FinalStageBoss
Banned
MS will get rid of it eventually, it's a stupid clause. So what if you get games later, I saw many happy posters because shovel knight is finally coming to ps4. A good game is a good game.
Sales being the key word there. In EA's benevolence, they gave away a game that was selling very well for free for basically no reason.
Thanks for the thread, Chubigans. I'm an indie dev as well as a fellow GM Studio user. I made Home for Steam/iOS/PS4/Vita (it was the very first GM Studio game on a PlayStation console, I was told). I announced with Sony my next game (Alone With You) as a PS4/Vita exclusive at PAX this year.
All that is to say I agree with what Chubigans is saying, from a developer point of view. Interesting note: to date, not a single Microsoft rep has ever reached out to me at events or online, and I've never seen one here in town (Toronto). To contrast that, reps from PlayStation have been coming to Toronto for years to sniff out talent and talk to small studios (I spoke to them two years ago about Home).
Now, I know some local devs who are launching first on Xbox One, and speak well of MS. I wouldn't doubt it; they were in that spot where they hadn't launched yet, hadn't announced anything, and could make those decisions.
But for someone mid-project, something like the parity clause (if enforced) is brutal. Home is now on multiple platforms (Steam - Windows and Mac, iOS and PS4 and Vita) and if I had to deal with even two of those very different platforms at launch I would have lost my mind. At least with PS4/Vita at launch, you're dealing with some similar situations; PS4 and XB1 would be really tough for me (I'm a one-man shop).
I love my Xbox One (seriously, it's great; I use it every day), and would certainly love to make games for it. But sometimes as a developer new to a platform, the best way to join the party is to port something you already know and learn your way around before you commit to something new. A parity clause makes that impossible for tiny studios like mine.
Sony won with the PlayStation (among other things) by being incredibly developer-friendly compared to Nintendo, and obviously it was the smart move. Every platform generation has had a similar story; make a good home for devs and everyone does business. I can't say nicer things about the folks I know now at Sony; hopefully MS will, as many have said here, cotton on to their friendlier tactic.
Xbone has terrible indie policies which affects their sales. No need to fantasize that Microsoft is doing a good job in any respect.
eh nevermind.
My personal spending habits for AAA gaming has in no way been directly affected by MS indie policy and vice versa. They do not go hand in hand. Many console owners do not even buy indie games period. The library of indie games is a variable but not THE variable.
ShowMeTheReceipts.jpg.
Let me start by reiterating: I broadly agree with the OP.
In "exclusives" discussion threads, there's always a few posts saying "exclusives don't sell consoles". If that's true then it's unlikely that indies sell consoles either.
You can *definitely* find people who will go PS4 over XBox because of indie games (there's at least one in this thread). Similarly you can *definitely* find people who will go Xbox over PS4 because of exclusives (and vice versa, of course).
Point being, it's all anecdotal: unless you have statistical proof that the impact of indie games on sales is significant then statements like the above are conjecture only - and are probably why MS aren't showing any signs of changing course at the moment.
You edited out the "don't argue PS4 vs XBO" bit but I feel like this thread is doing pretty well avoiding that, save for a few instances.
You can easily get all the points you made across without directing judgement on a poster and intent. No one is interested in arm chair psychiatric analysis. The "selfish shit", "this is nonsense" and "you should exit" all add nothing to the conversation and does not further validate your point. You're responsible for your own behavior just as we all are.
Theres an Xbox feedback post for this with over 900 votes if anyone else wanted to join in on it
Perhaps if more people voted it would move up the list (wasn't on the first page despite the amount of votes it had)
Cant hurt the chances anyway, although perhaps tweeting them (in a respectful/polite way) would be just as effective.
Its not a zero sum game: They can and should keep doing that with great AAA exclusives like Sunset OverDrive. But also stop being bonkers with that stupid clause and get more indie games.
Maybe they see stories about how X indie game is finally coming to Xbox One as a distraction to their big splash announcements.
I'm not understanding the "outrage" in this context. Look, in a corporate landscape there are no ends to the bureaucracy. I could imagine that in a company like Microsoft, just the way management works, that it will take years to get these things changed, and that's "snappy".
My manager used to say, - prove it. Every time I had a complaint about the company doing something iefficent I would have to gather evidence. Similarily you could assume that Phil or whoever is in charge needs to convince other people about the change being making sense. If you can't prove it with numbers, it doesn't make much sense.
Some of these guys that decide things from behind the scenes probably doesn't understand gaming, so they don't look at it from that perspective. They probably look at releases calenders, grossed estimates and calculated risks. "this is the divisions budget for Q2, shut up phill".
I don't know if it's like that, but I've never heard of a company the size of Microsoft doing sweeping policy changes fast. Just the word parity clause should give you an idea of how much bullshit there is tied to it. Furthermore, Microsoft seems to be a company that has been able to ride it out. They have had so many projects which didn't make a project for the first number of years, until they made changes that should have been done day 1.
They are not gonna do something that is not cost effective to fix a Lumia device or a Surface pro on day 1. They won't learn that lesson until 3-4 years down the road. Thats just how slow things move. It really boggles my mind that Microsoft is not in serious trouble, when it seems they are losing ground in so many of their business divisions. They just m
Shit has happened faster over at the Xbox division of MS as of late though.
Well, that's not the topic.
The OP is asking what can be done so he and his mates can get a game developed and published on xbox one. padding the discussion with why sunset overdrive bombed and the troubles with MCC does not help him answer his question nor do they directly correlate to the indie clause being discussed.
Do you have a response for him or should we go on and further elaborate on sunset overdrive and MCC?
Oh, that's all? Well, fuck those guys. Slackers.That had to do with the Indie program on 360. No ones mentioned a problem with the ID@Xbox program.
Theres an Xbox feedback post for this with over 900 votes if anyone else wanted to join in on it (although ironically Oddworld is coming to XB1)
Perhaps if more people voted it would move up the list (wasn't on the first page despite the amount of votes it had)
Cant hurt the chances anyway, although perhaps tweeting them (in a respectful/polite way) would be just as effective.
PS4/Vita is the first world of indie games
XB1 is the third world of indie games
It's all because Microsoft insists on the idiotic parity clause. From most accounts they deal with indie studios just fine, it's just that they rarely deal with indie studios.
PlayStation was always about variety. A large, wide variety of games!
Not only does the XB parity clause suck. Nope, guys like Shahid, Adam Boyes, Gio Corsi, etc. are doing an amazing, AMAZING job.
Just my two cents here.
Maybe they see stories about how X indie game is finally coming to Xbox One as a distraction to their big splash announcements.
When conjecture is presented as fact it's valid to challenge it - especially if the goal is to force change; you want to get the message right.There is nothing wrong with conjecture.
Not having the full set of information does not preclude proper and correct analysis, and it's counterproductive to imply that it does.
The number of released and announced console exclusives for ps4 is staggering at this point. Almost impossible to keep track of them all.
Did you miss all the 180s at the start of the gen?I don't know if it's like that, but I've never heard of a company the size of Microsoft doing sweeping policy changes fast. Just the word parity clause should give you an idea of how much bullshit there is tied to it.
As you many of you may imagine or have seen play out in your own professional lives, in very large companies, it does take time (and sometimes a good long time) to create a shift in culture and to make adjustments in how different business units conduct their day to day work. I have no knowledge of the inner workings of MS; but I would imagine even if Phil made a decision about something today (like the parity clause), it certainly could take a significant amount of time, etc (i.e., at least several months) to get it implemented, etc. Plus, we probably do not know exactly what actually has to change internally at MS to allow them to change this policy. I don't know if it's as simple as many might think. Perhaps they would have to amend many or most of their existing agreements with some new language, etc. That said, with as many adjustments as MS has made over year 1 of the Xbox One, it does seem a little interesting that they have not been able to make this type of change to date. I do think they will eventually remove this as a standard as they have already done so for case-by-case games.
Maybe they see stories about how X indie game is finally coming to Xbox One as a distraction to their big splash announcements.
As you many of you may imagine or have seen play out in your own professional lives, in very large companies, it does take time (and sometimes a good long time) to create a shift in culture and to make adjustments in how different business units conduct their day to day work. I have no knowledge of the inner workings of MS; but I would imagine even if Phil made a decision about something today (like the parity clause), it certainly could take a significant amount of time, etc (i.e., at least several months) to get it implemented, etc. Plus, we probably do not know exactly what actually has to change internally at MS to allow them to change this policy. I don't know if it's as simple as many might think. Perhaps they would have to amend many or most of their existing agreements with some new language, etc. That said, with as many adjustments as MS has made over year 1 of the Xbox One, it does seem a little interesting that they have not been able to make this type of change to date. I do think they will eventually remove this as a standard as they have already done so for case-by-case games.
That they're reversing the policy.Thing is, what do you expect them to say?
Theres an Xbox feedback post for this with over 900 votes if anyone else wanted to join in on it (although ironically Oddworld is coming to XB1)
Perhaps if more people voted it would move up the list (wasn't on the first page despite the amount of votes it had)
Cant hurt the chances anyway, although perhaps tweeting them (in a respectful/polite way) would be just as effective.
Major Nelson's "changing the DRM isn't like flipping a switch!" followed next week by their changing the DRM like flipping a switch disagrees with you.
Edit: Let me apologize and clarify, the clause isn't a good thing, I'm just so tired of seeing the MS hate and catering to Sony as if they do no wrong that all of the Internet likes to poke fun at Neogaf for. My emotions are tied into that more than the parity clause, which is the topic at hand, so I apologize for that.