Microsoft comes under fire for five-figure Xbox 360 “patch fee”

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under-fire-for-five-figure-xbox-360-patch-fee/

by evo_9 • 14 years ago

67 59 14 years ago

briandear• 14 years ago

Why would anyone pay someone for the right to only release on their platform? That seems backwards. The other bit of nonsense is $40,000 -- really? That's crazy talk. Apple does some boneheaded things but at least you don't have to pay them for updating and releasing, aside from the nominal yearly $99 fee for the dev program.

I admit, I don't fully get it. Perhaps someone here can clarify the situation.

weaksauce• 14 years ago

In another thread about this issue the fee to microsoft gives them a competitive edge in that ecosystem; stuff like marketing and highlighting inside the xbox live store. 40k for a patch is absurd though.

justin662• 14 years ago

I haven't seen the $40k figure confirmed by anyone from Microsoft. It's just being uncritically passed around by bloggers.

msbarnett• 14 years ago

The $40K figure comes from Tim Schafer, who has a history of being a reputable voice in the game dev community.

There's no real reason to believe he made it up.

the_mitsuhiko• 14 years ago

You won't see it confirmed by people because there are NDAs around it. And people that are happy with their Microsoft account managers have no reason to complain on twitter or any other tech blog and get into potential legal trouble :-)

1337biz• 14 years ago

The game industry has had "traditionally" certain kickback mechanism towards the gaming platform developers. For example I remember playing around with MIT/Sloans Platformwars, which even included variables for the game developer kickback in form of licenses[1]. I suspect these were argued by the mutual benefits in the development, branding and licensing. But of cause the democratization process initiated by the low entrance barriers in the App market are putting these in question. Nevertheless one could still see the fees taken by Apple from each App sale as a form of license to get access to their platform.

[1] https://mitsloan.mit.edu/MSTIR/system-dynamics/platform-wars...

ROFISH• 14 years ago

As much as I don't like this particular flair of drama, I'm siding with Fish. If a patch cost five figures just to go through certification, then Microsoft needs to rethink their XBLA strategy for independent games. Let this be another flag for teams to avoid XBLA at all costs.

Plus Microsoft's XBLA terms are horrible. For example, you must sign a contract that puts your XBLA release as a pure-Xbox-exclusive release, or at least a timed-exclusive if you have the clout to fight back. (Only the majors can swing a "same-day multi platform release" via XBLA) The percentages XBLA offers are unfavorable, they make you pay for advertising on the games page, and I've heard that you make more money via PC release on Steam (or your favorite DRM-free service). In short: if you're seriously working on XBLA, demand a better contract or dump it.

It's just unfortunate that Fez's original contract is probably so old, the Apple App Store with it's free patches was a new concept then. If you're working on something that will take forever to do, get a PC prototype working first then dumb down to consoles if you must.

wreckimnaked2• 14 years ago

I frankly never understood the real reason why Fez was released exclusively for xbox. From the outsider perspective it seems like a very bad decision when it comes to a game as hyped as this one was.

Steko2• 14 years ago

MS probably heavily promotes exclusives to their users so free advertising on what was becoming the dominant console anyway.

snprbob862• 14 years ago

Fez was implemented in C#/XNA

reggplant• 14 years ago

Fez started development over 4 years ago when steam wasn't as big for indies as it is now, they probably signed an agreement back then giving exclusivity to Microsoft for a period of time after initial release on XBLA in return for some promotion.

89a3• 14 years ago

Probably paid off, although he's denying that now.

zdw• 14 years ago

They knew what the policies were (one free patch, future ones are $$$) when they signed up with the platform.

What it comes down to is the developers thinking:

"Who will gamers hate more? MS for the policy, or us for not releasing a patch?"

Especially if they say:

"We have fixed the problem… MS just wants their ransom for us to give it to you."

MS is then in the bind of making an exception, thus creating the expectation for future developers that the platform agreement is flexible and/or a joke.

There's no way to win this one. Both parties have somewhat dumb policies and because of the contract are deciding to play russian roulette with user's data.

klodolph2• 14 years ago

Okay, they knew what the policies were when they signed up. Big deal. It's not like the devs predicted that they'd botch a patch for some 1% or so of their users.

The developer is just saying, "Look, the cost-benefit analysis just doesn't support making a new patch." That's honest. It doesn't sound like a policy to me (you'd have to so something more than once before I'd call it "policy"). The devs don't owe it to the affected users to pony up the cash to Microsoft. Devs don't have unlimited liability for lost save files.

Microsoft's policy makes sense from a "Look, it costs money to make sure that your games don't crash on users' systems." So maybe Microsoft will change the policy so that a small enough patch goes through a less thorough review process. That's what happens when your policy has unintended consequences: you reevaluate it.

89a3• 14 years ago

Maybe test their patch properly before deploying it…

Judging from their previous behaviour it's a horrendously sloppy "company".

ekianjo2• 14 years ago

Why exactly did the FEZ creators go for the Xbox Live instead of Steam or other alternatives, if they knew of these kind of issues in the first place?

Plus, the developers are in the wrong here, as their software is malfunctional in the first place. Maybe they should have done more or better testing before releasing it for Microsoft certification.

The Fez creators look like brats who do not want to accept responsibility for their mistakes, and blame Microsoft for not fixing their problems for free. Very poor PR skills.

kineticflow• 14 years ago

>“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.”

From an interview with the developer, Phil Fish: http://www.nowgamer.com/features/950149/fez_interview_polytr...

reginaldo2• 14 years ago

IMHO, that "policy" is kind of odd anyway. It creates an incentive for Microsoft to not do a very through review of the first patch, which is free, so they can get paid to do a review of the second one.

When coining such things, one must be very aware of the incentives they create. Bad incentives will accumulate and potentialize and then come to haunt you...

MichaelGG• 14 years ago

Are you seriously suggesting that Microsoft intentionally wants to break games so they can hope to get patch review fees out of developers?

Edit: According to [1], Fez had 76,000 downloads in the first half-month (April) alone. And in [2], Fez has 114,000 gamers on its leaderboards. So, where's the value in hurting conversions and pissing of a lot of folks, just for a chance to get a $40K fee?

1: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/171271/InDepth_Xbox_Live_...

2: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174307/Xbox_Live_Arcade_s...

dspillett• 14 years ago

> It creates an incentive for Microsoft to not do a very through review of the first patch

MS has no incentive to review any patch at all beyond "it won't break stuff other than this developer's stuff". Unless I'm misunderstanding the review process code quality is the developers problem and if they release a bad patch that MS let out because it looked OK form their PoV (it applied cleanly to their test systems, and doesn't make the resulting app break any of the walled garden's rules) then that is not MS's fault.

Yes, it is a bad system. But they can't sign up for a bad system, give exclusivity to that bad system, then moan that they are stuck in a bad system and expect me to have sympathy for them. The way to try change the system as a developer is to refuse to take part until it is fixed - if the system loses users due to lack of content then MS may listen. The users are not going to fall for the reverse ransom that they are trying to pull - the average player is going to think "I paid you for the game, you need to fix it for me, I don't care what the costs are to you, that is a business problem for your accountants to sort out".

jsz0• 14 years ago

Anything that creates a bad user experience is ultimately bad for the platform so it's in everyone's best interest to get it fixed. In this case the update is probably 99.9% similar to the last paid update. That should really be a freebie. When you get into more significant changes that's a different discussion. If you get one free update when you publish the game the assumption seems to be that most games are going to need a patch so it's built in. It would probably be safe to assume that a patch is likely to introduce at least some small bugs and would also require a minor update later.

duncan_bayne• 14 years ago

TL;DR: developer builds software for walled garden ecosystem and is surprised when he's hurt by the owner of said ecosystem.

http://xkcd.com/743/

When will people get sick of variations on this story?

Steko2• 14 years ago

When there's not a 1000 bigger success stories that drown this out.

Iaks• 14 years ago

Several years ago I was a programmer for a small gaming firm. I spent 3 weeks working closely with the producer at our publisher and one of the tricks he told me about in their QA process was they they would hedge their costs by submitting their games to MS before they had finished internal QA. This would essentially allow them to obtain free QA time from a very large external group. (console QA is usually better than PC, so a multi-platform release would push the xbox version first to maximize the effect.) I think it came up because the certification fees for releasing on the 360 were just being raised to free first check, $40,000 each time there-after.

kalleboo2• 14 years ago

At least when patches cost $40k, you have an incentive to make a really, really solid first release. I wonder if it leads to less buggy software in general? (obviously this is kind of a counterexample to that...)

landr0id• 14 years ago

> At least when patches cost $40k, you have an incentive to make a really, really solid first release.

The rule applies to all titles (not just XBLA -- I remember looking at the official MS documents stating how much it is), and you'd think that it would be pretty good incentive, but for some games it's really not. I believe Call of Duty Black Ops is on its eighth title update. Other games such as Forza and Halo (which are/were both MS studios) actually have had very, very few updates. Halo 3 had two total, while Reach I believe had none -- both of which are very well-coded games.

I think you can generalize and say that it does lead to less buggy software in general, but it really depends on the studio.

slavak• 14 years ago

Remember back when consoles weren't connected to the internet and there was no way for developers to push patches to users? Remember how people used to complain their console games work fine, while their PC games require installing 3 patches right after installation in order to be able to play the game?

I'm not saying I approve of what Microsoft is doing here, but surely there must be a solution other than making all gaming systems equally fucked-up?

derefr• 14 years ago

There have always been patches; it just used to be that they were unequally distributed, and those that didn't get them, just lived with the bugs (mostly because that was "just the way things were.")

Super Nintendo cartridges, for example, have a version metadata field as part of their ROM headers. Many games, a few months after their original release, would release 1.1, and even 1.2 versions of the cartridge. This would occur with no change to the product packaging or labeling, or even a different distributor-catalogue SKU number. Simply, if you bought the game after a certain point in time, you got a version with less bugs than someone who bought it before that point. This didn't help anyone bit by the original bug, of course--unless they went out and repurchased the game!

corysama2• 14 years ago

What everyone is missing over the dim of disapproval is that THE PATCH FEE IS NOT A PROFIT for Microsoft. They are going to spend on the order of $40K testing your game. They are that serious about making sure your patch doesn't screw up the user experience.

ryanhuff2• 14 years ago

How much work (number of hours) goes into testing this type of game? Using $150/hour as a basis, that would cover 266 hours of testing time. As somebody with no experience in game testing, this sounds more like government pricing in aerospace.

wisty• 14 years ago

As opposed to the already screwed-up experience?

mtgx2• 14 years ago

This is why something like OUYA is needed to disrupt the market, and be more open for developers.

pjmlp• 14 years ago

I wish this was true, but sadly the games developer community is all about protecting IP and using proprietary tools as much as possible.

Big studios only care about platforms and their support, not if they are open.

mtgx2• 14 years ago

Well OUYA is meant more for indie developers than big studios, so that might help.

unsigner2• 14 years ago

We've been in the position of Fez's creator, and it pains me to say, we made the same choice as him (except for the drama) but... the $40k figure is way, way off. I have no idea how Tim Schafer came to it, or rather, how he was misinterpreted (because the man is obviously NOT an idiot).

brohee• 14 years ago

Way off is kinda unhelpful, is it way more expensive or way cheaper?

dt72• 14 years ago

As a guess, I'd say it varies depending on a few factors such as the scale of the game, the changes introduced, etc.

unsigner2• 14 years ago

For us it was way cheeper. Still a shocking amount for a small studio. I'm not aware of any "pricing structure", or if there is any; I heard the number we were supposed to pay.

christoph• 14 years ago

Everything I've seen of Polytron irritates me.

I watched the Indie game documentary a few weeks ago and had a bitter taste in my mouth from them then.

If you read the press release on their website it certainly doesn't paint a great picture either.

We believe the save file corruption issue mostly happened to players who had completed, or almost completed the game

So Phil Fish harps on about how its a game that should be enjoyed on Saturdays on the couch, but is happy for paying users to have their entire experience destroyed at the end. As a gamer that would be my worst nightmare and I would never buy anything you sold again. I would probably put the controller through the screen as well.

The patch fixes almost everything that’s been wrong with the game since launch. The framerate issues, the loading, the skips, the death loops, everything! All that stuff is fixed!

Wow. Version 1 obviously wasn't ready at all. Why was it shipped in the first place? I guess a good question is why did MS let it ship?

What annoys me more, is in the documentary, the demo build they had at Penny Arcade had all those seem issues. Phil stood their straight faced telling people it was because they made last minute changes. This is game that was in development for FIVE YEARS!

From what I could tell, Phil wasn't even a programmer at all. Just art director/concept guy. He had some French guy doing all the coding.

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

Then you suck at business. Get out of the game and find something else to do with your life.

I wanted to like Fez, but Polytron clearly have no idea what they are doing - how to build a loyal customer base, ship working code, etc. They are happy to blame the big bad wolf, when quite frankly the only people they have to blame are themselves.

michaelt• 14 years ago

> Wow. Version 1 obviously wasn't ready at all. Why was it shipped in the first place? I guess a good question is why did MS let it ship?

Perhaps the one-free-patch policy should change into a no-free-patches policy, to encourage companies not to ship unfinished games.

dt72• 14 years ago

Did they have a deadline to release though? Release then patch seems to be the way to do things now- the last (big) game I remember noticing being delayed was Halo 2. It seems that since then the priority has been on shipping, then patching (which creates a whole lot of problems for the future, when MS shut down the XBL servers and we can't get patches for our older games any more).

89a3• 14 years ago

Can't Polytron use some of their IGF winnings to fund the patch to patch the bugs they introduced when rushing out their first patch

Microsoft comes under fire for five-figure Xbox 360 “patch fee”

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