[Frogacuda]

Originally Posted by Lupin The Third

Bullshit...and the post below yours proves otherwise. So MS are "notoriously difficult" to deal with? That's why after releasing Costume Quest in Oct 2010 and then Stacking in Feb 2011 on both XBLA AND PSN Double Fine went on to make their next THREE GAMES exclusively for xbox? Did you even think before making your post or did you think being an idiot fanboy actually made sense and no one would challenge the stupidity of the comment?

Hello, overly aggressive dickhead,

Many, many developers have discussed how difficult it is to work with Microsoft as an independent developer. Here is a breakdown of digital platforms and the ease of dealing with their proprietors according to various developers:


This is a well-known problem.

To quote Tim Schafer:

But it seems that this year, the idea didn’t explode like it should have. Back when Castle Crashers came out, it seemed it was going to grow and grow. I just wish there was more support, more marketing, more placement on the dashboard. It could have been our own little Sundance Film festival, a great sandbox for indie development.

“But the indie community is now moving elsewhere; we’re figuring out how to fund and distribute games ourselves, and we’re getting more control over them. Those systems as great as they are, they’re still closed. You have to jump through a lot of hoops, even for important stuff like patching and supporting your game. Those are things we really want to do, but we can’t do it on these systems. I mean, it costs $40,000 to put up a patch – we can’t afford that! Open systems like Steam, that allow us to set our own prices, that’s where it’s at, and doing it completely alone like Minecraft. That’s where people are going.

Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, MS litereally does not allow any game outside of the indie section to be published without a publisher attached. Which would kind of defeat the whole point of this this independent-funding thing, don't you think?

To quote Lorne Lanning, creator of Oddworld speaking on this very issue:

xBLA does require a publisher, which is a testament to how backward MS is. Imagine iTunes requiring a record label to handle any artists songs? I hope double fine does not carve out revenue to a publisher that brought zero value to this entire effort. Ridiculous requirement, but thats what MS insists, and that's why we will continue to see less of MS in the future. Developers going straight to their audience is the future, with the money going straight into the product, not into publishing CEOs personal jets. The future is here, MS is missing it, long live the future.

Requiring publishers to back a product is far from insuring quality control. MS Live turned down Strangers Wrath HD... And just check the meteoritic reviews per quality. It's all about old entrenched ideals that they hold that are outdated. PSN has been great, Steam is great, MS is constipated with yesterday thinking. The more power developers have in connecting directly to their audience, the happier the audience is going to be with the games that come out.

So kindly shut the fuck up, or at least don't act like an asshole if you don't know what you're talking about. Just because a developer works with a company does not mean that they are easy to deal with or that working with them doesn't create additional expenses.