of money to release a patch, but they should've known that before they signed on the dotted line. They've essentially abandoned their game at this point.

Microsoft needs to rethink their policy on patches, because it's pretty ridiculous.

Appreciate it's a shit model for devs to be stung like that, but if your product is faulty, you need to fix it. At no point does Fish say he can't afford it. He's saying he's aware a small percentage are affected and he's choosing to keep the cash.

What if a car company said the same thing? Less than 1% of cars we sold don't work properly. We can fix it, sure, but hey ... the money.

Fish has pretty much demonstrated he's more interested in his bottom line than his customers. Why cut him slack? EA does the same thing and we cry out against them.

Fish released a product with bugs, then wasted his free update by still not ironing the bugs out. Onus is on him now, I'm sorry. He's said "Not doing it, too expensive" to which consumers will say "Not buying it, too buggy".

@CosmicQueso said:

@Perrin said:

Not sure it's hypocrisy to show more sympathy to a two man development team than to a huge multinational corporation. If anything that's being an understanding human being rather than a maths crunching robot...

Neither deserves sympathy. Both are businesses competing for customer dollars. The customer has the right to cut Fish slack if they choose, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to.

I never said he deserved it I just said that showing it would be a sign that you can see the difference between the work of a small group of people lacking the support and resources of a large corporation. I don't think there's anything unreasonable or hypocritical to cut someone some slack on a personal project they've worked on for five years. Sure the bigger games are made by people too but they're huge teams led by financial imperatives and I have a had time connecting with that form of game development. For me though as a person, someone says to me I've made this game, it's something meaningful to me I can connect with that. I can show them some sympathy when things are not going smoothly. Because it's like one or two dudes and I can relate with them. Shame you see it in such a cold relationship of customer and supplier. This is maths robot thing I was talking about.

@CosmicQueso said:

@Perrin said:

However if you want to play the business game and say he made certain business decisions and now he has to stick by them. Well that's exactly what he's doing here.

No, he's not. He's not saying "I take responsibility for this. I apologize to you, my customer, and promise it will never happen again. And to make good I will..." He's saying that Microsoft is the bad guy, that there's nothing he can do and that he's a victim, after he's collected all his money from people who bought Fez. Big difference.

Once again you've countered with something I didn't say. I wasn't talking about who takes responsibility, and let's just get our heads on straight here we're still talking about a bug you and most players will never see. Your maths robot opinion was that he made a business call moving to Micrososft and i'm just countering that he's equally made a business decision in not patching.

@CosmicQueso said:

@Perrin said:

Ultimately most of the people up in arms about this aren't affected by this. It only affects the people who played the shit out of it and love the game dearly. The people complaining are the usual internet outrage crowd. Who love to get a moral high horse over everything going on in the games industry. Chillax.

I am not on any kind of moral high horse, other than I think that any consumer deserves to be treated with transparency, honesty, and a willingness to make wrong right. If anything, I think it casts an unfortunate light on the whole indie scene, where most of the developers are doing everything they can to delight their customers and who are doing the right things. Passing the buck to your customer and basically saying "tough, I already have your money and will not be ponying up to support you" is nothing other than bad business on his part. His decision to go this route, his responsibility for the good and the bad results.

You are totally on the highest of horses. If you were a customer who felt you'd been ripped off I could understand your position. However you're arguing a theoretical slight that only affects some of the people who love the game the most and I would suspect those who, unlike you, are willing to excuse the inconvenience due to the quality of the game. You're talking like he's conned people out of their money, when if anything this new patch ensures that 99%+ players will have a much better experience with the game.

In tl;dr terms my problem with your position is that you're unwilling to accept the emotional angle that is just two guys so cut them slack, you're unwilling to accept the business angle that it doesn't make sense for them to patch it, and mostly you're just whining about something that doesn't affect you but are acting like you've been personally wronged.

The $50 a year were paying for Xbox live should prevent Microsoft from stealing money from developers when needing to patch a game. Patches should be free since we pay for the service!!

@Parsnip: Isn't that what being a modern gamer is all about now, reading a few articles and deciding you know all about how the business works because you buy a few games (mostly used) over the course of a year, and suddenly you know how everything works in the world of video game development and publishing.

@Cirdain

@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

*aren't reading you... Sorry I'm using my phone :'(

Oh boy, Fish said something silly again.

As much as I hate MS for having such stupid costs, Phil really needs to think ahead. Unfortunately, it's one thing he isn't very good at.

Also, I will not be buying the game. No interest in supporting a guy who signs an exclusivity deal, bitches at all the other platforms and then goes running to said platforms when things get messy.

This also reminds me how much I want that Skullgirls patch that adds so much. Tons of tweaks, features, balancing, new tutorials, etc. as well as system level things that allow for all of the planned DLC characters to work properly. Godammit Microsoft.

This situation also makes me wonder how different the Xbox 420's infrastructure will work. I hope for a massive overhaul and rethinking of all aspects of how their polices work for both consumer and developer. It needs to be more powerful, open, and robust in a lot of important ways. These $40k patches, overpriced services, rushed consoles, crummy UI, etc. so much sloppiness that you would think with modern tech could be avoided with a decent amount of insight and planning. We'll see I guess.

Well I got the patch before it was pulled worked for me and nothing happened, so coolio. Sucks for those people though. Never had any problems with them game, besides like a couple moments of lag. Good game though, very fun and creative. Hopefully his next project is as good.

@CosmicQueso: You gave him $15? Odd since his game was $10.

Maybe they should release a game that will not require a patch?

@thebigJ_A said:

@zombiesatemycereal said:

Paying for patches is super dumb, but i'm sure they made enough money off the sales of Fez to be able to afford a patch. Deliberately not fixing your games problems is pretty shitty.

Oh, "you're sure" they made enough, those couple of dudes, to be able to shell out forty thousand dollars. Well, i'll just call them and let them know the good news. They probably lost the money in their couch cushions, and will thank you profusely.

Duder, they're not some giant developer, and this wasn't a fluke thing like with Minecraft. Fish himself came out and said (well before this announcement here) that the game was successful, but it hadn't made them rich or anything. It jsut kept them solvent and maybe made up a bit for the five years of labor put in. Try to know what's up before making baseless assertion.

Isn't it $50k rather than 40? That's what Nexuiz seems to have to pay to patch their game.

@big_jon said:

@Hailinel said:

@big_jon

@MordeaniisChaos said:

Wow, that's fucking stupid.

@big_jon said:

@algertman said:

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

Stupid douche bag random guy on the Internet makes pessimistic comment toward good quality game.

Except technically speaking, the game was pretty sloppy. Buggy, performed poorly, stuff like that.

It had issues, but the internet likes to focus on the negative too much.

That's funny, because when the game was still new, everyone and their dog was tripping over themselves to praise Fez and its supposed genius. The negativity is just a result of people coming back down to Earth.

What's more funny is that you are assuming that the people who praised it are the same that "dislike" it now.

If you're actually going to argue that the internet isn't an unnecessarily negative place where people like to poo poo on everything the majority of the time, and blow things way out of proportion, like Mass Effect 3's ending, then you are a crazy person.

It sure is easy to bitch and whine about the quality of things when you put no work into them right? I would assume that this guy has done almost everything that is humanly possible to make a great game, yet people will still scoff and shit on his effort because they can, and it is easy.

I'm assuming no such thing.

@Perrin said:

Not sure it's hypocrisy to show more sympathy to a two man development team than to a huge multinational corporation. If anything that's being an understanding human being rather than a maths crunching robot...

Neither deserves sympathy. Both are businesses competing for customer dollars. The customer has the right to cut Fish slack if they choose, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to.

@Perrin said:

However if you want to play the business game and say he made certain business decisions and now he has to stick by them. Well that's exactly what he's doing here.

No, he's not. He's not saying "I take responsibility for this. I apologize to you, my customer, and promise it will never happen again. And to make good I will..." He's saying that Microsoft is the bad guy, that there's nothing he can do and that he's a victim, after he's collected all his money from people who bought Fez. Big difference.

@Perrin said:

Ultimately most of the people up in arms about this aren't affected by this. It only affects the people who played the shit out of it and love the game dearly. The people complaining are the usual internet outrage crowd. Who love to get a moral high horse over everything going on in the games industry. Chillax.

I am not on any kind of moral high horse, other than I think that any consumer deserves to be treated with transparency, honesty, and a willingness to make wrong right. If anything, I think it casts an unfortunate light on the whole indie scene, where most of the developers are doing everything they can to delight their customers and who are doing the right things. Passing the buck to your customer and basically saying "tough, I already have your money and will not be ponying up to support you" is nothing other than bad business on his part. His decision to go this route, his responsibility for the good and the bad results.

Really dumb that microsoft wont let them update there 1st patch. This whole paying a ton of money to patch a game is really stupid. Its not like there doing anything, all they do is put the patch on a server and post a link to it! Its the developer that puts time into making the patch and then they have to pay Microsoft lots of money to publish it.

@CosmicQueso said:

As a paying customer, it shouldn't matter how much money a developer has or doesn't have. My $15 to Fish is no less valuable than my $15 to someone like EA. The burden is on Fish to earn my money. The idea that he's getting a free pass from so many here for producing a game that has a major flaw that he knows can impact hundreds if not thousands of players is disgusting. Consumers should demand the same value from Fish as they do from any content provider. And to not do so is pure hypocrisy.

EDIT - And yes, by agreeing to come out on this platform with its terms and conditions (which have not changed since he signed the agreement) he has no right to claim poverty and to point the finger at third parties. He made these agreements, he created the product and ultimately he has the responsibility to do right by his customers. Had he gone with other services he'd be able to patch no problem. But he didn't. He wanted the benefit of going exclusive with MS without also taking on the additional burdens that go along with it. His choice, his responsibility. It is not ours to suffer with the negative impacts of his business choices.

Not sure it's hypocrisy to show more sympathy to a two man development team than to a huge multinational corporation. If anything that's being an understanding human being rather than a maths crunching robot. It seems a lot of people love to support the indies through the good times, when a great game comes out from one or two guys and they sell it cheap everyone is loving how they made it against the odds. However the flip side is not every developer is gonna have such a smooth ride and maybe it's worth remembering it's people at the other end.

However if you want to play the business game and say he made certain business decisions and now he has to stick by them. Well that's exactly what he's doing here. He chose Microsoft because 5 years ago that seemed like the smart business decision for indies. Now 5 years later, he's looking at the costs associated with patching on Microsoft's console and deciding that not fixing it is the smart business decision. You think any big company will patch you up because they OWE you a bug free game, hell no it will always be looked at based on if it's a sensible use of money.

Ultimately most of the people up in arms about this aren't affected by this. It only affects the people who played the shit out of it and love the game dearly. The people complaining are the usual internet outrage crowd. Who love to get a moral high horse over everything going on in the games industry. Chillax.

I'm still mad at MS for the fact that developers of Monday night Combat had such a bad experience with MS's cert process and costs that they stopped updating the most awesome and original multiplayer game to ever grace a console. On top of that, XBL will never get the sequel or anything else they work on in the future. So stupid.

This community man, this community. Hey guys lets start a Kickstarter to help Phil Fish patch his game!! That'll show Microsoft whose boss!

Microsoft aren't the bad guys here... I can see the whole "indie guy versus mega-corp" thing here, but at the end of the day Polytron should have factored in the possibility of a second patch into their business plan. I'm curious to know if Microsoft gave any advice regarding this.

It feels like Polytron just told a growing army of Fez fans to go fuck themselves. Not good.

@CosmicQueso said:

@Cirdain said:

@CosmicQueso

@VargasPrime said:

I think some people are really presumptuous to think that Polytron are just automatically obligated (and financially able) to pay that cost right now.

Of course they are obligated. If it was EA or Sony or Valve, people would be screaming bloody murder and boycotts.

Wow, wait sorry. I. I don't quite understand what you did there. Obligation of patching requires money that they don't have. Were you agreeing??

As a paying customer, it shouldn't matter how much money a developer has or doesn't have. My $15 to Fish is no less valuable than my $15 to someone like EA. The burden is on Fish to earn my money. The idea that he's getting a free pass from so many here for producing a game that has a major flaw that he knows can impact hundreds if not thousands of players is disgusting. Consumers should demand the same value from Fish as they do from any content provider. And to not do so is pure hypocrisy.

EDIT - And yes, by agreeing to come out on this platform with its terms and conditions (which have not changed since he signed the agreement) he has no right to claim poverty and to point the finger at third parties. He made these agreements, he created the product and ultimately he has the responsibility to do right by his customers. Had he gone with other services he'd be able to patch no problem. But he didn't. He wanted the benefit of going exclusive with MS without also taking on the additional burdens that go along with it. His choice, his responsibility. It is not ours to suffer with the negative impacts of his business choices.

This actually makes... sense...

Knew waiting for Steam would pay off.

The last paragraph is so goddamn true. What was that quote from him a while back saying something to the effect of that Fez is intended to be played on a controller from the couch, and that's why he wasn't into a PC release? Sounds like he might have been under the Microsoft spell at the time.

@Beaudacious said:

A patch costing tens of thousands of dollars? Really Microsoft?

Hell, it's at the core of the console model - the hardware is cheap and sold at a loss for the first long while, so they have to find the money elsewhere. I guess this is a pretty good example of where that can be (other than licensing on the games, high prices on peripherals and a subscription fee on online gaming)...

BTW, maybe all this patch fee nonsense is another part of the explanation for why Valve suddenly got in bed with Sony after the early shitstorm... Nobody loves patching games as much as Valve does.

@Cirdain said:

@CosmicQueso

@VargasPrime said:

I think some people are really presumptuous to think that Polytron are just automatically obligated (and financially able) to pay that cost right now.

Of course they are obligated. If it was EA or Sony or Valve, people would be screaming bloody murder and boycotts.

Wow, wait sorry. I. I don't quite understand what you did there. Obligation of patching requires money that they don't have. Were you agreeing??

As a paying customer, it shouldn't matter how much money a developer has or doesn't have. My $15 to Fish is no less valuable than my $15 to someone like EA. The burden is on Fish to earn my money. The idea that he's getting a free pass from so many here for producing a game that has a major flaw that he knows can impact hundreds if not thousands of players is disgusting. Consumers should demand the same value from Fish as they do from any content provider. And to not do so is pure hypocrisy.

EDIT - And yes, by agreeing to come out on this platform with its terms and conditions (which have not changed since he signed the agreement) he has no right to claim poverty and to point the finger at third parties. He made these agreements, he created the product and ultimately he has the responsibility to do right by his customers. Had he gone with other services he'd be able to patch no problem. But he didn't. He wanted the benefit of going exclusive with MS without also taking on the additional burdens that go along with it. His choice, his responsibility. It is not ours to suffer with the negative impacts of his business choices.