Microsoft wants to punish me with DRM? Challenge accepted.

[stevearsenault]

No Fez fix after Microsoft demands "a ton of money" to fix bug | News | Edge Online

The $10,000 probably comes from Phil Fish's comment last year when he said that the patch for would cost "tens of thousands", which meant the $40,000. From what I've read, Sony is waiving the patch fees altogether this generation, so they have the advantage there as well.

 

[Mystictrust]

there was an article about how the developers of Day Z and Abe's Oddysee New N' Tasty both wanted to bring those games to the Xbox One. In fact, they even got the games together, but Microsoft won't allow the m to self-publish the titles. Without getting under the wing of EA or someone like that, Microsoft won't allow them to put their already-made games onto the console, just because they want to publish the games themselves. That's pretty strange.

Here is what I don't get about that... You already CAN publish indie games to Xbox Live. I even got a freaking subscription to do it about 2 years ago (subscription has since expired and I haven't looked into renewing). As a student, they waived the fee, but it costs $99 per year. I believe it is lumped in with the Windows Phone development subscription, but then again... Things could have changed since then. Still, there are indie games on Xbox Live and you DON'T need to contact Microsoft somehow and sell them on your game or whatever it is that people seem to be getting the impression of.

I guess, unless some indie devs want to pay to get their games out in XBLA and aren't able to do it. That would make more sense to me. Still, that 99 cent indie game "I MAED A GAME WITH ZOMBIES IN IT!!!1!1!!" made over a million dollars in sales, and there have been other fairly popular games such as Castleminer Z... Can't think of any others off the top of my head, but I bought one that I think was called Lumi. I kept playing over and over until the time limit for playing was up, so I just decided to break down and buy it.

Still, even though MS doesn't highlight their indie games as much as they should (they definitely need to improve that), they exist, uploaded by the devs themselves without talking to Microsoft, and there is a section within games for Indie. And you can even search for specifically Indie titles only.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Yeah, but the Xbox One is dumping the XBLA brand, so it might be that there is going to be a sweeping policy change. I'm not sure how that stuff works, it's just what those developers had said.

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

I have a game dev friend that told me the same thing about xbla where with the developer fee, you get 1 update/patch to a game and after that it costs something like 20-40 thousand to put another update on. I still don't understand why because it couldn't possibly cost that much to update a game when game patches are usually small?

 

[vertigoOne]

I have a game dev friend that told me the same thing about xbla where with the developer fee, you get 1 update/patch to a game and after that it costs something like 20-40 thousand to put another update on. I still don't understand why because it couldn't possibly cost that much to update a game when game patches are usually small?

Maybe to discourage the upload of incomplete and buggy games? If Sony is waiving this fee altogether, then it likely also means that their verification process is most likely non-existent as well. This leaves it up to the gamers to determine whether or not they want to gamble their money on the completeness of the games that they are downloading. I do think that this cost should scale with the scope of the game though, $40,000 seems very high for indie or casual games.

 

[Reflexx]

I have a game dev friend that told me the same thing about xbla where with the developer fee, you get 1 update/patch to a game and after that it costs something like 20-40 thousand to put another update on. I still don't understand why because it couldn't possibly cost that much to update a game when game patches are usually small?

That policy is in place to discourage developers from putting up buggy games. The idea was that the game should be tested very well before even the first submission.

Then after that, they'll have one opportunity to fix bugs.

But if there was no fee, the fear was that devs would do the minimum work to get it released, however incomplete it might be. Then fix bugs later, using the consumer as their testing lab.

Unfortunately, because many small devs don't have a lot of people that test their game, they've been doing exactly what was being discouraged. Just get the game out by a certain date. Hurry! (sometimes due to pressure from a publisher)

Then problems certainly arise.

A dev might use their free patch opportunity quickly, to show customers that they are attentive (and maybe out of some guilt from releasing a messed up game). They may have discovered bugs shortly after release, even before the complaints start coming in.

Then after that round, there are the harder to catch bugs that turn up. And the dev already used their fix.

There needs to be a middle ground.

MS still doesn't want devs to just push games that aren't finished. But MS has to understand that publishers may force that on smaller devs.

 

[Keith Wallace]

I get trying to avoid buggy game releases, but a flat rate is iffy in this instance. It completely removes some developers from the ecosystem, quality not considered, because the volume of sales will not make up for that cost to patch the game. Also ,is it $40,000 PER PATCH, or $40,000 for all patches after the first? Those are very different things, and if it's the former, I don't see how indie developers could survive on the platform. IT would basically mean that for a $10 indie game, they need 4,000 sales per patch.

 

[Mystictrust]

I love how people like you complain and cant even tell the whole story... only the "bad" side. really, did you see this link and just post it without even verify what they were talking about? <snip> @retardedidiots "Sorry for the confusion, that was in regards to Xbox 360. Xbox One licensing info is here: http://xbx.lv/XBOlcns ^AC" (which obviously wont say anything about hacking, banning, locking account since it hasn't been made public yet)
I also found this: "We do not have info on that situation. Currently with Xbox 360 a permaban means you lose access to your downloaded games/DLC. ^CW"

Well, I wouldn't go ahead and fault everyone for 'jumping to conclusions'... not when the original question included XBOX ONE in it. Really, if you think about it, if an xbox support rep tells you something, are you supposed to say, "Okay, thank you very much. I'll wait until your company confirms it, this doesn't sound correct" - no, you're going to take them at face value. It *is* Microsoft. It's just unfortunate that their support team, well some of them... have a.. hard time understanding... things. Hmm, I'll leave it at that.

Either way, it doesn't matter. As you probably know by now, Major Nelson was asked this question in an interview and he confirmed that you WILL be able to keep your games, even if you are completely banned from the system.

 

[theeboredone]

Don Mattrick admitting X1 is "flopping" currently.

 

[JonnieLasVegas]

Don Mattrick admitting X1 is "flopping" currently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46yBdG6cicA&

Well played sir!

 

[HeyCori]

Don Mattrick admitting X1 is "flopping" currently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46yBdG6cicA&

I can't believe he said that!

 

[ncxcstud]

From what I've gathered, that $40,000 (or whatever) isn't just setup as a 'block/deterrant' of buggy games. It isn't JUST a high hurdle/hoop developers have to jump through to get a patch. But, the patch pays for the testing to make sure that A) the game works as the patch is intended and B) makes sure that the new patch doesn't mess up anything else related to a users gaming experience on their console (a part from the specific game that was patched).

If you've ever looked into the XBOX Live Indie Arcade (where there is self-publishing) there is a LOAD of crap. Lots and lots and lots of crap games. In fact, the only one I've played that I've enjoyed is ArcadeCraft (which is awesome btw). Other than that its a bunch of really terrible games.

Now, each of those games have given those (I only hope) beginner developers some experience, and this new system definitely limits that... but we'll see...

Does that mean the PS4 is going to have all these terrible games now too?

 

[curseoftheninja]

Does that mean the PS4 is going to have all these terrible games now too?

This was my thought when Sony announced self-publishing. This has the potential of having a ton of useless games flooding the Sony marketplace.

 

[Reflexx]

Don Mattrick admitting X1 is "flopping" currently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46yBdG6cicA&

This was a life changing video.

 

[Necroscope]

E3 is essentially over. It?s unlikely that Microsoft or Sony will make any other game changing announcements before the fall.

Ha ha...never say never!!

Then again, I?m also buying both consoles because choosing only one system is so 2006, lol.

Unfortunately, I am going to be buying this console in a 2013 economy. God bless anyone who has the disposable income they had in 2006!