Microsoft treats indie-devs horribly and ask $40,000 for patches

[QUOTE="sherman-tank1"]

[QUOTE="clone01"] He took his talents to South Beach. You need to let it go :Pclone01

Console is a dying form of gaming.

Mr_BillGates

Console is a dying form of gaming.

Mr_BillGates

[QUOTE="Kickinurass"]

[QUOTE="locopatho"] Encourages devs to release polished games that don't need fixing, and doesn't cost me a penny. DrTrafalgarLaw

That's just silly. Disregarding the inevitability of bugs in nearly any commercial software, what if the devs want to patch difficulty based on fan feedback after the product has shipped. Or optimization code to help the game perform better.

Charging an indie dev $40,000 is just silly and only encourages other developers to stay away from the platform. I'm not saying MS shouldn't charge, but they shouldn't apply a one-size-fits-all pricing scheme to this issue either.

To be honest, that sounds more like a software thing than a hardware thing.

Console is a dying form of gaming.

Mr_BillGates

[QUOTE="sherman-tank1"]

[QUOTE="locopatho"] These are businesses, not friends... you can put a game on Xbox, for a fee... you can get MS to advertise it, for a further fee... and you can patch it, for a further fee. That's how business works, if you want MS to do something for you, you need to pay them. They ain't a charity... Seeing as how MS has the most 3rd party support of the 3 consoles, they must be doing something right?locopatho

[QUOTE="DrTrafalgarLaw"][QUOTE="Kickinurass"]

That's just silly. Disregarding the inevitability of bugs in nearly any commercial software, what if the devs want to patch difficulty based on fan feedback after the product has shipped. Or optimization code to help the game perform better.

Charging an indie dev $40,000 is just silly and only encourages other developers to stay away from the platform. I'm not saying MS shouldn't charge, but they shouldn't apply a one-size-fits-all pricing scheme to this issue either.

Kickinurass

To be honest, that sounds more like a software thing than a hardware thing.

[QUOTE="locopatho"][QUOTE="sherman-tank1"]Nobody said anything about it being charity. Attracting companies by giving them benefits is a business move.

sherman-tank1

[QUOTE="sherman-tank1"]

[QUOTE="locopatho"] Plenty of devs manage it. If your deadlines mean you release busted games, then it wasn't a very a helpful deadline was it? :)locopatho

Console is a dying form of gaming.

Mr_BillGates

The indie scene on consoles is crap. The developers get much much much less revenue compared to PC. For an indie game to be put on the XBLA or PSN Store, you are going to need a publisher. Publisher takes a good chunk of the revenue.

Then when the game is on digital store, Microsoft and Sony take another chunk of each sale. They also require payment if the developer wants to keep supporting the game.

The developer gets a crap share of the overall sales compared to something like iOS or PC Digital.

What incentive does this system give? It make developers leave the console market or start milking a series.Why should I spend 40k per patch on supporting a game, when I can abandon the game and use that money on the next game, which I will also abandon shortly after release?

I think you need a patch for your link TC that costs $40000.

Serves those devs right for releasing their games 1st on XBLA

This is BS. No way it would cost $40 K for a patch. You source is full of it.

This is BS. No way it would cost $40 K for a patch. You source is full of it.

xhawk27

He has no source.:lol:

[QUOTE="xhawk27"]

This is BS. No way it would cost $40 K for a patch. You source is full of it.

super600

He has no source.:lol:

:lol:

I think you need a patch for your link TC that costs $40000.

super600

[QUOTE="super600"]

I think you need a patch for your link TC that costs $40000.

parkurtommo

I made a joke that mocked his thread title because the link in his Op is broken.

[QUOTE="Kickinurass"]

[QUOTE="locopatho"] Encourages devs to release polished games that don't need fixing, and doesn't cost me a penny. DrTrafalgarLaw

That's just silly. Disregarding the inevitability of bugs in nearly any commercial software, what if the devs want to patch difficulty based on fan feedback after the product has shipped. Or optimization code to help the game perform better.

Charging an indie dev $40,000 is just silly and only encourages other developers to stay away from the platform. I'm not saying MS shouldn't charge, but they shouldn't apply a one-size-fits-all pricing scheme to this issue either.

?But the indie community is now moving elsewhere; we?re figuring out how to fund and distribute games ourselves, and we?re getting more control over them. Those systems as great as they are, they?re still closed. You have to jump through a lot of hoops, even for important stuff like patching and supporting your game. Those are things we really want to do, but we can?t do it on these systems. I mean, it costs $40,000 to put up a patch ? we can?t afford that! Open systems like Steam, that allow us to set our own prices, that?s where it?s at, and doing it completely alone like Minecraft. That?s where people are going.?

http://www.hookshotinc.com/interview-schafers-millions/

[QUOTE="parkurtommo"][QUOTE="super600"]

I think you need a patch for your link TC that costs $40000.

super600

I made a joke that mocked his thread title because the link in his Op is broken.

So you finally payed 40K to patch the link in the OP and this is sad.

[QUOTE="super600"]

[QUOTE="xhawk27"]

This is BS. No way it would cost $40 K for a patch. You source is full of it.

xhawk27

He has no source.:lol:

:lol:

[QUOTE="super600"]

[QUOTE="parkurtommo"] wutparkurtommo

I made a joke that mocked his thread title because the link in his Op is broken.

It was broken for a while and that's why I made the joke.

Time for all of them to move on the PS3.....best console ever.AtariKidX

It costs 40k$ on both platforms. I think both MS and Sony have too much bureaucracy involved in patching and that cost is steep for indie devs.

So you finally payed 40K to patch the link in the OP and this is sad.

super600

Why shouldn't they charge for the use of their resources? Console games shouldn't even need patches anyway :/locopatho

Console games always had bugs, they normally didn't affect the main game in a substantial way, but they were there.

[QUOTE="AtariKidX"]Time for all of them to move on the PS3.....best console ever.Icarian

It costs 40k$ on both platforms. I think both MS and Sony have too much bureaucracy involved in patching and that cost is steep for indie devs.

Is this 40k for all patches in the future or for only one? That seems a lot for one patch. How much does Steam charge for patches?

Is this 40k for all patches in the future or for only one? That seems a lot for one patch. How much does Steam charge for patches?

xhawk27

?But the indie community is now moving elsewhere; we?re figuring out how to fund and distribute games ourselves, and we?re getting more control over them. Those systems as great as they are, they?re still closed. You have to jump through a lot of hoops, even for important stuff like patching and supporting your game. Those are things we really want to do, but we can?t do it on these systems. I mean, it costs $40,000 to put up a patch ? we can?t afford that! Open systems like Steam, that allow us to set our own prices, that?s where it?s at, and doing it completely alone like Minecraft. That?s where people are going.?

http://www.hookshotinc.com/interview-schafers-millions/

DrTrafalgarLaw

I guess you morons did not read the article when he said he was ultimately glad they worked with Microsoft and understood the certification process that Sony and Nintendo does as well. They don't call Sony up and say "We need a patch" and them Sony invites them over for hand jobs.

Idiots.

The indie scene on consoles is crap. The developers get much much much less revenue compared to PC. For an indie game to be put on the XBLA or PSN Store, you are going to need a publisher. Publisher takes a good chunk of the revenue.

Then when the game is on digital store, Microsoft and Sony take another chunk of each sale. They also require payment if the developer wants to keep supporting the game.

The developer gets a crap share of the overall sales compared to something like iOS or PC Digital.

What incentive does this system give? It make developers leave the console market or start milking a series.Why should I spend 40k per patch on supporting a game, when I can abandon the game and use that money on the next game, which I will also abandon shortly after release?

ShadowDeathX

The incentive is you get guaranteed exposure. It's easy to point to the successful games on iOS and PC and say "look at how big a rip-off the consoles are!!!", but that fails to account for the vast quantity of indie games that wallow in obscurity. The App Store is such a discoverability clusterf*ck that if you don't launch on the top-sellers list you're f*cked. There are countless games on Steam that struggle to break even (never mind the games that don't get on Steam at all). HumbleBundle and the like are fully curated and as such focus almost entirely on established developers, so it's not like you can count on them as an upstart.

So as byzantine as XBLA's policies are, the fact that even a game like Fez (near-vapourware, not exactly "wow-factor" gameplay) can evidently make a good chunk of change speaks for itself.

At this point.....:lol::lol::lol::lol: at any lemming stupid enough to actually defend microsoft.AmazonTreeBoa

Oh boy! :roll:

[QUOTE="DrTrafalgarLaw"][QUOTE="CanYouDiglt"]That is dumb. Just face it no matter what you just want to think Microsoft is EVIL.CanYouDiglt

The indie scene on consoles is crap. The developers get much much much less revenue compared to PC. For an indie game to be put on the XBLA or PSN Store, you are going to need a publisher. Publisher takes a good chunk of the revenue.

Then when the game is on digital store, Microsoft and Sony take another chunk of each sale. They also require payment if the developer wants to keep supporting the game.

The developer gets a crap share of the overall sales compared to something like iOS or PC Digital.

What incentive does this system give? It make developers leave the console market or start milking a series.Why should I spend 40k per patch on supporting a game, when I can abandon the game and use that money on the next game, which I will also abandon shortly after release?

ShadowDeathX

The indie scene on consoles is crap. The developers get much much much less revenue compared to PC. For an indie game to be put on the XBLA or PSN Store, you are going to need a publisher. Publisher takes a good chunk of the revenue.

Then when the game is on digital store, Microsoft and Sony take another chunk of each sale. They also require payment if the developer wants to keep supporting the game.

The developer gets a crap share of the overall sales compared to something like iOS or PC Digital.

What incentive does this system give? It make developers leave the console market or start milking a series.Why should I spend 40k per patch on supporting a game, when I can abandon the game and use that money on the next game, which I will also abandon shortly after release?

ShadowDeathX

That's stupid. These indie games are usually less than 1 GB for the entire game and a patch would probably be under 100MB. MS is just flaunting their greed and furthering their nickel and dime regime over the entire industry BPoole96

As Fish himself said, it's not about making money, it's about ensuring devs aren't taking a release now, patch later approach to development. It's essentially a penalty for releasing a buggy game (and covers the entire certification process, not just bandwidth, which when you consider the patch will be downloaded by thousands upon thousands of users, isn't insubstantial either).