Microsoft Taking Heat For Five-Figure Xbox 360 'Patch Fee'

wasimkadak sends this quote from Ars: "Developer Phil Fish knows there's a problem preventing some people from enjoying his Xbox 360 puzzle platformer Fez as intended. But he's not going to fix it, thanks to what he says is an exorbitant fee of 'tens of thousands of dollars' that Microsoft would charge to re-certify the game after a needed patch. The issue started on June 22, when Fish released a patch intended to fix some outstanding gameplay and performance issues with Fez. That patch gave rise to new problems for some players, though, by causing their save files to appear as corrupted, in effect erasing their progress through the game. Microsoft pulled the initial patch for the game mere hours after it first went up, to prevent the bug it contained from spreading too far." Another article covering the story suggests this situation is simply a mis-match between an indie-dev's expectations and the realities of a curated gaming platform.

patched

[alphatel]

Just send '0xB16B00B5' to the console,

Re:Team Fortress 2

[v1]

but then they exceeded the Xbox's memory limitations.

Went over 640k huh? Gotta watch out for that.

Re:For real?

[dittbub]

there is something to be said of 'deterrence'. get your games straight or pay out the ass! i kind of like it.

Re:For real?

[Physix]

Can we hold Microsoft to this 'deterrence' for their operating systems?

Re:For real?

[jeffmeden]

Because as with all good pushers the first patch is free. Subsequent patches cost $40K to recertify. At least that's what the voices in my heard said they overhead someone else tell another person.

If that's the case then I kind of do blame Microsoft. Making the first one free is clearly too low of a burden for devs to take seriously. They throw a bunch of bug fixes into the patch and then release it to the world, and don't really think "if i missed just one thing then this is going to get real expensive real fast". They should have a graduated scale, maybe $100 for the first patch, $1,000 for the second, $10,000 for the third, and so on. That way devs can get the first few out the door while still grasping the seriousness of what's going on.

I mean, think of it from Microsoft's perspective: If you had devs come out with a new patch like every single Tuesday, wouldn't you be pissed off at all the extra work you had to do?

Re:For real?

[kamapuaa]

I've heard this expression, but where do you find these pushers? It seems to me there's enough pushers out there you could just move from one to the other getting free drugs for as long as you want, totally ideal. All the pushers I see aren't good enough I suppose.