Fez Developer Refuses to “Patch the Patch”

[radio667]

from godisageek.com ............... Polytron has released a statement saying it has no plans to release another patch for its Xbox LIVE Arcade hit, Fez.

Fez has already received one patch, fixing a number of issues. However as a result of that patch a new issue was created, causing a small number of players to suffer corrupted save files.

We’re not going to patch the patch.

Why not? Because microsoft would charge us tens of thousands of dollars to re-certify the game.

And because as it turns out, the save file delete bug only happens to less than a percent of players. It’s a ****ty numbers game to be playing for sure, but as a small independent, paying so much money for patches makes NO SENSE AT
ALL. especially when you consider the alternative. Had FEZ been released on steam instead of XBLA, the game would have been fixed two weeks after release, at no cost to us.

Microsoft gave us a choice: either pay a ton of money to re-certify the game and issue a new patch (which for all we know could introduce new issues, for which we’d need yet another costly patch), or simply put the patch back online.

It wasn’t an easy decision, but in the end, paying such a large sum of money to jump through so many hoops just doesn’t make any sense.

The full statement can be read on Polyton’s official site here .

It’s very important to note, although Microsoft’s certification process hardly helps small developers, Polytron knew what they were getting into when they signed the deal. It is also not Microsoft’s fault the game shipped with bugs, after all it did have a 5 year development cycle.

The decision from Polytron seems final, so it’s something they and all the players that brought the game, will have to live with.

[Kel]

Originally Posted by radio667

The full statement can be read on Polyton’s official site here .

Returning a 404 now as it seems they changed their minds
http://polytroncorporation.com/update-is-live

(I’ve removed the “updates” from this post for clarity, tl;dr but for those who missed it : the patch came live on June 22nd, caused save corruption issues on upgrade for some users, was pulled from Xbox LIVE in a panic some hours later, and then the patch came back live on July 19th.)

Makes me wonder too. Did they get massive backlash from their "fans" for not releasing a patch to fix the corrupted saves?
If so and it did indeed cost Polytron a buttload of cash to fix it, congrats to their fanbase for getting the patch...

[Freakish]

I thought Polytron/Phil Fish had no intention of releasing Fez on PC. This praise for Steam makes me wonder otherwise.

[Kel]

Well, just because he mentioned Steam doesn't mean it's gonna get ported

[DeadMeatGF]

Yeah - I think it's more a defence and a dig at Microsoft.
On the other hand, this might begin to chalenge the culture of relying on our acceptance of incomplete products and multiple patches until we get what we paid for, so I'm in two minds about this whole situation.

[Kel]

Thing is it's nearly impossible to release something in a "perfect" state and has been that way for years
I don't even expect games to be fully bug-free and/or polished these days mostly because a majority are rather large(5+GB).