Will Microsoft pay indie developers their September Payment before Christmas?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

So it?s Christmas time. The ###### storm is still raging on such that the FTC and FBI and now involved and insanity rules all. Not just online but those fighting in shops on the recent black Friday.

So it seems almost refreshing that I?m once again back talk about a topic from the past. You see at present Microsoft are slowly starting to look like this Christmas they?ll be the star in their own version of A Christmas Carol.

You see (and I sincerely hope otherjournalists will have the guts to report on this too) Microsoft has once again screwed up payment to indie developers on the XNA system who have their games published on the Xbox Live indie Games Marketplace.

So a quick refresher for those who don?t know. The XBLIG was Microsoft?s own indie game self publishing arm. Once a game is passed by peer review it?s allowed to be sold on the system. Each quarter Microsoft then pays said developers their portion of the games sales. The system itself also includes a clause that payment is not considered ?late? until it?s beyond 45 days after the stated payment date. Previously they managed to go over that date by 7 days meaning from the date developers were meant to be paid it was 52 days after the stated payment date. Well this year they?ve gone even better. Indie developers using the service were expecting their Q3 payment on September 30th. The Date as of writing this is the 3rd of December, developers still haven?t been paid meaning Microsoft is 64 days late on payment a full 19 days beyond the rather generous "Acceptable" delay period they gave themselves. 

I?ve heard from a couple of developers who confirm payment hasn?t been made to them.

Freelance Games Makers of the Trailer Park King series among other things and BootDisk Revolution the developer of Bleed which is also available on Steam and who is presently developing Bleed 2.

So let me tell you a tale of what happens when you keep forgetting to pay indie developers. Ghosts of the past come back to haunt you about you previous misdeeds. People like me will make it so you seem once again haunted by spectres of your present misdeeds and if this keeps happening then the Ghost of indie games on Xbox future will soon come to show you your fate.

A while ago now Microsoft renewed its commitment to indie developers. I scoffed at it back then as until I saw a change I wasn?t going to believe Microsoft had changed. I know a lot of people held out hope for change and were a little annoyed that I was so ready to bash Microsoft before they slipped up. I did want them to do better but as is being shown presently nothing has changed, in fact it?s getting worse: Payments are later than ever before; the new parity policy meaning an indie game can?t be released on the Xbox one unless it either releases first on Xbox One or on all platforms at the same time. Oh and to top it all off speaking to indie developers at Gadget Show Live most are baffled by Microsoft?s Indie game admission policy and methods. Many praised Sony and said looking into it even Nintendo had a far better far clearer system than Microsoft.

Because of your past actions and your continuations of them Microsoft you have a bad reputation with indie developers now. You?re not seen as you once were as pushing indie games forwards to the future. You?re seen as the unreliable platform which is a toxic for indie developers to rely on alone or as their first choice. With even big studios like Crytek choosing to put games onto PC due to poor sales, can you really afford to keep screwing over indie developers ?

You know what?s worse. It?s not just console developers I?ve started to hear from. I was contacted by an anonymous person whom claims to be a Windows Phone app developer (and appears to be that) who claimed Microsoft was screwing up the Windows Phone developer payments. On Windows phone developers were and possibly still are payed weekly. The developer claims that the analytics and sales data being sent, which use Microsofts cloud service for speed, are not 2-3 days behind as would be expect but the sale data analytics and payments are 11 days behind now and getting worse.

I did contact Microsoft for a Statement on this situation.

So yeh this is a problem Microsoft are more than happy to try to sweep under the rug. I was told by a developer that on a private developers own forum a member of the Xbox team had suggested payment may be a few days late this quarter but this is beyond a few days now. So I?m taking this issue public. It?s Christmas time and I?m sure Microsoft are hoping to shift plenty of units. So I wonder how many people will think again when they find out how Microsoft has been treating developers badly again. I?m talking about it here because the question now must be. Will Microsoft manage to pay its developers what they?re owed before Christmas now ?

Or will you end up on the naughty list ?

http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/TheKodu/will-microsoft-pay-indie-developers-their-september-payment-before-christmas--284512.phtml

 

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Yeah, they haven't paid us either.

 

This is becoming a real issue.

 

Makes us question ever returning to a Microsoft release again, I can tell you that.

 

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=141471505&postcount=9

 

We haven't gotten paid either. Unfortunately, this is nothing new for Microsoft - it feel like half the time they're late with XBLIG payments.

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=141473497&postcount=88

 

This is true, I have yet to get paid.

 

I mailed their services, and they assured me "it would be solved in the coming weeks", but I need that money now, not in months when they finally figured how to input my ######ing account numbers in their system.

 

It's been a complete train-wreck ruled by crass incompetence. The contrast with Valve's handling of such matters is stark.

 

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=141474514&postcount=123

 

Hopefully the media will force MS to speedily sort this issue.

 

 

"I've been contacted by Kris Steele who has had contact with Microsoft recently. While no official statement has been issues yet by Microsoft. Microsoft are claiming there was an error with the sales data figures which they are now working out. They apparently now intend to pay developers within the next two weeks. "

 

 

[game_over]

Shocking behaviour, another reason for devs not to bother with Microsoft. They are already lacking in apps you would think they would go out of their way to accommodate devs.

[nosense]

Shocking behaviour, another reason for devs not to bother with Microsoft. They are already lacking in apps you would think they would go out of their way to accommodate devs.

Suck's for the devs, but these XBLIG devs don't have many pure gaming outlets to release their games besides steam greenlight and XBLIG\ID xbox.

[notchinese]

Shocking behaviour, another reason for devs not to bother with Microsoft. They are already lacking in apps you would think they would go out of their way to accommodate devs.

 

This is regarding xbox.

[HawkMan]

Later we find out that none of these devs made enough in the period to pass the payout limit 

 

or whatever, I'm sure we'll find out... or rather we'll find out if it's MS fault, otherwise it'l go silently away. 

[game_over]

This is regarding xbox.

Not entirely...

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

I've been contacted by Kris Steele who has had contact with Microsoft recently. While no official statement has been issues yet by Microsoft. Microsoft are claiming there was an error with the sales data figures which they are now working out. They apparently now intend to pay developers within the next two weeks.

 

Sad it took the public slandering to get the gears in motion, but at least it's being done and hopefully a little reminder to them the indies will call them out when necessary.

 

Hope none of them are counting on that money for xmas though. Talk about last minute

[trooper11]

So I have a few questions regarding this:

1. Are their any contracts involved with these developers? I mean, isn't there some sort of agreement that indie developers agree to when putting a game on an Xbox platform? Do those contracts stipulate payment time frames?

2. If the answer is yes to the above, then why aren't developers taking action against MS? If the answer is no, then that seems like a very flimsy deal made between MS and developers.

3. If MS is being truthful about a sales data issue that resulted in the payment issue, then have other any developers affected contacted MS and confirmed the same issue? I get why MS wouldn't discuss this publicly, but what about developers?

4. I wonder if the sales data issue might be related to the work around Win 10 that will unite all app stores into one group. MS is in the middle of a massive transition that will actually be good for developers, but it has to be risky 'working' on a live system like the current app stores. The work on the transition may have led to issues like this.

Sad it took the public slandering to get the gears in motion, but at least it's being done and hopefully a little reminder to them the indies will call them out when necessary.

 

Hope none of them are counting on that money for xmas though. Talk about last minute

 

I'm not sure that is clear from the part you quoted. MS was contacted 'recently' and gave a reason. Was there further confirmation that MS was simply reacting to this story, or was there a real issue going on?

[BajiRav]

I'm not sure that is clear from the part you quoted. MS was contacted 'recently' and gave a reason. Was there further confirmation that MS was simply reacting to this story, or was there a real issue going on?

It is much simpler to point fingers at big bad evil Microsoft. Chris Charla and ID@Xbox have already responded to this (long before this thread was started).

 

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[trooper11]

It is much simpler to point fingers at big bad evil Microsoft. Chris Charla and ID@Xbox have already responded to this (long before this thread was started).

 

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Thanks for sharing that. That adds some clarity for sure.

So right now, the issue is only affecting some developers on the 360 indie side. Well hopefully MS can resolve it quickly.

I think most developers are reasonable about issues as long as MS or any company communicates with them privately and keeps them in the loop.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Considering this isn't the first time MS have delayed payments, what happened the past times? The 45 day window should be long enough to pickup on issues and sort them.

There was a response on GAF promising it won't happen again

FYI

https://twitter.com/ID_Xbox/status/540275992619532288

I also just want to confirm that this was related to Xbox Live Indie Games program on Xbox 360 only, no ID@Xbox developer has received late payments.

Again, we're very sorry about this incident and it won't happen again.

-Chris

[Arachno 1D]

 

But getting that money to programmers seems to be something Microsoft is having problems with. Developers are supposed to be paid their royalties every quarter, and within 45 days of the quarter ending. Redmond sometimes stretches that deadline, but for the third quarter of this year it has missed it entirely ? leaving developers out of pocket in the run up to Christmas.

Rumblings from the developer community have now risen to shouts, and there are an increasing number of games writers who are seriously ###### off about the whole debacle. Now Microsoft has admitted it was at fault and promised to get the money flowing again ? eventually.

Source

[trooper11]

Considering this isn't the first time MS have delayed payments, what happened the past times? The 45 day window should be long enough to pickup on issues and sort them.

There was a response on GAF promising it won't happen again

I don't know about the past, but they explained why it happened now. You can choose to believe it or not.

I would point out also that quotes that were part of the original post here seem to indicate that many of the affected developers didn't even realize there was an issue until someone brought it up, so its possible MS was not alerted to a major issue until past the deadline.

[wakjak]

It is much simpler to point fingers at big bad evil Microsoft. 

 

Well... it was their fault.. so what's your point?

[George P Global Moderator]

While the fault is Microsoft, the fact it doesn't effect the new ID XB1 program leads me to believe that the problem is with whatever payment system/service the 360 program uses. The key here is that only a few didn't get money, it wasn't everyone, so that right there screams software error to me.

 

It's not like they're holding back some massive royalty payments in this case, it looks bad but to think they're doing it on purpose is wrong.

 

They really should move everyone to the new program, ID@Xbox should cover all of the Xbox platforms and not just the One, 360, phone and big Windows should all be in the same program.

[BajiRav]

Well... it was their fault.. so what's your point?

Context... Learn to read in context.

[fintechfooty]

This is quite shocking. As someone said previously on this topic, you would expect Microsoft would be down on their knees pleading for dev support. I mean capital should be spent on these devs not advertising costs!

[nosense]

This is quite shocking. As someone said previously on this topic, you would expect Microsoft would be down on their knees pleading for dev support. I mean capital should be spent on these devs not advertising costs!

Why would they? These devs are very small time\amateur. I've only purchase one xbox 360 live indie(XBLIG) game and it was a crappy minecraft clone. The top sellers are all minecraft clones.

[Torolol]

ID@Xbox have already responded to this (long before this thread was started).

 

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long? i see the tweet's date, it was that 'long'.

if anything the tweet context itself said 'recently'.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Why would they? These devs are very small time\amateur. I've only purchase one xbox 360 live indie(XBLIG) game and it was a crappy minecraft clone. The top sellers are all minecraft clones.

 

Because keeping some devs happy is better than this ####storm that kicks off on the internet. If we're talking peanuts in terms of $$$, why would MS be under strain to pay out? MS created the XBLIG platform, so they're responsible for the eco-system and making sure things go accordingly. Doesn't matter how small scale it is, it's MS' service.

[trooper11]

Because keeping some devs happy is better than this ####storm that kicks off on the internet. If we're talking peanuts in terms of $$$, why would MS be under strain to pay out? MS created the XBLIG platform, so they're responsible for the eco-system and making sure things go accordingly. Doesn't matter how small scale it is, it's MS' service.

MS is not under any strain. It was an error in their payment system on the 360.

Regardless of what people say in forums, MS is not in the business of intentionally upsetting any developer. MS admitted an issue and is working to resolve it.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

MS is not under any strain. It was an error in their payment system on the 360.

Regardless of what people say in forums, MS is not in the business of intentionally upsetting any developer. MS admitted an issue and is working to resolve it.

 

This isn't the first month this has happened. So unless you want to admit MS has had an unresolved error in their payment system for months along with what you're saying now, things do not add up.

 

I'm not saying MS is in the business of intentionally shafting over such small amounts of money, more-so just not really putting much effort into caring for these tiny developers over everyone else in their eco-system. As I said though MS created XBLIG so they have to look after everyone if they don't want a ruckus online.

 

People defending a massive corporation over nobody run of the mill developers need to take their heads out of their backsides for 5 minutes. Any company should pay on time every month regardless of how small an "employee" you are. Would you be happy if your employer just paid you when they wanted every month instead of on time? As crap as most of these games are, they still make money for MS.

[BajiRav]

This isn't the first month this has happened. So unless you want to admit MS has had an unresolved error in their payment system for months along with what you're saying now, things do not add up.

 

I'm not saying MS is in the business of intentionally shafting over such small amounts of money, more-so just not really putting much effort into caring for these tiny developers over everyone else in their eco-system. As I said though MS created XBLIG so they have to look after everyone if they don't want a ruckus online.

 

People defending a massive corporation over nobody run of the mill developers need to take their heads out of their backsides for 5 minutes. Any company should pay on time every month regardless of how small an "employee" you are. Would you be happy if your employer just paid you when they wanted every month instead of on time? As crap as most of these games are, they still make money for MS.

In the immortal words of Peter Moore - things break. Or ###### happens. People also need to take their heads out of their backsides for 5 minutes and imagine how a big corporation works. They are not always a well oiled behemoth but a cluster of small companies made of human beings. Humans make mistakes.

It wasn't the first time Sony or a mega corp got hacked but Sony pictures is in toilet today - why do you think they got hacked especially with PSN hack in their recent memory.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

In the immortal words of Peter Moore - things break. Or ###### happens. People also need to take their heads out of their backsides for 5 minutes and imagine how a big corporation works. They are not always a well oiled behemoth but a cluster of small companies made of human beings. Humans make mistakes.

It wasn't the first time Sony or a mega corp got hacked but Sony pictures is in toilet today - why do you think they got hacked especially with PSN hack in their recent memory.

 

Yes let's bring up PSN hacks/hacking in general to compare to MS not being able to do accounting properly for months. Spot on comparison.

 

Hence why I said people take their heads out of their backsides and stop making everything console wars or pandering to excuses. This went on for months, that's inexcusable when the little guy gets screwed, hopefully it's now fixed, and internet outrage will have saved the day again.