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Xbox 360 Game Patching Costs $40,000
hypnosec writes "It costs developers a total of $40,000 to release a single patch on Xbox Live, making it a difficult platform for smaller developers to grow on. This revelation was made by Tim Schafer of Double Fine Studios — which recently drew a lot of charitable donations as part of a campaign to create a contemporary point and click game. He went on to say that this is just too high a fee for smaller developers to pay, making it hard for them to do well on the platform. This makes sense, since requiring just one patch could massively cut into the profits for a company."
Patches are not cheap to deploy, you've got to bother your customers and pay for bandwidth. It makes a whole lot more sense to put the effort into getting the right code onto the disc before it ships.
No, but you're not far off. Go to their FAQ and scroll down to Where does the name “Double Fine” come from? - apparently Tim thought that the "double fine zone" sign would make great free advertising.
Microsoft has said that they don't want their reputation as a retailer ruined by games requiring numerous patches that not all users can get. They say they consider it a fine on premature releases. It's also to "encourage" dlc to be charged for through their store system, so they can get a cut. If you release the content through a patch then use some sort of exterior store to unlock it, MS doesn't get a piece of the action. Part of the idea is good: companies pay for the "deliver first, make it work later" attitude that has been a little to prevalent. Part of it is money grubbing. I'm pretty neutral on the concept.
Microsoft would pay small rebates for every patch for Windows they released...
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Its because Microsoft has to take time to certify every patch put out on Live, just like they certify every game software put out for the 360. That said, Microsoft is a business, and is trying to make money from their licencing agreements. Consoles cost tons and tons of money to design, and then you actually sell them ON A LOSS. You have to make up all those millions purely through licences with developers, one way or another.
That said, they're shooting themselves in the foot making it hard for people to develop for their platform. Indie developers need access. And the whole expensive and drawn out certification process means that PC gamers get patches for games weeks or even MONTHS before console gamers see them, even if they're for the same game. Its not that they do PC first, they do both simultaneously (or console first) but PC goes out as soon as PC is ready.
If they embraced the 360 as more of a general purpose computer that can do gaming well for cheap, then they could skip the certification process and be more like PC. But right now they're shooting for a perfect, controlled console environment.
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I work in the video game industry but this opinion is only my own. I personally don't think the costs are unreasonable.
Microsoft has a pretty stringent testing requirement for patches. It's not as simple as slapping up a new binary to download. It costs them money to test patches against technical requirements. There is bandwidth involved for downloading patches as well. The developers have to pay for the bandwidth and testing costs. Charging for patches also discourages sloppy software with lots of patching after the fact. Not all XBOX 360's even have hard drives so patches have to be relatively minor and fit on memory cards if necessary.
We didn't need API's for physics. We were kids then. There was a coder then that was a genius in his day. It's been a while, It was the early 90s. Back when
writing code for a nintendo meant just compiling code and downloading to a cartridge that plugged into a conventional nintendo. We coded for amiga too.
ahh... and the original port of Mad Dog McCree. I tell you if had to pay $40k to code for a target platform, we just wouldn't do it. We would write a killer app for another platform that will help propel our games platform popularity. I think what happened is game coders are tied to the API, and no longer write hardcore code. Because if Microsoft was screwing me over I'd write code for an alternate platform. I'd write code that was so damn good it would actually encourage gamers to buy the platform my game is written for. Now Microsoft is locking the xbox so you can't sell your old game to gamestop and buy something else. well I hope this kills the the xbox.
I think it's time to develop a killer open gaming platform. The technology is here to do it. Imagine a world of no more DRM.
I
Funds from Every patch goes to buy more chairs for Steve Ballmer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That said, they're shooting themselves in the foot making it hard for people to develop for their platform. Indie developers need access.
That's exactly what Xbox Live Indie Games is for. Now this has its own associated problems, but it's not as expensive to develop for due to a less stringent review process.
In the PS2 / Gamecube era, patching a console game just did not happen much. It was the XBox that introduced the notion by having a built in ethernet port, the Xbox Live service, and the built in hard drive. On the plus side this has led to certain egregious problems being fixed.
On the downside, it has become a crutch. Getting through Lotcheck used to be more difficult. It is still an unholy pain in the ass, but the big publishers can afford to drop a patch, and the revenue gained by being able to hit a launch date mandated by a marketing campaign will make up for it. If the company is big enough (EA, Ubisoft), and the title has the potential to move the needle for hardware sales, a great deal of completely terrible bugs can be forgiven if a launch day patch is forthcoming.
Smaller developers need to anticipate that they wont be able to patch the game at launch simply due to the financial constraints though.
END COMMUNICATION
Oh, it costs a great deal more than 40K to licence a mainstream xbox 360 game. That was the cost of EACH PATCH.
The thing is, yes, gaming used to be cheaper. Uh... so? It used to be you could make a video game with 2 programmers and 4 artists, Doom and Mortal Kombat both had barely more than that. But these days? 50+ developers for some projects? And you're targeting a gaming console that is sold at a loss? You have to understand the business model involved. Consoles are consoles, not PCs. (as much as I might wish otherwise).
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If you develop with Microsoft XNA the fees are all much less. But you also get special restrictions. *shrug*
One of them being that you can't have characters speaking a constructed language. Another being that you can't port a game from another platform; you have to write it from scratch in C#. I've been told that the best-practice workaround for the latter is to develop single-player games solely for other platforms and multiplayer games solely for Xbox 360.
This post is a joke, right? There were numerous buggy games released 10 and 20 years ago. This notion that buggy software is something new is pure, unadulterated bullshit. Back in the DOS says it was not uncommon for games to crash the OS frequently due to bugs. For example, games like Duke3d, Doom, Quake, etc has numerous bugs that were squashed when their source code was released. There are plenty of shit programmers today (see java weenies and ruby tards as prime examples) but there were plenty of programmers of old who should never have been writing code.
Mind you, this $40k is the SUBMISSION fee. It is entirely possible that whatever patch you submitted just does not pass. If that happens you don't get your money back - fix what they cited and resubmit, cash and all.
I worked for a videogame publishing company for a period of time and we had one submission that actually failed due to botched paperwork by someone higher up. This, of course, led to a week of office wide griping about how a fuck up that cost the company more than a year of our wages was done by someone who got paid more than triple we did and is still around after the fact (soon before this incident someone was fired for accidentally sending an email building wide...). But what can you do? There is a reason I, and most people, leave that company with no intention of going back.
You completely missed the point and cherry picked a few arguments that you have a problem with while completely ignoring the overall message. There's no point trying to explain anything further to you.
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