Payment to BE exclusive? Also $40,000 for a patch?

[Squilliam]

"We already owe Microsoft a LOT of money for the privilege of being on their platform," he said. "People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform. Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM."

So rather than pay Microsoft "such a large sum of money" to approve a new patch that would fix the small issue (Double Fine's Tim Schaefer pegged the cost of submitting an Xbox 360 patch at $40,000 in an interview with Hookshot Inc. earlier this year), Fish has decided to put the initial, slightly error-prone patch back up on Microsoft's servers.

Fez developer 'Fish'.

I don't really understand this so maybe someone with more knowledge can shed some light on these two things.

I thought Microsoft paid for exclusivity, not that they got paid for the privilege. Also why is there such a harsh cost for patching? Is there a special reason for this? A special process?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I thought Microsoft paid for exclusivity, not that they got paid for the privilege.

I'm guessing that game royalty payments make the situation such that MS is the receiver in that relationship, not that the dev is actually paying MS for staying only on their platform.

 

[Grall]

Also why is there such a harsh cost for patching?

Presumably, MS has a small army of quality assurance staff with consoles dedicated to patching the game and checking that it works, and making sure it doesn't screw anything unrelated to the game up in the process. They might want to get paid for that, I dunno.

That said however, I think they charge an arm and a leg simply because they can. They're top dog in the console biz right now, and MS has NEVER been above abusing their market position. Quite the opposite in fact, it's their modus operandi. Their whole aim is to grow into the majority player so they can abuse the shit out of their developers and customers alike.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Almost makes MS look the same as every other company out there

 

[Davros]

I think it depends, someone like bungie and halo would be paid to be exclusive.

 

[Nesh]

I dont get the "We pay them to be exclusive".
If a developer wants to make a game only on one platform, they have to pay the owner of that platform for that decision? It doesnt make sense. Its not like devs are forced to be multiplatform and have to pay for the right to develop only for one platform

And why would anyone want to be exclusive if they have to pay to make their game only for on one platform which limits sales even further?

He is probably referring to something else which I dont understand.

Unless MS are such a douchebag company

 

[Prophecy2k]

I think he's being coy here.

I think it's to do with the fact that as a dev you can't self-publish on XBLA. You either need to get a thrid party publisher or get MS to publish your game for you. So on top of the normal fixed royalty rate, if MS publishes your game for you, they will take an additional royalty too, but you have to be exclusive to their platform for a period of time.

IIrc that's how it works. I'm quite sure that's what this "pay for being exclusive" thing is.

Also MS charges so much for patching to avoid devs putting up crappy buggy products in the first place. Its intended to shift the focus to getting right the first time with a solid product rather than putting up broken crap and patching it later on (if ever).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think it's to do with the fact that as a dev you can't self-publish on XBLA. You either need to get a thrid party publisher or get MS to publish your game for you. So on top of the normal fixed royalty rate, if MS publishes your game for you, they will take an additional royalty too, but you have to be exclusive to their platform for a period of time.

I was scratching my head over this one, but I think you've nailed it. With MS publishing, they get to be exclusive. Although the wording is still very odd.

Also MS charges so much for patching to avoid devs putting up crappy buggy products in the first place. Its intended to shift the focus to getting right the first time with a solid product rather than putting up broken crap and patching it later on (if ever).

Sony also charge an arm and leg for patching AFAIK. Maybe it's supposed to be a financial penalty to encourage proper working software in the first place? Whatever, it's somewhat backfired I think. Developers aren't going to want to release patches if it's going to cost them. That's maybe why some bugs in games never get fixed and the devs just block their ears? "That voice-chat bug really ruins the game, but it'll cost us $500,000 to roll out to all those users. It's not worth it."

?

 

[ERP]

Yep they likely signed a publishing deal with MS, it probably involved MS fronting the submission fees, and possibly other money with the intent of offsetting via royalties, which 9 times out of 10 the dev never recoups the advance.

I think MS requires the entire submission process to be restarted for a patch, but $40K sounds unlikely unless your counting internal and publisher testing cost. I know people who were publish XBLA games where the entire budget is under $200K including development.
Patching is tricky in general, there are just so many different classes of patch, and not sure they should be treated the same.

The reason MS started requiring a publisher for XBLA was because they got swamped with crap when they allowed developers to submit independently, the publishers were added primarily as a layer of course filtering on the submissions.

Having said that I don't think XBLA is intended to be friendly to the sorts of budgets and sales associated with most indy games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Indeed. There's the Indie channel for that. XBLA is for professional developers.

 

[Arwin]

Indeed. There's the Indie channel for that. XBLA is for professional developers.

Which, incidentally, is still not a available in many countries including my own.

But the margins I think aren't great either way. Also, Sony is clearly promoting the option to self-publish as an advantagr of their platform.

I've heard many times that patching costs can be high on both platforms.

 

[kagemaru]

Does Sony charge the same for Indie devs though? I thought that was the biggest issue here. It's one thing to charge a huge publisher or studio this kind of fee to patch a game, but IMO it's different to charge the same for a smaller Indie team.

I thought MS didn't charge for the first two patches anyways, at least that's what I remember from a comment made from Valve with patching TF2.

 

[Davros]

Also MS charges so much for patching to avoid devs putting up crappy buggy products in the first place.

My god imagine if they did that for windows 90% of publishers would be bankrupt within 2 years

 

[ERP]

OK injecting some facts into the discussion, so here's how I believe patching works on XBLA, submission is free unless you fail submission twice, your FIRST patch is free, for subsequent patches there is a significant charge. I guess in this case his first "free" patch actually caused the issue so MS pulled it.

Looks like an attempt to deter patching to me.

 

[BRiT]

Also the charge is not simply to deliver a patch, it also includes the time and effort of QA Testing.

This really seems like a sour developer is simply trying to spin things for no known purpose. He entered into the contract. If he wasn't happy with the terms of the deal, he had the option to simply not enter it.

 

[Squilliam]

I guess that clears it all up.

 

[Davros]

tweet from Polytron strongly implies they have plans bring the puzzle/platformer to other systems soon enough:

"but HEY! only a few months left to our XBLA exclusivity!"

 

[Prophecy2k]

OK injecting some facts into the discussion, so here's how I believe patching works on XBLA, submission is free unless you fail submission twice, your FIRST patch is free, for subsequent patches there is a significant charge. I guess in this case his first "free" patch actually caused the issue so MS pulled it.

Looks like an attempt to deter patching to me.

Cheers for this ERP. I suspected it might be something like that.

Also the charge is not simply to deliver a patch, it also includes the time and effort of QA Testing.

This really seems like a sour developer is simply trying to spin things for no known purpose. He entered into the contract. If he wasn't happy with the terms of the deal, he had the option to simply not enter it.

Yeah, seems like he trying to stir up some internet sympathy over an issue he could have avoided himself. His being economical about the facts when saying "you have to pay MS for exclusivity" is even a bit embarassing imho. As peopl aren't stupid enough to believe that that isn't BS

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Maybe it's just bad wording?

Anyway even if you'd have to pay to be exclusive, I'm sure people will understand that somewhere there will be a benefit to paying to be exclusive. Why pay otherwise?

 

[Richard]

tongue_of_colicab: it's not bad wording, it's misleading your audience. Take a look at his twitter feed. Derek Smart wanna-be.