The studio would be charged ”tens of thousands of dollars” just to patch it, so they’re bringing the ”same patch” back to Fez. What’s the problem? Well, that patch corrupts save data.
Polytron admit it’s a ”sh*tty numbers game to be playing for sure,” as the glitchy patch only affects ”less than” 1% of players. The indie can’t justify the huge cost.
”We’re bringing the first FEZ patch online. It’s the same patch,” blogged Polytron on their website. ”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 shitty 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.”
Polytron isn’t happy with Microsoft and their certification methods. If Fez had of skipped XBLA and went to Steam instead then this issue would have be sorted shortly after it arose.
”Had FEZ been released on steam instead of XBLA, the game would have been fixed two weeks after release, at no cost to us. And if there was an issue with that patch, we could have fixed that right away too!”
”We believe the save file corruption issue mostly happened to players who had completed, or almost completed the game. If you hadn’t already seen most of what FEZ had to offer, your save file is probably safe. It doesn’t happen if you start a new game,” said the studio. Well at least that’s the only cause of it then.
”We believe the current patch is safe for an overwhelming majority of players.”
The patch itself addresses ”framerate issues, the loading, the skips, the death loops, everything! All that stuff is fixed! And right now, nobody can get to it since the patch was pulled. For 99% of people, it makes FEZ a better game.”
Polytron apologise to those harmed: ”To the less-than-1% who are getting screwed, we sincerely apologize. We know this hurts you the most, because you’re the ones who put the most times into the game. And this breaks our hearts. We hope you dont think back on your time spent in FEZ as a total waste.”
”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. We already owe microsoft a LOT of money for the privilege of being on their platform. People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform,” continued the indie outfit.
”Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM.”
.jpg)