Microsoft Deflects Responsibility Over Fez Patch Problems

@FMinus said:

This is so wrong, that developers/publishers must pay to update a game that in the end can benefit Microsoft even more than anyone else. I hope Valve hasn't got something stupid like this for Steam now or in the future.

Steam's servers are sponsored (if you ever click "play when ready" or whatever the button says as a game downloads/patches, you sometimes will see a small banner ad on your loading window), so no big fear there.

I wonder what their offer was to Fish and co...I also wonder if they wonder why it didn't work.

The fact that Microsoft does not want to tell us how much it costs to release patches is pretty shady. I'm taking Phil Fish's word on this one.

"Hey i gotta eat too"

~Ballmer

The fact that MIcrosoft said anything surprises me. Wow.

Smaller indie games have had multiple patches on Live. Fish just needs to suck it up and pay like everyone else. Also, I love how everyone takes tim's quote of UP TO 40k as how much it costs. None of you know, it could have been 10k and Microsoft said they would work with him on price. He is being a greedy ass, wish I never bought this game, for sure wont buy another game of his.

@SeriouslyNow said:

LOL, nice try but you made it about Vampire : Bloodlines. If we're comparing a current game to a current game because Fez, you know, is current then Steam's free and and quicker patch system is better for everyone involved. Keep trying broski.

I think his point still stands though which is the reason why Microsoft charges for patches is because they have to make sure the patches don't mess up their hardware, the dashboard, or the Xbox Live service. If Steam had to do the same thing for the games it hosts, they would probably charge a fee as well. So comparing free patches on Steam to patches that cost money on XBLA can be a misleading comparison. As to whether or not $40K is a reasonable fee to charge for patches, probably not, but I'm not in a position to judge that since I don't know the costs involved for Microsoft to host, cert, and distribute patches on Xbox Live.

Though I think any argument of who's to blame is pointless since Fish signed the damned contract, which means he has no room to complain.

@CptMorganCA said:

@SpudBug: I remember reading tons of stuff about six months or so ago talking about how Microsoft tends not to want a developer's downloadable game that was previously exclusive on PSN unless it comes with extra content, like Joe Danger. So perhaps Microsoft wouldn't even let Fez on the console if it released on PSN first.

Sony has the a similar policy about previous (other) console exclusives coming to their platform, at least according to John Carmack.

@SpudBug: I remember reading tons of stuff about six months or so ago talking about how Microsoft tends not to want a developer's downloadable game that was previously exclusive on PSN unless it comes with extra content, like Joe Danger. So perhaps Microsoft wouldn't even let Fez on the console if it released on PSN first.

Oh no, something bad happened to Phil Fish and now we are all talking about it. Dude is the master at his craft that's for sure, so long as his craft is bitching and getting people to talk about him, and not, you know... making games.

@Bummey said:

@unholyone123 said:

Remember the days when Console developers had to get it right the first time? Yeah, I miss those days.

And do you remember how, when they didn't get it right (most of the time), those old games were shipped with crazy bugs and exploits? I don't think you understand what goes into programming a video game. Or programming anything, for that matter.

I do understand what goes into a game. It takes a lot of skill, dedication, and hard work. Before downloadable patches, however, console developers knew that they only had one shot at getting it right so they would try to make the game as bug free as possible. Yes, a lot of games would ship with bugs, but most of those bugs weren't game breaking. It seems that today a lot of developers have embraced the "we'll fix it later" mentality. Jeff talks about it in one of his jar videos, sorry I can't remember which one. I understand that is "just the way it is" these days and it's fine for the most part, but just look at all the problems Phil Fish is having. As a side note, I have never seen any developer, indie or otherwise, conduct themselves in such an immature and unprofessional manner as Phil Fish has. At first I kind of felt sorry for him, but now I look at him as a spoiled child who is throwing a tantrum because he doesn't get his way all the time. Yes, maybe Microsoft is overcharging developers for updates, but Phil Fish knew the score when he signed that contract. He could have walked away and went with Steam instead. That seems to be the place to go for aspiring indie developers.

This is so wrong, that developers/publishers must pay to update a game that in the end can benefit Microsoft even more than anyone else. I hope Valve hasn't got something stupid like this for Steam now or in the future.

@unholyone123 said:

Remember the days when Console developers had to get it right the first time? Yeah, I miss those days.

And do you remember how, when they didn't get it right (most of the time), those old games were shipped with crazy bugs and exploits? I don't think you understand what goes into programming a video game. Or programming anything, for that matter.

Huge fans, they said. Not huge enough.

Remember the days when Console developers had to get it right the first time? Yeah, I miss those days.

@Hailinel said:

@SeriouslyNow: Wait, who are you replying to?

Silly editor. I deleted that because I replied to you in error and it somehow stayed that. Hi honey.

@Brodehouse said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

If you had a machine of the recommended specs for Vampire : Bloodlines your comparison would be relevant. Your machine would be the equivalent of an Xbox 360 in that it would be the same fixed platform it was in 2003. You don't, so it isn't. You have a machine well beyond those specs with hardware which is markedly different than what was available and recommended for the game in 2003. You are most certainly cherry picking an impossible to replicate scenario on XBox Live because PCs have changed a whole lot since 2003 and the 360 hasn't effectlvely changed much at all since its release (different motherboards and hard drive sizes sure, but effectively it's still the same system as it was when it launched).

Then there's the whole other aspect where you're trying illustrate a downside when it's really an upside. Troika went out of business and without fan patches like the one you easily procured to 'modernise' the game there would be no simple way to even purchase it were it not for Steam or even patch it if we were left to only one port of call for access as in XBOX Live.

No, actually my entire point is that people are cherrypicking on Steam's behalf; 'patches are free' while ignoring why Microsoft has a cert process that costs money. Which is to say, so a customer doesn't buy something that won't run off the dashboard. Steam doesn't do cert, they don't charge for patches, but they also have things on their store that won't work. You can make this about Vampire if you like, but I also have problems with Hitman. The problem there is "Can't find Steam". Where there is no patch solution and you have to switch from offline back to on and then it loads like normal. But that's the point, if they were released on XBLA, Microsoft would do cert to make sure they work on anyone's 360 regardless of hardware revision. Steam doesn't, and so the patches are free.

I didn't bring up an unfair comparison or cherrypick an advantage, Phil Fish and Brad Muir did. If Rockstar releases a Max Payne 3 patch that bricks a bunch of 360s, now Microsoft has to replace a bunch of borked consoles. If Rockstar releases a Max Payne 3 patch that makes your processor burn into the center of the Earth, Steam doesn't give a shit. Not their problem. But it is Microsoft's problem.

LOL, nice try but you made it about Vampire : Bloodlines. If we're comparing a current game to a current game because Fez, you know, is current then Steam's free and and quicker patch system is better for everyone involved. Keep trying broski.

I hate to diverge on the topic but shouldn't a properly engineered hardware platform avoid "bricking" if it is operating normally running normal software? I'm confused why you think it is Rockstar's fault when the Microsoft hardware fails beyond it happened to be the thing in the drive when it last worked. It would be one thing if Rockstar was hacking or subverting API or and system features but there is no indication they were doing anything exotic so how is it Rockstar's fault someone's 360 stopped working? Unless there is a documented errata somewhere that tells developers "Calling this function in this manner causes an unrecoverable system fault" I'm not exactly sure why Rockstar is to blame or how they (or Microsoft) would have caught it either.

And this is where Fish kind of has a point: Regardless of "who's fault" the developer needs to address it. In the example, even if Rockstar was making sane calls they would probably have to do another patch to avoid that newly discovered bad call. Should Rockstar eat the patch cost since they discovered something out of their control?

I'm not letting Fish off the hook either but pointing out the situation is not black and white. It isn't unreasonable that a fixing a bug exposes another more subtle bug where spending more time reviewing the code might help as well as Microsoft being a bit more flexible in these cases where a bug leads to a secondary bug.

@Dagmar said:

@Eckshale said:

@Brodehouse said:

I'm not cherrypicking shit. I bought that game on Steam and wasn't able to play it. They sold me something that won't load after it's downloaded. That's beyond 'there are save corruption issues' that's 'this game doesn't work'. You wouldn't tolerate Microsoft selling you a game that doesn't work on XBLA.

Steam bears no responsibility as to whether your hardware can run a game or not, the game has always worked on all my machines even when unpatched i only grab the patch for the enhancements it brings.

But Microsoft does bear that responsibility. That's the entire point.

HAH! Since when is it Valve's problem if someone buys a game they don't meet the system requirements for. With your example the free patches don't matter because the developer no longer exists. The only reason you can play it AT ALL is because of a fan patch. Why would Valve host a fan patch?

"100% Windows® 98/ME/2000/XP-compatible mouse, keyboard, and drivers"

The information is there, if you didn't read it, it's your problem.

THIS IS THE ENTIRE POINT! Microsoft has a cert process (that costs money) because any game released on XBLA must work with any 360. Steam does not have that commitment/requirement. Hence, XBLA charges for cert and Steam doesn't have it. THIS IS THE ENTIRE POINT. You can buy something on Steam that doesn't work, but Microsoft cannot allow that on their console. If you don't think the 'requirement' is relevant, then by definition, the cost of patching isn't a relevant consideration either (and especially not to consumers). You absolutely cannot have it both ways.

@SeriouslyNow said:

If you had a machine of the recommended specs for Vampire : Bloodlines your comparison would be relevant. Your machine would be the equivalent of an Xbox 360 in that it would be the same fixed platform it was in 2003. You don't, so it isn't. You have a machine well beyond those specs with hardware which is markedly different than what was available and recommended for the game in 2003. You are most certainly cherry picking an impossible to replicate scenario on XBox Live because PCs have changed a whole lot since 2003 and the 360 hasn't effectlvely changed much at all since its release (different motherboards and hard drive sizes sure, but effectively it's still the same system as it was when it launched).

Then there's the whole other aspect where you're trying illustrate a downside when it's really an upside. Troika went out of business and without fan patches like the one you easily procured to 'modernise' the game there would be no simple way to even purchase it were it not for Steam or even patch it if we were left to only one port of call for access as in XBOX Live.

No, actually my entire point is that people are cherrypicking on Steam's behalf; 'patches are free' while ignoring why Microsoft has a cert process that costs money. Which is to say, so a customer doesn't buy something that won't run off the dashboard. Steam doesn't do cert, they don't charge for patches, but they also have things on their store that won't work. You can make this about Vampire if you like, but I also have problems with Hitman. The problem there is "Can't find Steam". Where there is no patch solution and you have to switch from offline back to on and then it loads like normal. But that's the point, if they were released on XBLA, Microsoft would do cert to make sure they work on anyone's 360 regardless of hardware revision. Steam doesn't, and so the patches are free.

I didn't bring up an unfair comparison or cherrypick an advantage, Phil Fish and Brad Muir did. If Rockstar releases a Max Payne 3 patch that bricks a bunch of 360s, now Microsoft has to replace a bunch of borked consoles. If Rockstar releases a Max Payne 3 patch that makes your processor burn into the center of the Earth, Steam doesn't give a shit. Not their problem. But it is Microsoft's problem.

@SeriouslyNow: Wait, who are you replying to?

I think they're both at fault.

Polytron should have gotten it right the first time, or the second time with the free patch. I mean, this isn't a multiplayer game that changes and is dynamic, it's a single player puzzle game. Fez will be the same game 10 years from now that it is today,

Microsoft should loosen their regulations and fees for certification and patching of titles. Allow developers to have one free patch every 6 months or something. They're just scaring away potential development on their plaftorm. They already make enough money from their profitable console, profitable games, ad sales, and XBL subscription fees that they don't need to stick it to the people who make the reasons people buy their consoles and subscribe to XBL and view their ads as well.

At this point I don't understand why any indie developer or even regular publisher chooses XBox first over PSN or Steam. Get it right on those platforms, then give Microsoft the scraps once all the bugs have been ironed out for free. That's what they're asking for.

@Hailinel said:

@xbob42 said:

@Hailinel said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Brodehouse said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Brodehouse said:

@AssInAss said:

Brad Muir had a salient thing to say about this:

Valve: "ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US"

While Steam is great and all, the difference is still there. I had to go get a separate, off-site patch in order to make Vampire Bloodlines run through Steam. To get Hitman Blood Money to run I have to set Steam to offline and back, and for some reason that clears up the issue. PC gaming isn't quite the old wild west of "well, it was working yesterday and now it's not." but there are still problems. There haven't been Myth 2 or Pool of Radiance type bugs that uninstall your partitions.

@aspaceinvader: Microsoft does not check save games, they are not doing QA for Phil Fish. They make sure Fez doesn't break the console or won't connect to Live. They make sure it won't put the system in a loop or won't boot up in the games menu. This is absolutely in no way Microsoft's fault for 'missing' it. That's not their role in all this.

Vampire Bloodlines is a different matter entirely. Troika went out of business and the 'patch' you had to get was a fanmade release to make the game work on more modern hardware. You're cherry picking an absolute worst case scenario and comparing it to an every day issue.

I'm not cherrypicking shit. I bought that game on Steam and wasn't able to play it. They sold me something that won't load after it's downloaded. That's beyond 'there are save corruption issues' that's 'this game doesn't work'. You wouldn't tolerate Microsoft selling you a game that doesn't work on XBLA.

You bought a game made for older computers that was released in 2003. An apt comparison would be buying an XBOX game and being annoyed that it no longer works on 360 due to limited backwards compatibility, which is actually what happens in reality. Be thankful that fans of Vampire : Bloodlines made a patch because Troika doesn't exist to offer a patch. Steam hosts the most current version of the game, that's all they have to do.

No, an apt comparison would be if I bought an XBOX game through the XBLM store and it didn't work after I downloaded it. The entire point is that Microsoft's cert process exists to prevent that kind of thing from happening. Steam "hosts the most current version of the game, that's all they have to do". Exactly. If you're going to promote Steam with "oh man free patches!" you can't pretend the downsides of that policy aren't relevant.

If you had a machine of the recommended specs for Vampire : Bloodlines your comparison would be relevant. Your machine would be the equivalent of an Xbox 360 in that it would be the same fixed platform it was in 2003. You don't, so it isn't. You have a machine well beyond those specs with hardware which is markedly different than what was available and recommended for the game in 2003. You are most certainly cherry picking an impossible to replicate scenario on XBox Live because PCs have changed a whole lot since 2003 and the 360 hasn't effectlvely changed much at all since its release (different motherboards and hard drive sizes sure, but effectively it's still the same system as it was when it launched).

Then there's the whole other aspect where you're trying illustrate a downside when it's really an upside. Troika went out of business and without fan patches like the one you easily procured to 'modernise' the game there would be no simple way to even purchase it were it not for Steam or even patch it if we were left to only one port of call for access as in XBOX Live.

@Brodehouse said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Brodehouse said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Brodehouse said:

@AssInAss said:

Brad Muir had a salient thing to say about this:

Valve: "ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US"

While Steam is great and all, the difference is still there. I had to go get a separate, off-site patch in order to make Vampire Bloodlines run through Steam. To get Hitman Blood Money to run I have to set Steam to offline and back, and for some reason that clears up the issue. PC gaming isn't quite the old wild west of "well, it was working yesterday and now it's not." but there are still problems. There haven't been Myth 2 or Pool of Radiance type bugs that uninstall your partitions.

@aspaceinvader: Microsoft does not check save games, they are not doing QA for Phil Fish. They make sure Fez doesn't break the console or won't connect to Live. They make sure it won't put the system in a loop or won't boot up in the games menu. This is absolutely in no way Microsoft's fault for 'missing' it. That's not their role in all this.

Vampire Bloodlines is a different matter entirely. Troika went out of business and the 'patch' you had to get was a fanmade release to make the game work on more modern hardware. You're cherry picking an absolute worst case scenario and comparing it to an every day issue.

I'm not cherrypicking shit. I bought that game on Steam and wasn't able to play it. They sold me something that won't load after it's downloaded. That's beyond 'there are save corruption issues' that's 'this game doesn't work'. You wouldn't tolerate Microsoft selling you a game that doesn't work on XBLA.

You bought a game made for older computers that was released in 2003. An apt comparison would be buying an XBOX game and being annoyed that it no longer works on 360 due to limited backwards compatibility, which is actually what happens in reality. Be thankful that fans of Vampire : Bloodlines made a patch because Troika doesn't exist to offer a patch. Steam hosts the most current version of the game, that's all they have to do.

No, an apt comparison would be if I bought an XBOX game through the XBLM store and it didn't work after I downloaded it. The entire point is that Microsoft's cert process exists to prevent that kind of thing from happening. Steam "hosts the most current version of the game, that's all they have to do". Exactly. If you're going to promote Steam with "oh man free patches!" you can't pretend the downsides of that policy aren't relevant.

@Eckshale said:

@Brodehouse said:

I'm not cherrypicking shit. I bought that game on Steam and wasn't able to play it. They sold me something that won't load after it's downloaded. That's beyond 'there are save corruption issues' that's 'this game doesn't work'. You wouldn't tolerate Microsoft selling you a game that doesn't work on XBLA.

Steam bears no responsibility as to whether your hardware can run a game or not, the game has always worked on all my machines even when unpatched i only grab the patch for the enhancements it brings.

But Microsoft does bear that responsibility. That's the entire point.

HAH! Since when is it Valve's problem if someone buys a game they don't meet the system requirements for. With your example the free patches don't matter because the developer no longer exists. The only reason you can play it AT ALL is because of a fan patch. Why would Valve host a fan patch?

"100% Windows® 98/ME/2000/XP-compatible mouse, keyboard, and drivers"

The information is there, if you didn't read it, it's your problem.

Wow did Fez do so badly that they can't afford to patch it? Figured it did fairly well considering the undeserving hype around it.

@xbob42 said:

@Hailinel said:

The idea of charging for patches is not absurd. Microsoft doesn't want to waste bandwidth, either online or personnel, in testing and posting patch after patch because a developer released a shoddy game, and then felt the need to release patch after patch after patch after patch in order to fix their broken mess. Microsoft put the fee in place for one primary purpose, and that purpose is to encourage developers to do proper QA on their games, because Microsft is not going to debug their games for them. Microsoft gives all developers one free patch to fix any issues found in the initial release, but if you need to keep fixing things, then you're going to be charged because the certification team has other business that needs tending to and they shouldn't have to keep spending time recertifying your game because you're own QA is too sloppy to catch the most damning issues the first time around.

I've heard this argument several times, and it makes no sense on any level no matter how much I think about it.

Charging for a patch simply means that companies, motivated by profit, will patch less often. This doesn't help shore up QA.

Patches and bugfixes tend to be absolutely tiny. The amount of bandwidth they use is so trivial that it's not even worth mentioning. Steam allows me to download a 30+GB game an unlimited number of times. Bandwidth isn't that expensive.

Charging for patches and bugfixes means that if a developer can't afford or isn't willing to invest $40,000 to fix a few bugs, then the consumer is permanently borked. Great logic there, Microsoft.

Microsoft has no business telling anyone about their QA with the RRoD, constant dashboard updates and the fact that every Windows release has about 30,000 "FIXED A GAPING HOLE THAT WOULD ALLOW A HACKER ACCESS TO EVERYTHING" patches per week. Getting something "right," is done via iteration and mass testing, NOT INTERNAL TESTING. Internal testing can only do so much.

This idea that if your "QA was just good enough, you wouldn't have to patch," is patently absurd and the double standard from MS here of all people is so amazingly ironic that the fact that anyone is defending it is ludicrous.

The RROD was a hardware issue unrelated to software QA and certification, or the certification of the dashboard firmware updates. The RROD cannot be held against the team responsible for certification testing of games. And while internal testing can only catch so much, it is not the responsibility of Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo to do any such QA testing for a developer unless there is specifically an agreement between the companies to do so. If Microsoft has no vested interest in your game (i.e.: They are not the publisher), then it is not their responsibility to make sure that your game isn't a buggy piece of shit. It is only their responsibility to ensure that your buggy piece of shit does not cause damage to the console or violate any other certification requirements. If you do not put in the time, money, or effort to perform solid QA testing prior to submitting the game for certification, then it is your fault if the game is revealed to have severe issues that are only found post-launch.

The real problem with the QA process is that many developers do not treat that aspect of development properly. Rather than foster internal teams of experienced, qualified testers, they're content to farm the work out to temporary help for low pay. QA staff that they do have on as permanent employees are are largely responsible for shepherding these temps, but if the temp agency sends you knuckleheads, then you're working with knuckleheads. And if the culture of the developer treats testers like shit, then that doesn't help the process either. Too many developers treat QA as an afterthought, but it is not Microsoft's, Sony's, or Nintendo's responsibility to make sure that you aren't contracting a bunch of trained monkeys and treating their efforts with the aloofness of a cruel taskmaster. It is the developer's responsibility first and foremost to ensure that they have the resources in place to perform QA on their game. This isn't as easy to do for small, independent teams, but it can be done.

But even despite the best efforts, issues can and do slip through the cracks. That's unfortunate, but it happens. Even so, if you need to patch, Microsoft's policy is put in place so that when you do prepare that first patch (which is free), you're encouraged to find and fix everything that you can. If there are further problems beyond that, then you need to weigh your options and either be prepared to pay the certification fee for a second patch, be prepared to negotiate with Microsoft to either reduce or eliminate the fee, or leave the issues as they are (hopefully with more grace than Phil Fish could ever dream of mustering).

They still admited there is a "fee" for patches. Maybe if that fee wasn't so expensive (greedy fucks) they'd have patched the game.

To @Hailinel point: The fee isn't surprising. Unless I'm eyeballing it incorrectly, the software and hardware and service can't possibly add up $40,000 let alone $80,000 so Fish might have a point in that the fee structure is a bit inflexible. But then again Microsoft has a point too that Fish is being unrealistic. The truth may be that the bug effects so few while it is too expensive to fix where both of parties share the blame here. No one wins in this case where the more both parties snipe at each other the worse both will look.

This happens a lot in software let alone video games. When people are screaming on the interwebs that "This bug in Black Ops 2 is the most horrible thing ever...why doesn't Activision fix it?" it is probably due the fact the cost of fixing and delivering compared to letting it sit as fringe case bug isn't favorable or is only favorable when rolled up into a giant patch.

@Hailinel said:

The idea of charging for patches is not absurd. Microsoft doesn't want to waste bandwidth, either online or personnel, in testing and posting patch after patch because a developer released a shoddy game, and then felt the need to release patch after patch after patch after patch in order to fix their broken mess. Microsoft put the fee in place for one primary purpose, and that purpose is to encourage developers to do proper QA on their games, because Microsft is not going to debug their games for them. Microsoft gives all developers one free patch to fix any issues found in the initial release, but if you need to keep fixing things, then you're going to be charged because the certification team has other business that needs tending to and they shouldn't have to keep spending time recertifying your game because you're own QA is too sloppy to catch the most damning issues the first time around.

I've heard this argument several times, and it makes no sense on any level no matter how much I think about it.

Charging for a patch simply means that companies, motivated by profit, will patch less often. This doesn't help shore up QA.

Patches and bugfixes tend to be absolutely tiny. The amount of bandwidth they use is so trivial that it's not even worth mentioning. Steam allows me to download a 30+GB game an unlimited number of times. Bandwidth isn't that expensive.

Charging for patches and bugfixes means that if a developer can't afford or isn't willing to invest $40,000 to fix a few bugs, then the consumer is permanently borked. Great logic there, Microsoft.

Microsoft has no business telling anyone about their QA with the RRoD, constant dashboard updates and the fact that every Windows release has about 30,000 "FIXED A GAPING HOLE THAT WOULD ALLOW A HACKER ACCESS TO EVERYTHING" patches per week. Getting something "right," is done via iteration and mass testing, NOT INTERNAL TESTING. Internal testing can only do so much.

This idea that if your "QA was just good enough, you wouldn't have to patch," is patently absurd and the double standard from MS here of all people is so amazingly ironic that the fact that anyone is defending it is ludicrous.

@xbob42 said:

@Hailinel said:

@xbob42 said:

That said, Phil Fish is a dumbass for signing a contract and then complaining about it. Don't sign bad contracts, people.

The contract Fish signed wasn't "bad." It was, in all likelihood, no different from any contract that Microsoft draws up for exclusive game releases for new licensees. It was Polytron's responsibility to ensure that they could meet the standards set forth by Microsoft and, if need be, provide payment for any patching beyond the initial freebie. Microsoft, in that sense, treated Polytron no differently than any other developer, but Fish seems upset that he wasn't given the special snowflake treatment to which he feels entitled.

You misunderstand me. I believe any contract you sign with MS is a bad one. They're out to milk your ass. Phil was dumb for signing it and then complaining about it, but I think MS' entire system here is also rotten to the core. Charging for patches is absolutely absurd. Signing a contract that you have to pay for exclusivity (they received funding to finish making their game, but paid for it in other ways.) and then complaining about said contract is also absurd. The entire situation is a clusterfuck.

The idea of charging for patches is not absurd. Microsoft doesn't want to waste bandwidth, either online or personnel, in testing and posting patch after patch because a developer released a shoddy game, and then felt the need to release patch after patch after patch after patch in order to fix their broken mess. Microsoft put the fee in place for one primary purpose, and that purpose is to encourage developers to do proper QA on their games, because Microsft is not going to debug their games for them. Microsoft gives all developers one free patch to fix any issues found in the initial release, but if you need to keep fixing things, then you're going to be charged because the certification team has other business that needs tending to and they shouldn't have to keep spending time recertifying your game because you're own QA is too sloppy to catch the most damning issues the first time around.

Fish didn't get a "bad deal" but Fish should have realized that there was a giant risk. If the game needs a certain level of maintenance then XBox Live is a terrible platform to release a game on.

ps. Lets not forget how spotty XBox 360 "support" XBox games was and still is. I can't believe Brodehouse is trying that argument.

@Brodehouse said:

No, an apt comparison would be if I bought an XBOX game through the XBLM store and it didn't work after I downloaded it.

That's not an apt comparison at all. You bought a game for your PC from 2003, designed for an entirely different set of operating systems, driver standards and even DirectX version. The only comparison that is apt is you buying an Xbox 1 game.

@Hailinel said:

@xbob42 said:

That said, Phil Fish is a dumbass for signing a contract and then complaining about it. Don't sign bad contracts, people.

The contract Fish signed wasn't "bad." It was, in all likelihood, no different from any contract that Microsoft draws up for exclusive game releases for new licensees. It was Polytron's responsibility to ensure that they could meet the standards set forth by Microsoft and, if need be, provide payment for any patching beyond the initial freebie. Microsoft, in that sense, treated Polytron no differently than any other developer, but Fish seems upset that he wasn't given the special snowflake treatment to which he feels entitled.

You misunderstand me. I believe any contract you sign with MS is a bad one. They're out to milk your ass. Phil was dumb for signing it and then complaining about it, but I think MS' entire system here is also rotten to the core. Charging for patches is absolutely absurd. Signing a contract that you have to pay for exclusivity (they received funding to finish making their game, but paid for it in other ways.) and then complaining about said contract is also absurd. The entire situation is a clusterfuck.

Here's a question that's been bugging me a little. Do we know how long it takes for Microsoft to pay creators on XBLA? I would hope Fish has been paid by now and does have enough money to afford the patch but I do know other services in other mediums that can take from six months to a year to hand out the earnings to the company/people who created the content. In Demand in particular takes up to a year to issue the pay outs to the content providers.

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Brodehouse said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Brodehouse said:

@AssInAss said:

Brad Muir had a salient thing to say about this:

Valve: "ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US"

While Steam is great and all, the difference is still there. I had to go get a separate, off-site patch in order to make Vampire Bloodlines run through Steam. To get Hitman Blood Money to run I have to set Steam to offline and back, and for some reason that clears up the issue. PC gaming isn't quite the old wild west of "well, it was working yesterday and now it's not." but there are still problems. There haven't been Myth 2 or Pool of Radiance type bugs that uninstall your partitions.

@aspaceinvader: Microsoft does not check save games, they are not doing QA for Phil Fish. They make sure Fez doesn't break the console or won't connect to Live. They make sure it won't put the system in a loop or won't boot up in the games menu. This is absolutely in no way Microsoft's fault for 'missing' it. That's not their role in all this.

Vampire Bloodlines is a different matter entirely. Troika went out of business and the 'patch' you had to get was a fanmade release to make the game work on more modern hardware. You're cherry picking an absolute worst case scenario and comparing it to an every day issue.

I'm not cherrypicking shit. I bought that game on Steam and wasn't able to play it. They sold me something that won't load after it's downloaded. That's beyond 'there are save corruption issues' that's 'this game doesn't work'. You wouldn't tolerate Microsoft selling you a game that doesn't work on XBLA.

You bought a game made for older computers that was released in 2003. An apt comparison would be buying an XBOX game and being annoyed that it no longer works on 360 due to limited backwards compatibility, which is actually what happens in reality. Be thankful that fans of Vampire : Bloodlines made a patch because Troika doesn't exist to offer a patch. Steam hosts the most current version of the game, that's all they have to do.

No, an apt comparison would be if I bought an XBOX game through the XBLM store and it didn't work after I downloaded it. The entire point is that Microsoft's cert process exists to prevent that kind of thing from happening. Steam "hosts the most current version of the game, that's all they have to do". Exactly. If you're going to promote Steam with "oh man free patches!" you can't pretend the downsides of that policy aren't relevant.

@Eckshale said:

@Brodehouse said:

I'm not cherrypicking shit. I bought that game on Steam and wasn't able to play it. They sold me something that won't load after it's downloaded. That's beyond 'there are save corruption issues' that's 'this game doesn't work'. You wouldn't tolerate Microsoft selling you a game that doesn't work on XBLA.

Steam bears no responsibility as to whether your hardware can run a game or not, the game has always worked on all my machines even when unpatched i only grab the patch for the enhancements it brings.

But Microsoft does bear that responsibility. That's the entire point.

...the more I hear and read about Fish, the more I dont want to even think about Fez.

@xbob42 said:

That said, Phil Fish is a dumbass for signing a contract and then complaining about it. Don't sign bad contracts, people.

The contract Fish signed wasn't "bad." It was, in all likelihood, no different from any contract that Microsoft draws up for exclusive game releases for new licensees. It was Polytron's responsibility to ensure that they could meet the standards set forth by Microsoft and, if need be, provide payment for any patching beyond the initial freebie. Microsoft, in that sense, treated Polytron no differently than any other developer, but Fish seems upset that he wasn't given the special snowflake treatment to which he feels entitled.

I can't believe people are actually saying "get it right the first time." There's no such thing as releasing a perfectly bug-free game the first time unless your game is incredibly simple, and Fez is the opposite, being very complex. It doesn't matter how big or talented your studio is. Everyone from Blizzard to Nintendo to Valve all release games with bugs in them and patch them in their own ways, and they always have. With Skyward Sword we got a weird sort-of patch to fix broken saves, with Ocarina of Time we got multiple revisions that were still absolutely LOADED with bugs (All speedruns of OoT seem to be based on enormous bugs.) with the Half-life and other Valve games we got a steady stream of patches as with every title Valve has released on PC.

Back in the cartridge days it was the same, you either issued a revision of the cart or just didn't do anything about it. But there's entire WEBSITES dedicated to videogame glitches, so you fuckers thinking that this is some new issue or that you should "get it right the first time," are totally and completely clueless children.

That said, Phil Fish is a dumbass for signing a contract and then complaining about it. Don't sign bad contracts, people.

To those claiming they should have gotten it right the first time: That's not how the real world works. No game is 100% bug free from any developer of any caliber. The patch fixed many of the problems and introduced an error for a very small number of players, that would be next to impossible to catch. Games have bugs. At least they tried to fix them, and, for the most part, succeeded.

To those claiming they should have known what they were getting into: You're right! But, back when Fish signed the contract, XBLA was far and away the leader in downloadable indie titles. Not even Steam had been proven viable due to its high barrier of entry. Any indie would have given an arm and a leg to get the kind of deal Fez got. They're paying for that deal now, but it's easy to judge in hindsight. Steam wasn't the savior service it's perceived to be now. The market is a very, very different place from what it was a few years ago. It's also worth noting that many other indie developers have complained of similar problems with the service.

And finally, to those claiming that the patch costs are a good thing to keep build quality up, just look at Steam. Steam doesn't charge a cent for patching or updating games, and their games seem to be doing alright. Clearly, there are feasible alternatives than charging tens of thousands of dollars to fix bugs that, as I said earlier, are inevitably going to find their way into any game, ever made. Ever.

Phil Fish wants to cold blooded fucking murder Microsoft...

@Brodehouse said:

I'm not cherrypicking shit. I bought that game on Steam and wasn't able to play it. They sold me something that won't load after it's downloaded. That's beyond 'there are save corruption issues' that's 'this game doesn't work'. You wouldn't tolerate Microsoft selling you a game that doesn't work on XBLA.

Steam bears no responsibility as to whether your hardware can run a game or not, the game has always worked on all my machines even when unpatched i only grab the patch for the enhancements it brings.

And on another not Phil Fish can go suck a cod

@Brodehouse said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Brodehouse said:

@AssInAss said:

Brad Muir had a salient thing to say about this:

Valve: "ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US"

While Steam is great and all, the difference is still there. I had to go get a separate, off-site patch in order to make Vampire Bloodlines run through Steam. To get Hitman Blood Money to run I have to set Steam to offline and back, and for some reason that clears up the issue. PC gaming isn't quite the old wild west of "well, it was working yesterday and now it's not." but there are still problems. There haven't been Myth 2 or Pool of Radiance type bugs that uninstall your partitions.

@aspaceinvader: Microsoft does not check save games, they are not doing QA for Phil Fish. They make sure Fez doesn't break the console or won't connect to Live. They make sure it won't put the system in a loop or won't boot up in the games menu. This is absolutely in no way Microsoft's fault for 'missing' it. That's not their role in all this.

Vampire Bloodlines is a different matter entirely. Troika went out of business and the 'patch' you had to get was a fanmade release to make the game work on more modern hardware. You're cherry picking an absolute worst case scenario and comparing it to an every day issue.

I'm not cherrypicking shit. I bought that game on Steam and wasn't able to play it. They sold me something that won't load after it's downloaded. That's beyond 'there are save corruption issues' that's 'this game doesn't work'. You wouldn't tolerate Microsoft selling you a game that doesn't work on XBLA.

You bought a game made for older computers that was released in 2003. An apt comparison would be buying an XBOX game and being annoyed that it no longer works on 360 due to limited backwards compatibility, which is actually what happens in reality. Be thankful that fans of Vampire : Bloodlines made a patch because Troika doesn't exist to offer a patch. Steam hosts the most current version of the game, that's all they have to do.

This is probably going to steamroll into a much larger mess.

At any rate, in this specific case Fez really should have been playtested more; launching a game with some crashing bugs and other issues is sloppy but tolerable since Fez has enough gimmicks that it is probably a nightmare for a small team to test (sort of like how Skyrim gets a pass from most people because even with a big team it is a massive game), yet the recent save corrupting patch is utterly unacceptable regardless of how small of a group it affects (and 'less than 1%' is still pretty high if it's even remotely near 1 out of 100 people being affected).

On the other side of things, Microsoft can't be entirely blameless in this. Relying on 'they signed a contract' is a really poor excuse; there's not that many truly viable platforms for indie games, especially if you are looking specifically at the console market and ignoring PC and mobile devices, so when a company says "we'll publish your game, but if anything goes wrong you need to pay us gobs of money just to be allowed to fix it" an indie developer is probably still going to take it because they may never get an alternative. I really wouldn't be that surprised if a bunch of both indie and more high-profile developers start coming out of the woodwork to tell nightmare stories about Microsoft's patching and QA policy to force a change.

@Brodehouse said:

I had to go get a separate, off-site patch in order to make Vampire Bloodlines run through Steam.

There's a good reason for that. Troika, the studio behind Bloodlines, collapsed a few months after the game came out (late 2004)... long before the game ever made it on Steam. Sadly, the game only sold something like 70k copies when it launched (compared to HL2 which sold in the millions in roughly the same period), in spite of the critical praise it received apart from the numerous bugs.

Activision (rather than bringing people in to fix the game breaking bugs) just tossed the game aside to die in its bug-ridden state, leaving the task of fixing and promoting the game to the community. Then, over two years later (early 2007), Activision finally put it on Steam to get basically free profits off of the cult following the community had built around the game (in addition to providing support)... and still didn't bother to fix any of the problems... or even just incorporate the fan-made patches.

Again, boo hoo my game sold million + but I can't afford to patch it after I released a fucked patch.

Fuck off Phil Fish go away.

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Brodehouse said:

@AssInAss said:

Brad Muir had a salient thing to say about this:

Valve: "ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US"

While Steam is great and all, the difference is still there. I had to go get a separate, off-site patch in order to make Vampire Bloodlines run through Steam. To get Hitman Blood Money to run I have to set Steam to offline and back, and for some reason that clears up the issue. PC gaming isn't quite the old wild west of "well, it was working yesterday and now it's not." but there are still problems. There haven't been Myth 2 or Pool of Radiance type bugs that uninstall your partitions.

@aspaceinvader: Microsoft does not check save games, they are not doing QA for Phil Fish. They make sure Fez doesn't break the console or won't connect to Live. They make sure it won't put the system in a loop or won't boot up in the games menu. This is absolutely in no way Microsoft's fault for 'missing' it. That's not their role in all this.

Vampire Bloodlines is a different matter entirely. Troika went out of business and the 'patch' you had to get was a fanmade release to make the game work on more modern hardware. You're cherry picking an absolute worst case scenario and comparing it to an every day issue.

I'm not cherrypicking shit. I bought that game on Steam and wasn't able to play it. They sold me something that won't load after it's downloaded. That's beyond 'there are save corruption issues' that's 'this game doesn't work'. You wouldn't tolerate Microsoft selling you a game that doesn't work on XBLA.

@Brodehouse said:

@AssInAss said:

Brad Muir had a salient thing to say about this:

Valve: "ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US"

While Steam is great and all, the difference is still there. I had to go get a separate, off-site patch in order to make Vampire Bloodlines run through Steam. To get Hitman Blood Money to run I have to set Steam to offline and back, and for some reason that clears up the issue. PC gaming isn't quite the old wild west of "well, it was working yesterday and now it's not." but there are still problems. There haven't been Myth 2 or Pool of Radiance type bugs that uninstall your partitions.

@aspaceinvader: Microsoft does not check save games, they are not doing QA for Phil Fish. They make sure Fez doesn't break the console or won't connect to Live. They make sure it won't put the system in a loop or won't boot up in the games menu. This is absolutely in no way Microsoft's fault for 'missing' it. That's not their role in all this.

Vampire Bloodlines is a different matter entirely. Troika went out of business and the 'patch' you had to get was a fanmade release to make the game work on more modern hardware. You're cherry picking an absolute worst case scenario and comparing it to an every day issue.

Again, boo hoo my game sold million + but I can't afford to patch it after I released a fucked patch.

Fuck off Phil Fish go away.

@AssInAss said:

Brad Muir had a salient thing to say about this:

Valve: "ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US"

While Steam is great and all, the difference is still there. I had to go get a separate, off-site patch in order to make Vampire Bloodlines run through Steam. To get Hitman Blood Money to run I have to set Steam to offline and back, and for some reason that clears up the issue. PC gaming isn't quite the old wild west of "well, it was working yesterday and now it's not." but there are still problems. There haven't been Myth 2 or Pool of Radiance type bugs that uninstall your partitions.

@aspaceinvader: Microsoft does not check save games, they are not doing QA for Phil Fish. They make sure Fez doesn't break the console or won't connect to Live. They make sure it won't put the system in a loop or won't boot up in the games menu. This is absolutely in no way Microsoft's fault for 'missing' it. That's not their role in all this.

I think a lot of people are blaming both sides for this and not really reading the articles properly, if the patch has a major bug that was not detected at the time it was passed by both parties then who is to blame. Fish wanted to re-patch the game to fix the issue but cited it would cost too much to do so. Microsoft would have come to some sort of arrangement to have had the second patch released probably free, I'm not saying that they would have but if the first patch was bugged then I'm sure they would have let them re-patch the game with bug fix in place. To be honest I didn't think there was an issue with the game as I had no issues with saves and all. Does this bug affect your saves after the patch as in if you start a new game and complete it? I know the pc used to do this when patching games a few good years ago. You had to start a new game as your old save would not work with the new patch.

Brad Muir had a salient thing to say about this:

Valve: "ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US"

Sure MS' policies seem skeezy and designed to just wrench every bit of money possible out of a developer, but...

...

... Polytron still released the game in a broken state. And not a 1% thing either. Anybody could play it for 5 minutes and see it was broken. Regardless of how the revenue breaks up, I still bought the game and would like it in a working state. If Polytron is going to release a broken game then pass the buck when it comes to patching it... I'll remember that next time they ask for my money.