Polytron Won't Fix Fez Patch

[muddi900]

I severely doubt Fez has made that much in profit for the investor. And even if it has, sales have slowed down enough that it isn't feasible to invest another 10-40k USD into it. Since Microsoft has all but abandoned actually marketing XBLA games, I don't think sales would increase for this to change. Again, EA has $40000 lying around from last year's Madden DLC's first weekend, they still refuse to patch Brutal Legend. I do not blame them at all, either.

[Sl1pstream]

Originally Posted by muddi900

It is true. Speculation has the daily revenue up to $344,000. How many copies did Fez sell?

They sold 100,000 copies during the first month and that's months ago. No idea how many copies they've sold by now, but I'm pretty sure that they could afford that second patch.

There's this as well.

[muddi900]

I actually meant revenue of games compared to advertising for MS. I suppose MS takes a 30% cut maximum from a game. $1M in the first month for the game means 300K for the MS. That's a day in advertising revenue. Why should they give a fuck, again?

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by Farsight

With Fez, the issue under scrutiny is a bug that only affects certain people's save games. That's an issue that requires either luck or extensive testing to find. If your QA fails, that's not the kind of issue you can count on Cert to rescue you from. It's the kind of issue a developer with pride in their work would suck it up and fix.

To be fair, from what I've read in this thread Fez was quite buggy at launch. Shouldn't MS Cert have caught that?

Also, what about Castle Crashers? That game had glaring issues when it was released. You say that MS Cert is there to make sure that the game is functional, but it appears that they let some games through that have major issues.

Obviously developers need to do their own QA, but I question the usefulness of MS Cert when several games have gotten through with major problems.

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by rein

Let me get this straight. Some are saying Polytron is to blame because they should have done a better job of testing so fuck 'em. I remember an update put out by Microsoft that was killing 360's. Point is, shit happens and even Microsoft is not above shotty testing. I will always side with consumers and Microsoft/Sony/Whoever putting small developers in a position that they can't afford to patch their product mostly hurts consumers. I slide further away from caring about this hobby more each day because it is becoming clear the industry doesn't give a rats ass about it's customers anymore... ...and what is worse, it seems a lot of gamers are okay with that as long as their team is perceived to be "winning."

You could always game on the PC. The indie scene is quite vibrant and there are a lot of developers, both large and small, that care about their customers.

Then again you're usually busy playing iOS games, so there's always that.

[muddi900]

If functionality is a prerequisite, how do any Bethesda games get cert?

[MagGnome]

Ha! Poor, bug-ridden Bethesda...

[OldJadedGamer]

Originally Posted by muddi900

If functionality is a prerequisite, how do any Bethesda games get cert?

Explains why Bethesda used to be PC only. Release now, patch later.

[muddi900]

Bethesda's last PC exclusive was back in 2000, back when patching through the internet wasn't quite common.

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by muddi900

Bethesda's last PC exclusive was back in 2000, back when patching through the internet wasn't quite common.

Stop feeding the trolls.

[Savok]

Originally Posted by Farsight

You're cherry-picking. I never said Certification worked perfectly, I merely explained that its goals have nothing to do with the issue this thread concerns.

But you have succeeded in making me glad I never played Mercenaries 2.

No there's a reason every roadmap has a glitch section. I remember one of the first games on XBLA, Outpost Kaloki: X, two achievements were fucked, one of them because it just didn't work at all.

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

To be fair, from what I've read in this thread Fez was quite buggy at launch. Shouldn't MS Cert have caught that?

I played Fez from beginning to end pre-patch and had no serious issues.

Out of this whole debacle, I'm most surprised that they're putting the patch back up, as it's hard to imagine that the release version had worse bugs that corrupting your save game!

Also, what about Castle Crashers? That game had glaring issues when it was released. You say that MS Cert is there to make sure that the game is functional, but it appears that they let some games through that have major issues.

4 years ago.

Originally Posted by Savok

I remember one of the first games on XBLA, Outpost Kaloki: X, two achievements were fucked, one of them because it just didn't work at all.

7 years ago.

We're way off on a tangent here, but what the heck!

If you're having to dig that far back for evidence (and only Castle Crashers had serious issues), I'd say the system is working pretty well. It's not infallible, but I can 100% guarantee you (from firsthand knowledge) that it's preferable to not having Certification at all. For customers, for MS, AND for developers. Well, the developers that give the slightest shit about their own product, that is.

Polytron themselves says a title update would cost them $10k. They also say the save corruption affected <1% of players. Let's round that to 1%. They sold 100k copies as of nearly two months ago. 1% of 100k is 1k, at $10 a copy, is $10k. MS's cut should be offset easily by the last 7 weeks of sales. So... the exact cost of a title update to fix a game-breaking issue is covered by the sales to the people whose games are ruined by the issue!.

It's just hard for me to find an explanation where Polytron doesn't deserve to be absolutely destroyed over this.

[MagGnome]

Thanks for responding. I mainly wanted to hear more of your viewpoint on MS cert, so I appreciate it.

[rein]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

You could always game on the PC. The indie scene is quite vibrant and there are a lot of developers, both large and small, that care about their customers.

Then again you're usually busy playing iOS games, so there's always that.

Even my iOS game playing has become limited. I'm still a level away from being able to purchase a Cloudliner in Pocket Planes.

I am already limiting myself to one console next generation but I'm starting to think that PC gaming is all I will need. I have not played a game on a console in some time... ...3-4 weeks, maybe more... ...and I'm not missing it. Maybe it's me.. ..maybe it's the end of this generation blues... ..or maybe I'm just getting turned off by all of the garbage.

[OldJadedGamer]

Originally Posted by Savok

No there's a reason every roadmap has a glitch section. I remember one of the first games on XBLA, Outpost Kaloki: X, two achievements were fucked, one of them because it just didn't work at all.

This still happens to this day regardless of system. EA has a problem with a trophy triggering in a Vita game. Even simple basic trophy's like winning games. Cert states that every one must be able to be earned. EA blames Sony and Sony blames EA.

http://www.ps3trophies.org/forum/fif...ml#post2869913

[quidmonkey]

I bet it's like 2 lines of code.

[AntonThaGreat]

Originally Posted by muddi900

Bethesda's last PC exclusive was back in 2000, back when patching through the internet wasn't quite common.

Idk, I used to get all my patches from the internet at that time, and I was a relative PC noob.

[rein]

Originally Posted by quidmonkey

I bet it's like 2 lines of code.

I swear I read that as "...two lines of coke." I thought, does it really cost 10K for two lines of coke these days?

[RandoM51]

Originally Posted by rein

I swear I read that as "...two lines of coke." I thought, does it really cost 10K for two lines of coke these days?

Depends on the quality of service.

[Savok]

Originally Posted by Farsight

7 years ago.

We're way off on a tangent here, but what the heck!

If you're having to dig that far back for evidence (and only Castle Crashers had serious issues), I'd say the system is working pretty well. It's not infallible, but I can 100% guarantee you (from firsthand knowledge) that it's preferable to not having Certification at all. For customers, for MS, AND for developers. Well, the developers that give the slightest shit about their own product, that is.

Actually I went that far back because they didn't even have the excuse of too many games to get through back then. You'd think they'd have everything nice for launch but considering the early 360 hardware, quality has never been on their mind.

But hey, keep pretending Cert does its job, despite all evidence (the examples so far being the tip of the iceberg) to the contrary.