In June a Patch was released for the XBLA hit "Fez". The patch fixed numerous bugs plaguing the game since launch. Unfortunately it introduced a new game breaking bug that corrupted save files for a small number of players. The patch was pulled, but returned last week...without a fix for the save file bug.
Phil Fish, the controversial creator of Fez, blamed the lack of a fix on the prohibitive cost of releasing a patch through XBLA. Fish took a clear swipe at MS when he said that if Fez was a Steam game it would have been fixed two weeks after launch, at no cost to him. Adding: "only a few months left to our XBLA exclusivity." Ouch!!
Phil fish has been known to make controversial comments and some have responded to his comments as just Phil Fish being Phil Fish. But there seems to exist a growing sentiment among developers that XBLA is no longer developer friendly, and many are turning to alternative distribution models like iOS and even PSN.
Case in point: Tim Schafer from Double Fine said that indie developers were moving away from XBLA because of the difficult certification process. Like Fish, Schafer pointed to the prohibitive costs of providing maintenance on the game post launch - which he cited as $40,000 for a patch.
In yet another example of developer discontent, Ron Carmel (creator: World of Goo ) said in a article from October of last year that he believed XBLA had peaked as a place for indie development, and that people at MS had not yet recognized how the service had fallen out of favor with developers. To back up his claim Carmel surveyed 200 indie developers. The results should have sent off alarm bells at Microsoft. A majority of developers were more interested in developing for the PSN than XBLA. When asked to label the ease of working with the various distribution services, a majority rated platforms like Steam, Facebook, and Apple as "very easy" and most found PSN and Android "so-so". XBLA was the only platform that a majority found "excruciating". This is troubling for MS because 3/4 of those surveyed said that ease of working with a platform was "paramount" in deciding which systems to develop for.
There was a time when the hurdles required to publish on XBLA may have been worth the trouble for indie developers because XBLA was the only game in town. Now with alternatives like iOS, Steam and even PSN, that time has passed. MS should take steps to make developing for XBLA easy and rewarding for developers or they risk losing that important market to alternative platforms.
It's kind of appalling that Microsoft has allowed this to happen. If Schafer's $40K number is truly what it costs to get a patch certified, that is an incredible chunk of revenue for an Indie publisher.
ReplyDeleteI hope Microsoft get their act together on that front or they run a huge risk of becoming and also-ran.
I'm sure it takes money and resources for MS to push out patches, so it only makes sense that they charge the devs. In this case, the game was plagued with "numerous bugs", so maybe Phil Fish should have done a better job with his game......just saying. If MS didn't charge, they'd have half-assed devs giving them patches every day.
ReplyDeleteI agree Jay. Its a balance. I don't want to have a patch update every time I turn on a game. At the same time you don't want it to be such a burden that developers decide to publish elsewhere.
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