Microsoft denies blame for Fez Patch – Video Games Update
Microsoft has replied to the allegations made against the company by the Indie game developer Polytron regarding the game breaking patch for Fez.
Fez, the downloadable puzzle platformer, came out on Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) on April 13, 2012 and despite getting good reviews from critics was plagued with glitches and game breaking bugs. Polytron released a patch for the game which fixed the issues for
the majority of the gamers but it was reported that the update was causing a save game corruption for one percent of the gamers who had bought the game.
Polytron rolled back the patch but released the same patch again yesterday blaming Microsoft for their really high fees for re-certification of a new patch. Due to which the developer had chosen not to work on a new patch because they ‘could not afford it’
and apologised to the one percent of the players who would lose their save games.
Kotaku approached Microsoft for comments to which the software giant denied any responsibility for Polytrons’ decision to not release a new patch and said, “Polytron and their investor, Trapdoor, made the decision not to work on an additional title update
for Fez. Microsoft Studios chose to support this decision based on the belief that Polytron/Trapdoor were in the best position to determine what the acceptable quality level is for their game. While we do not disclose the cost of Title Updates, we did offer
to work with Trapdoor to make sure that wasn't a blocking issue. We remain huge fans of Fez.”
It seems that greed is the only reason why Polytron is not releasing the new patch and is just throwing the blame at the publisher. Polytron knew what Microsoft charged for re-certifying games so the indie developer has no excuse for releasing a buggy first
patch which would not have cost anything.
Even gamers agree that only the developer is to blame for the poor programming and the lack of quality control as Polytron should have properly tested the game and the first patch before releasing them to the public.
As far as finances go, Fez, which costs $10 or 800 Microsoft Points (MSP) has shipped over 100,000 copies over XBLA since launch in April. It’s pretty clear with those sales figures that Polytron is not really strapped for cash, just too lazy and greedy
to fix their broken game.
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