I'm frankly surprised about this decision by Polytron (the maker of Fez). It's not like they didn't know about the cost of patches up front and they clearly profited a great deal from the game, but they are unwilling to pay up to fix a bug that is rather nasty for their own customers!
I can't help, but feel like Polytron is the one to blame and not MS!!!
I didn't buy Fez and I won't be buying it either on any platform!
@gaming art - Continuing the recent trend of strong Xbox Live Arcade sales, developer Polytron announced that they've sold 100,000 copies of their critically acclaimed 8-bit-style puzzler, Fez. We've reached out to Microsoft for official publisher confirmation and comment and will update accordingly with any response.
No divide that by one guy....yeah he can afford to patch the game.
Maybe he should Indie then. If you want to play in the XBLA club then you should make sure you have what it takes to be there.
Although I feel for them, the person made their own bed that they ended up sleeping in. I paid my hard earned money for the game, now I get ripped off because the devt didn't test the game fully and is screwed for patching.
It was more the developer partnering with MS, MS set the terms, developer agreed and a while later all of a sudden disagree! Then bad mouthing the partner!
You can see how I don't have any sympathy for the guy. It's pretty simple, do NOT agree (or buy for that matter) if you do not like the terms!
I'm sick of people making bonehead decisions and whining about it later on!!!
The kicker is, Fez sold more than a 100,000 copies. The patch cost $10k. That's right, it means the patch cost each customer less than $0.10 out of the $10 or so the developer collected! But hey, the developer ain't giving it back, so blame the publisher! /s
I agree piratethom. I think Fish knowing what the costs were ahead of time should have tested this patch and tested this patch in the time he had to make sure all issues were fixed. How he can try and turn this on MS makes me not want to purchase any future games as they(Fish) can't afford to make them whole.
I played the entire game, and collected everything there was to collect. I spent hours and hours in the game and thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. It is well worth the price, as the XBLA has NOTHING like it on the store and it's hard to find a game that compares. I never encountered a single glitch with over 15 to 20 hours of playtime.
I loved Fez, but I can't help but dislike Fish. Seems like everything he says is a douchebag remark, and honestly, he didn't do anything special. Any indie dev could have made a game like this in the right mindset, and some of them could have actually finished it by themselves without needing a triple A studio bailout,and not taken so long to do it. I'm on Microsofts side on this one, but I do find it sad that people won't be purchasing this wonderful game because nobody will fess up and cough up some cash for a little patch.
I thought so too. What's even worse is the stuttering which as far as I know is prevalent on every copy pre-patch. It's to the point where you actually die some times due to the stuttering if it happens mid-jump.
I got mine on release.. played for a bit. Missed the patch since apparently they pulled it shortly after putting it up. And lol at them taking down their post on their website too "We're not gonna patch the patch."
The concept is good and fresh, yes, but a few awesome/perfect reviews tends to spark a whole bandwagon of them that ignore the other big faults: Bugs and stuttering, confusing mess of a map, most puzzles are simple "rotate until you see the solution" puzzles which is disappointing. So called few "hard" puzzles are ridiculous codes that no one that isn't some WW2 codebreaker could figure out (unless they use a guide).
Fish is going by the 'good enough' rule. Only 1% percent is effected, so he doesn't care. But you know who would care is 1% percent of their customers were affected by a broken patch? A Japanese developer.
Why should they? The developer knew the deal, Microsoft didn't make the game...
But remember... Japanese games suck. Phil Fish said so.
Nor should they. This is in the hands of the developer.
Funny how the reviewers didnt mention this when they were giving it 9.5's and 10's -_-'
This only hurts customers who are affected by the bug