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[ham and brie]

Does cert actually improve users perception of quality though?  I don't see people generally preferring XBLA versions over Steam/PSN/etc versions as 'less buggy'.

In practice, it just doesn't seem like much of a factor at all, except for the occasional story about how an XBLA version won't get updates/free-stuff because of the fee.  In theory, cert could be making XBLA games seem more buggy: Bugs that do make it through cert will be on XBLA for 2+ months, while bugs on Steam games can be patched in a day -- so way fewer users will see the bugs on the Steam game.

What cert tests for is not just bugs, but things like consistent implementation of platform features and avoiding things that are known to annoy users. In respect to user perception of quality, MS does seem to have been the most successful with their policies in this generation. Xbox Live gained a good reputation as a "next gen" service pretty early on.

If the cost of updates is an incentive to make fewer updates, you can get sense for what difference that kind of policy might make in looking at the perception that the PS3 and PSP suffer from annoyingly frequent firmware updates.

[Zaphos]

Firmware updates are quite different from game updates (eg on Steam game updates can be done in the background, not interrupting anything, and can be paused/deferred freely), especially updates with new content.  If you look at e.g. the iOS market, users seem to like app updates.

Also, I think iOS also does some review for consistent implementation of platform features, without a 40k fee or a months-long wait time?

XBox Live's good rep as a service seems relative to PSN, and didn't seem very related to cert. I don't think XBLA has a better rep than Steam?

[Garthy]

they charge you for the certification process, which apparently does nothing or else they wouldn't have needed the second patch.

Very nicely said.

[Superb Joe]

have they determined a cause of death yet

[VortexCortex]

There's also the technical side of the postmortem on GDC Vault.

It was kind of boring, actually. For instance, Bedard drones on for quite some time about his Action Classes -- He could have just said: "We use a state machine for actions".  He talks about some culling engine when he could have just said: "We use Depth Sorted Occlusion Culling."

I guess what's interesting is that novices can make console games now...  Which isn't news, but it is nice seeing indie games in the mainstream.

[Nix]

Is Phil Fish a millionaire yet?

[VortexCortex]

Hmmm, I dunno.  Would a millionaire think twice about blowing $40 grand on patch?

Oh that file save bug in the new patch?  Yeah, it's not getting fixed.  If you bought the game, let's hope you're also not a One Percenter -- It's said that they're the ones that encounter the bug.

So, Fish is basically saying: We're not fixing it!  The patch is good for the 99%, so we're not fixing it.  We're sorry to the 1%, but screw you.

Sounds more like an unemployed protester than a millionaire to me...

Tim Schafer says MS shouldn't test the patch, just let Polytron take the risk of it screwing up the game.    Wow, he's just shown how clueless he really is about this...

It would be nice if pushing out an update were free, but they do cost man hours to test.  MS isn't certifying your game is functional so much as they're ensuring your patch isn't the new way modders get root on the 360...  There's no fucking way MS is going to stop the certification process.  IMO, MS has been super nice already.  They gave Fez one freebie update.  If you don't like the rules, don't play their game.  It's not MS's fault if you don't know what you're getting yourself into.

[TomHunt]

Aren't walled gardens just so awesome?

[phubans]

With over 100,000 in sales at $10 each equaling 1 million dollars, M$ taking their 30%, leaving Fish & Co. with 700K, I would imagine Mr. Fish has made at least 300K so far. At least.

That figure, divided by 5 years, equals a salary of $60,000 before taxes. Not bad, but pretty low to average for a lead designer, I'd assume.

[Blademasterbobo]

this is all before steam. as long as exclusivity is up before everyone stops caring, that's most likely another few hundred thousand sales.

[Garthy]

Regardless of how many sales are made, a $40k hit is a bitter pill to swallow.

Mind you, the people on the MS side of the fence are probably just as annoyed, thinking "Hey, perhaps you could put just a little bit more effort into QA, and we wouldn't be having these problems."

[e_va]

da solution is simply not letting entitled indie develoeprs on consoles so i dont have to look at them whenever i login

[falsion]

Is Fish eating his words about saying that "PCs are for spreadsheets" yet?

[Darren_D_Daley]

With over 100,000 in sales at $10 each equaling 1 million dollars, M$ taking their 30%, leaving Fish & Co. with 700K, I would imagine Mr. Fish has made at least 300K so far. At least.

That figure, divided by 5 years, equals a salary of $60,000 before taxes. Not bad, but pretty low to average for a lead designer, I'd assume.

You're not accounting for the money they owe Microsoft for the SDK which is around $10,000, the money they owe Trapdoor for supporting them and the cut they owe to the co-founder that left.

[Manuel Magalhães]

With what happened to Team Meat and with this, makes me never want to publish a game in XBLA (not that I was expecting one day to do it, though =p). I hope this uproars a lot to make Microsoft change its policy. Hard, but it would be great if it happens.

Are there any "dev horror" stories in WiiWare and PSN?