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Microsoft Taking Heat For Five-Figure Xbox 360 'Patch Fee'
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.
This is part of the reason TF2 is largely unpatched on the Xbox... Valve was going to wait to make one big content update, but then they exceeded the Xbox's memory limitations. Whoops.
Just send '0xB16B00B5' to the console,
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
If he doesn't like the terms, he can scrap his game or disclose the problems with every sale.
I dislike MSFT, but they owe him nothing.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yep, this is the biggest pitfall with console gaming that the internet was supposed to fix. For example, one only needs to look at Team Fortress 2 for Xbox/PS3 vs the PC counterpart.
Back in the early days of the internet me and my friends used to dream of what the internet would bring, new levels, new modes, online scoreboards, new content, online multiplayer, cheaper localization, the end of region restrictions...
Only to never see them fully realized.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Too bad the rules don't apply to product managers at Microsoft. If a defect in their product is critical enough to require a patch, the fee for recertification comes out of their budget / bonus / salary, etc. This would be incentive.
The $40k fee that MS charges for patches is ridiculous. Considering they get a chunk of every game sold, the certification process should be gratis.
HOWEVER, it's also important to note that while the excessive fee is what is limiting Fez from being updated (it comes out to something like 6-8% of the entire revenue the game is likely to ever create after years of development -- PER PATCH), it is important to remember that Microsoft is NOT debugging or testing your game. They are NOT your QA department. They are merely there and receiving your $40k to test and verify that *YOU* adhered to *THEIR* very long list of requirements. Such as "do you press A or START to begin the game" and "does an interactive menu appear within the first 30 seconds of launching the game" and "can the game be completed". THAT is the certification they are doing. They are NOT being paid that $40k to debug and troubleshoot the game *ITSELF*.
Of course, if he'd released this on Steam or even entirely independently on his own site, he could patch to his heart's content.
At any rate, Phil Fish is a controversial character, but I dig the guy and hope this all settles out in the end. Hopefully he moves on to greener pastures with his next game (or, even, with this one as soon as the exclusivity breaks).
The walled garden is designed specifically to make sure Microsoft makes money on every transaction, no matter how insignificant. That's why UEFI is going to kill the PC... if the platform is locked, you're screwed. But at least Microsoft will be making money... so it's all good. As long as corporations control everything, we shouldn't worry.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It sounds more like he's blaming them for charging tens of thousands of dollars to certify and post the corrected patch.
The second article makes a good point though (and some stupid ones). He's floating on over a million dollars in sales. The crazy-high cost of certification is extortion, but it's also fair to say he has a certain obligation to the folks who bought his game. Meanwhile, the nasty little outbursts aren't going to win him a ton of fans.
None of us in this business like having to have games go through layers of certification testing, but it costs money to do, and if you want your game on XBL, WiiWare or PSN you deal with that. All 3 have both design and technical requirements, which are intended largely to benefit the consumer and their brand image (so you don't stare at blank loadscreens for 5 minutes, you can't have a game kill your console that sort of thing).
It is by no means a perfect system, but it overall positions a game on a console as certain quality of experience, if you can't deliver that, make your game for mobile or PC. And yes, it sucks to have to pay for bandwidth for patches and so on, but that's the point - do it properly and you don't have to pay as often, and MS/Sony/Nintendo are going to test your game to make sure it doesn't break the consoles etc. Or, you can be like endless space (which btw is a good game, albeit somewhat buggy in earlier versions) and have 10 patches on steam and not have to spend a hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so.
They might have a legitimate argument with microsoft as to why they didn't catch this problem in testing the first time round - but that depends on the specifics of the bug and XBLA testing.
It's up to developers and publishers to build relationships with consumers, it's not up to console makers to foot the bill for that. Of course you could build relationships with consumers the way EA does, but that's another topic.
If you need to update your App for iOS, you simply update it and Apple pushes it out.
I believe Microsoft has the same policy for Xbox Live Indie Games that Apple has for the iOS App Store. But because Xbox Live Indie Games are not rated for material objectionable to parents, they're available only in the United States and a few other countries that lack compulsory ratings. I'm guessing that's why Fez is on the much more expensive Xbox Live Arcade route to market, not Xbox Live Indie Games.
I'm glad Microsoft is doing this. It's a deterrent to developers putting up untested patches. This could have been avoided if instead of rushing out the first patch, it was put through the ringer. And if thats too much to ask because you're an 'indie dev' then maybe you arent ready to be on XBLA. MS actually has outlets for smaller devs that can't handle the costs/restrictions of XBLA or boxed games, XBLIG. And XBLIG doesnt have an update tax.
It may sound harsh, but the bottom line is, if this is an issue, you probably shouldn't be on XBLA yet.
D
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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.
I don't see how anyone can say this with a straight face in light of the fact that the largest curated platform right now is the iOS App Store, which is several orders of magnitude larger than XBLA, and the only fee it charges its developers is the $99 annual fee to be a developer. I can understand Microsoft wanting to make some more money and to perhaps provide a higher level of quality for their curation over what Apple does, but that doesn't justify charging tens of thousands of dollars. They need to rethink their model entirely.
I'm a long time gamer that has come full circle. The xbox was the first console I've ever owned and was purchased largely because of the mess that was PC gaming in the late 90s early 2000s: game that took an hour to install and didn't work out of the box, CS map packs that had to be downloaded from the server you were connected to, games that only ran on 3DFX voodoo cards, the list could go on forever. I had less time to game as I was now an adult and I just wanted things to work.
The trade was well worth it. Now a decade later it seems all those same issues have crept into consoles. I can't play CoD with friends unless I've bought the map packs, games are coming out not fully operational, I have to PAY to play online. Taken individually I can get over most but in the meantime the price of a PC (desktop and laptop) has fallen BELOW what I paid for my 360 (and PS3, I have one of those too) at launch. Steam has made digital distribution and patching a reality and with Steam sales, has brought the cost of the software WAY down. Laptops make my gaming platform portable and self contained.
I'm not saying I won't buy the next generation of consoles but I'm going to think long and hard about doing so. I am definitely ready for the resurgence of PC gaming, not that it ever went away, but a lot of us migrated and are ready to come back. I admire the console's attempt to integrate the indie community into fold but it was a slippery slope and the repercussions of that decision are unfolding. I don't blame microsoft or the dev in this scenario, I'm just not positive that it was ever a good marriage to begin with.
...and in this case, it's "tens of thousands of dollars".
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
In this case I have to side with Microsoft. Verifying that stuff doesn't do bad things on their console is both necessary and costs money. Furthermore, this implicitly imposes a due diligence standard on software devs and what they release. I hate the practice of turning customers into beta testers. I don't feel bad for Fez at all.
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Phil Fish signed a contract with Microsoft to make Fez a 360 exclusive title, in exchange for some kickbacks (like better placement and free marketing). Fez could have also been on the PS3 and PC, however they chose to release the game only for the 360 because they wanted the MS freebies instead of having a multi-platform title. He shouldn't be surprised now that he needs to pay to cover his own bad QA with the title.
Crying about it after the fact just makes him look bad. They entered into an agreement they should have better understood before signing on the dotted line. This is Polytron's problem now, and some gamers are getting screwed.
there is something to be said of 'deterrence'. get your games straight or pay out the ass! i kind of like it.
So the guy blames Microsoft after being the one pushing out a faulty patch to begin with? LOLWUT?
Something does not add up; a patch was produced for the game with apparently no fanfare regarding the cost for "recertification," and then when it was revealed that a bug still existed (albeit in an apparently hard-to-spot corner case) only then did he go ballistic and cry foul? He must have known about this "extortionate" fee beforehand, so why only complain after a bug he put in the software made him pay it twice?
It's probably what they are actually doing.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Because as with all good pushers the first patch is free. Subsequent patches cost $40K to recertify. At least that's what the voices in my heard said they overhead someone else tell another person.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
It sounds more like he's blaming them for charging tens of thousands of dollars to certify and post the corrected patch.
The second article makes a good point though (and some stupid ones). He's floating on over a million dollars in sales. The crazy-high cost of certification is extortion, but it's also fair to say he has a certain obligation to the folks who bought his game. Meanwhile, the nasty little outbursts aren't going to win him a ton of fans.
Frankly, I'm all for a very high fee for patching. As high as possible.
The internet made it so that games are released broken, with the mentality that they'll just patch later. The way I see it, you should have the mentality that no patch will ever be released, and test the hell out of it. Patches should be a very rare thing. By increasing the cost of the patch, you cause people like this guy to not release the patch. That hurts the users, but it also hurts him, because as people find out his game is broken, his sales will decrease. So maybe in the future, he'll keep that in mind and do proper testing.
We've made it cheap to patch games anytime. We need to make it expensive to make the cost involved in thorough testing cheaper than patching later.
Presumably the patch was certified. If so, clearly certification means nothing because it didn't catch saved file corruption differences between versions, which would be one of the primary things certification should test. He should ask for his certification payment back.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yes, publishers rushing out buggy games then trying to blame the console maker does piss me off.
Can we hold Microsoft to this 'deterrence' for their operating systems?
Because as with all good pushers the first patch is free. Subsequent patches cost $40K to recertify. At least that's what the voices in my heard said they overhead someone else tell another person.
If that's the case then I kind of do blame Microsoft. Making the first one free is clearly too low of a burden for devs to take seriously. They throw a bunch of bug fixes into the patch and then release it to the world, and don't really think "if i missed just one thing then this is going to get real expensive real fast". They should have a graduated scale, maybe $100 for the first patch, $1,000 for the second, $10,000 for the third, and so on. That way devs can get the first few out the door while still grasping the seriousness of what's going on.
I mean, think of it from Microsoft's perspective: If you had devs come out with a new patch like every single Tuesday, wouldn't you be pissed off at all the extra work you had to do?
Then don't make a fighting game.
Seriously.
This is business. If you can't handle the rules and costs for working with microsoft and XBLA then don't work with them, and make a game you can sell somewhere else.
I make strategy games (or at least, parts of strategy games for other people, and do academic work on strategy games), console releases aren't worth the effort because controllers suck for most of what I work on these days. So you know full well that you aren't going to hit a big chunk of the gaming market being on PC only. That's fine, but you knew that before you spent your first dollar on the game.
The game in question ('fez') might really need a controller to be effective. That's fine, but he shouldn't have agreed to work with MS if he wasn't prepared for their deal. Call it a life lesson in business management.
I've heard this expression, but where do you find these pushers? It seems to me there's enough pushers out there you could just move from one to the other getting free drugs for as long as you want, totally ideal. All the pushers I see aren't good enough I suppose.
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I don't like the idea of games being released "broken" with intentions of fixing it after release, but artificially making it extremely expensive or impossible to patch something is a double-edged sword.
I can't remember a game in the last ten years that didn't have something wrong with it (arguably, a near-impossibility with modern game complexity), and timely, free fixes have been welcome for that.
So maybe something more suited to, "if you had to release a gajillion patches to make your crap functional, you dropped the ball and need to pay for our time" instead of, "first one is free, after that it's a five digit bill".
There's room for reason in there, somewhere.
Their certification is not QA.
If he had put out good code to begin with, none of this would be an issue.
If his patch hadn't screwed up the customers' save files, none of this would be an issue.
I don't blame MS for saying he needs to re-certify his code because his code seems to be pretty crappy.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
So let me get this staright. This guy pushes out a buggy game, then pushes out a patch to fix the previously bug game yet it breaks other things. Microsoft then pulls the patch to save others from downlading a buggy patch. In conclusion, somehow this is Microsoft's fault?
Actually, the bug was uncovered during the certification process. He was given the option of releasing the patch as is, or fixing the bug and re-certifying the patch and then releasing it. He opted to line his own pockets and screw his customers by not pulling the patch, fixing the bug and re-certifying. Then he complained that it was Microsofts fault for uncovering the faulty code and adhering to the patch release policies that had always been in place.
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Developer pushes out game with minor, end-game bug. Developer drops $40K to patch minor bug, inadvertently causing a much more serious issue. Developer devises fix for this and attempts to publish it, but M$ demands another $40K, causing developer to reconsider his motivations and the justification for fixing such a minor bug.
$80K is a bit much to throw at a bug that only a very tiny fraction of your customers will experience... so, yeah, the fact that the game will probably go unpatched is entirely Microsoft's fault. You can go right on retelling the story in progressively poorer light, but it won't change the fact that this patch would be live /right now/ if it weren't for Microsoft's extortion.
I can't remember a game in the last ten years that didn't have something wrong with it
Right, that's my point. The past decade being when game studios could count on everyone having a fast internet connection to download patches. This is the problem that making it costly to patch can help solve.
(arguably, a near-impossibility with modern game complexity)
On the contrary. Game complexity may have gone up, but programming complexity has gone down, and it's far easier to write bug-free code than it used to be in the past. In the past, developers had to write extremely optimized code using difficult to debug obscure tricks and undocumented features of the OS and hardware, without advanced compilers that can warn you when you're using an uninitialized variable.
What actually happened is that patching is far cheaper than doing QA. You use your first users as your QA group, let them find the bugs, and then patch it. Well, as a developer in a startup without a proper QA team, the thing that I hate most about my job is debugging and QA work. I put up with it because I'm paid to do it. If I'm going to do it for your game, you need to pay me. If I'm paying you, I expect you to have made a good effort in QA. I don't expect bug-free code everywhere, because I do understand the costs go up exponentially as you get closer and closer to guaranteed bug-free, but I expect a much better effort than a guaranteed patch two days after the game is out.
So maybe something more suited to, "if you had to release a gajillion patches to make your crap functional, you dropped the ball and need to pay for our time" instead of, "first one is free, after that it's a five digit bill".
There's room for reason in there, somewhere.
Right, and I'm not advocating banning patches, so I think I am being reasonable. Your strategy encourages releasing a broken game, and then taking forever to release the first patch, as you let the users gather a large number of bugs that you can fix all at once. If you make every patch cost $50,000, for example, you know that as long as you're spending less than $50,000 on testing to avoid that patch, you come out ahead. If that's not enough to cut down the number of patches to a reasonable level, you up the price and make it cheaper to spend even more on QA.
And maybe you do graduate the cost based on developer size. Charge EA $200,000, charge indie groups $1,000. Make it a percentage of total game revenue or something.
This is a problem with any locked in system where 1 source controlls the Toll Gate to the only entrance.
And maybe you do graduate the cost based on developer size. Charge EA $200,000, charge indie groups $1,000. Make it a percentage of total game revenue or something.
I like that idea. Perhaps tempered with a hockey-stick curve for the little guys. $1k for your first two (or whatever, I'm being a bit arbitrary) then start ramping up sharply to make it seriously cost prohibitive?
He didn't find out about it after the fact. It's standard in the XBLA contract with Microsoft. The contract that he signed.
When only a tiny number of people are being effected, there is a good chance that testing would not have caught the issue. Edge cases are a constant bane.
Now, go patch something without introducing some hidden bugs, and come back and tell us how easy it is.
It is pretty much impossible to get every bug, look at big developers with hundreds of programmers who can afford large dedicated bug killing programs... Now go look at their running bug lists. Hell, Google sources the community to find bugs in some of their projects, offering money even, and bugs, big and small, manage to sneak through.
Bugs happen. Its a fact of life. Patching should be quick and simple. There is no logical reason to dissuade developers from fixing their products.
Just goes to show that you should test your code, and leave the coding to professionals.
Like who? Bethesda? Obsidian? Ubisoft? Google? Microsoft? Mozilla? None of them have ever released a buggy product, or released a fix that introduced more bugs than they fixed. Nope. Never.
Also, yes please, we should preclude the little guy from making innovative content... We need more EA games.
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If you make it expensive to patch, then there will be no patches... That doesn't mean games will actually be released any less buggy, just that there will never be any patches for them.
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They should have a graduated scale, maybe $100 for the first patch, $1,000 for the second, $10,000 for the third, and so on.
Except I'd really like to get most bugs fixed, eventually. This way you'd get the major bugs fixed early but the minor bugs that you only get around to fixing late would be crazy expensive to fix. I think the price should be time-based instead, the longer between patches the cheaper it gets. If you have to patch then repatch then repatch again, then that SHOULD be expensive. If you patch, collect up all these minor issues and make a "refining" patch three months later then I don't think it should cost you much. The goal is after all to avoid patchmania.
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That's not how I read it from any of the 3 FAs. Source?
More or less the first part only - another poster dug up this link, which should help:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21464
Basically, certification checks that it works on all xboxes, has a certain level of game stability, and obeys rules about naming conventions, accessing gamer profiles, sharing of achievements, and other standards and requirements for the console. For example, load times have a maximum amount of time allowed - exceeding that time is grounds for failing certification.
Microsoft does not QA your game, send you gameplay feedback, or otherwise replace a certification department - that is the responsibility of the developer and/or publisher to front, depending on their contract and relationship.
Presumably the patch was certified. If so, clearly certification means nothing because it didn't catch saved file corruption differences between versions, which would be one of the primary things certification should test. He should ask for his certification payment back.
Certification by the platform vendor should check that the game correctly uses the platform, but it cannot check that the game correctly implements its own semantics - that's a job only the game developer has responsibility for. This case concerns a file intended to save the state of the game so that it can be resumed from that state. In some cases, the file is incorrectly written, so the game resumes in an unintended state. You can only tell that this is buggy behavior if you understand what was supposed to happen: comparing the file to the one written by the previous version is not a valid test, because the point of a patch is to change some aspects of the previous version's behavior, and how, in general, is the platform vendor supposed to tell which differences between the versions are intended and which are errors?
The first patch was free, not $40k.
From the third article:
"Every developer gets to release one patch for free as part of their inclusion on XBLA, but subsequent patches are expensive - certification costs tens of thousands of dollars."