Microsoft Taking Heat For Five-Figure Xbox 360 'Patch Fee' [Slashdot]

[DP ServBot]

wasimkadak sends this quote from Ars: "Developer Phil Fish knows there's a problem preventing some people from enjoying his Xbox 360 puzzle platformer Fez as intended. But he's not going to fix it, thanks to what he says is an exorbitant fee of 'tens of thousands of dollars' that Microsoft would charge to re-certify the game after a needed patch. The issue started on June 22, when Fish released a patch intended to fix some outstanding gameplay and performance issues with Fez. That patch gave rise to new problems for some players, though, by causing their save files to appear as corrupted, in effect erasing their progress through the game. Microsoft pulled the initial patch for the game mere hours after it first went up, to prevent the bug it contained from spreading too far." Another article covering the story suggests this situation is simply a mis-match between an indie-dev's expectations and the realities of a curated gaming platform.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[Griking]

I have a hard time believing that this guy agreed to sell his game on XBL and wasn't aware of the fee to patch games.

[Berserker]

On the one hand, five-figure patch fees for indie devs are pretty exorbitant and silly. On the other hand, Fish has made a boatload of money off this game and can certainly afford it.

Conclusion: Wait for the PC version.

[Porksta]

Guess he should have made a working game.

[Griking]

On the one hand, five-figure patch fees for indie devs are pretty exorbitant and silly. On the other hand, Fish has made a boatload of money off this game and can certainly afford it.

Conclusion: Wait for the PC version.

I won't buy it. He already told us all that they game was 100% made for a console and that he never intended for it to be played on a PC so surely a PC port wouldn't be worth purchasing.

[Berserker]

I won't buy it. He already told us all that they game was 100% made for a console and that he never intended for it to be played on a PC so surely a PC port wouldn't be worth purchasing.

I don't think he'll hold to that. Maybe if it were a PSN game where a large portion of it would have to be rewritten, but an XNA game? It's too much money to gain for too little work for them not to bite. As long as it's not a halfassed buggy mess then I'll probably buy it. But even if it is, at least they'll be able to patch it without paying tens of thousands of dollars.

[Gameguy]

Guess he should have made a working game.

I agree. This is why they made the fee, so people wouldn't release an unfinished product and just keep patching it later to fix all the bugs.