Microsoft Charges Developers for Patching Games
Friday, 02 October 2009 09:29
It looks like our friends over at Microsoft have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. The giant cookie jar of GREED. Games for Windows Live is the equivalent of Xbox Live for the PC. You get your games, you have a dashboard, friends list, achievements, the whole sha-bam. Recently an interview with Stardock CEO Brad Wardell revealed that Microsofts policies have been consistently keeping game developers for the PC running in the other direction.
Game developers who wish to put their game up through Games for Windows Live must now pay a price to implement update patches. Furthermore, Microsoft must approve the patches. This is for PC games keep in mind. The PC, revolutionary for being able to keep all things free. Movies, music, games, but not game patches? It is no longer enough for Microsoft to take a slick cut off of every game sold with Games for Windows Live, but now they are attempting to get the money they paid to lisence the game back from developers by charging them to update or fix their games.
The problems with this are endless but definately not limited to the fact that developers who produce games for Games for Windows Live may intentionally leave problems unpatched due to financial restrictions. Meaning gamers who use Games for Windows Live may see the quality of their games diminish significantly.
We've seen this before with Microsoft charging for Left for Deads DLC "Crash Course". It was completely against the developers wishes. It was meant to be free content, and in all likelihood, Microsoft pocketed all the profits. As Stardock CEO Brad Wardell said;
"On the console, I don't have to update my game because an anti-virus program got an update and is now identifying my VB scripts as viruses and I have to apply an emergency patch. That would just add insult to injury. We've had to upgrade our games plenty of times over the years, not because we found some bug, but because some third-party program, or driver, or whatever screwed it up. If Games for Windows Live maintains that strategy and they take over, I'm done. I'm not making PC games. I would be done."
Source: Neoseeker
Comments
every other platform got it free, microsoft wanted to charge for it on xbox live, so epic said the xbox wasn't getting it. this isn't the first time microsoft have insisted on pocketing profits from things game creators want to give away.
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