Polytron, the developers of indie hit Fez, have issued a surprising statement regarding the potentially game-breaking patch they recently released, then recalled.
The full statement:
We're bringing the first FEZ patch online. It's the same patch.
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. 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.
We believe the current patch is safe for an overwhelming majority of players.
The patch fixes almost everything that's been wrong with the game since launch. The 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.
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.Microsoft gave us a choice: either pay a ton of money to re-certify the game and issue a new patch (which for all we know could introduce new issues, for which we'd need yet another costly patch), or simply put the patch back online. They looked into it, and the issue happens so rarely that they still consider the patch to be "good enough".
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. Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM.
So we're going to go ahead and put Title Update back online, and for a vast majority of people it's going to make FEZ a better game.
Thank you for your understanding and continuing support.
Sincerely,
The Polytron Team
We're not going to patch the patch [Polytron]
It's something more than one person noticed while playing Gearbox's critical lemon Duke Nukem Forever—the game does have a few things in common with Valve's much-heralded masterpiece Half-Life. No really!
Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford agrees, but says that the similarities only go so far. After all, Duke Nukem Forever is closer to base fare like The Hangover than it is to highbrow art like Citizen Kane. He talks about all that and much more in a lengthy and enjoyable interview over at Eurogamer.
But it is very base content. It's difficult for some people. When Duke's girlfriends get kidnapped and they're impregnated by the alien, and they're about to die, and they say, 'Duke, save us!' And he says, 'Well, looks like you're f***ed!', making a joke about the fact they were impregnated. It's very hard for a lot of people to laugh at that and just take it as a silly commentary. Like, it's a stupid video game and it's making fun of itself for being that.
It's one thing to be critical of a game's base content, but I dunno, I was mostly critical of the fact that DNF didn't feel good or play well. But that's just me!
Duke Nukem Forever: A Discussion with Randy Pitchford [Eurogamer]
The general manager for Xbox Live today told gamers of the more aggressive steps the service was taking to combat online fraud and phishing scams—like those that have <a href="
">recently generated a wave of bad publicity—while reminding everyone to take some steps that would make that job a lot easier.
In a post on the official Xbox blog, Alex Garden said Xbox Live has pursued legal action against online sites posting containing gamertags, usernames and passwords that criminals have used to break into and loot accounts. Purchases or account changes are being verified with security codes sent to mobile phones or to secondary email addresses, if the changes are made from an unfamiliar device. And, Garden pointedly reminded that not just sellers, but buyers "of known stolen accounts and content" face account and console bans, if not the risk of criminal prosecution.
All that said, "I encourage everyone to take five minutes today to check your security information and update it if necessary," Garden writes. "If you have any lost or stolen security proofs, update them now to prevent any interruptions to your Xbox Live service in the future."
The single most helpful step, Garden suggests, is making sure your Xbox Live password is different from that used to access other online services. "Sadly, 'password' and '12345' are still top of the most common password lists when we see breaches occur and passwords posted online," he writes.
Food for thought. In the U.S., fire safety officials use the change over from standard time to daylight saving time to remind everyone to check the batteries in their smoke detectors. It might be a good thing for some authority to designate a similar day for revisiting password security in all the accounts you most often use. For now, Xbox Live subscribers can start with July 18.
Take 5: Update Your Security Info Today [Xbox Live Blog]
This Wednesday edition of Kotaku's The Moneysaver catches all the offers, promotions and bargains that can't wait until the weekend. The Midweek Moneysaver is brought to you by Dealzon.
• Oct. 23rd release Playstation All Stars Battle Royale (PS3) is $47.99, free shipping from NewEgg. Ends Thursday. Next best is $60. [Dealzon]
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As always, smart gamers can find values any day of the week, so if you've run across a deal, share it with us in the comments.
At E3, EA Sports' top man—himself a mixed martial arts enthusiast who trains in the sport—was mum on the label's plans for how its surprise acquisition of the UFC license would fit into its publishing calendar—or which of its studios would even develop it. "The ink is still wet," on the deal, as Andrew Wilson (pictured at left) put it.
Well, it didn't take long to dry. EA Sports today confirmed that its EA Canada studio in Burnaby, B.C., the home of Fight Night, will be developing EA Sports UFC. This appears to be a provisional title, but probably as good as any, though people may just call it UFC the way they do with the NHL and FIFA franchises, also made in British Columbia.
The addition of the UFC license appears to have created a new division within EA Sports, the "Fighting Team," whose creative director is Brian Hayes, the gameplay design leader for Fight Night Round Three and Fight Night Champion. The general manager for the game oversees SSX and NHL as well.
"Most of the team didn't even know about [the new UFC game] until the announcement at E3," Hayes said. "We were all watching it together and when Andrew Wilson and [UFC president] Dana White (pictured at right) took the stage, everybody starting cheering. It was great."
EA Sports MMA, the label's previous mixed martial arts title, was developed at the EA Tiburon studio in Florida; its team has been reassigned to other projects—creative director Jason Barnes, for example, has switched to NBA Live 13.
No release date or platforms have been specified, but if Hayes was so closely associated with Fight Night it indicates that series may be on hold until the UFC-licensed MMA game arrives. Fight Night (and its predecessor, Knockout Kings) was originally an annual title, then went three years between 2006's Round 3 and 2009's Round 4. Fight Night Champion released to critical acclaim in 2011. At E3, when I suggested to Wilson that gamers would be looking for the next edition of the boxing series in 2013, he demurred on what the label's plans were for a sequel.
Attorneys in the class-action lawsuit alleging that EA Sports' exclusive publication of NFL football games constitutes an illegal monopoly last week told a judge that they have finalized settlement terms alluded to back in May, and that no later than a week from today, will file them with the court and a motion for the judge's approval of them.
In a quarterly filing back in May, Electronic Arts said it anticipated paying out a $27 million settlement sometime at the end of this year, but it didn't say what legal action it was related to.
This lawsuit, Pecover vs. Electronic Arts, was filed in July 2008 and alleged that the exclusive license EA Sports obtained from the NFL to make its Madden series allowed the publisher to raise prices on its video games by 70 percent. EA Sports' NCAA and its defunct Arena Football products also are involved. It is a class action, meaning anyone who bought one of those games made after Jan. 1, 2005 (not any mobile versions though) is eligible to part of the settlement, unless they chose to opt out.
If $27 million is indeed the settlement figure, it's likely that a large hunk of will pay legal fees, with the remainder divided among millions of customers in the form of some kind of coupon, rebate, or giveaway. Either way, we should know very soon. The filing is at the link below.
Pecover et al v. Electronic Arts Inc. [Justia via Pastapadre]
Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, the upcoming portable game in Ubisoft's hit franchise, is being overseen by the core AC team at Ubisoft Montreal. But the identity of the team doing the bulk of the work on the game was a surprise to me, when the game's writer told me today. That didn't surprise me as much as the identity of the game's fake developer.
First, the real developer: it's Ubisoft Sofia, the Bulgarian team that created the much-loved X-Com/Advance-Wars-style 3DS launch game Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars. They're not known for making open-world action games like the Assassin's Creeds, but my eyes-on impressions today of the game's E3 content sure makes it look like they know how to do this.
That's cool, but how about this?
The fake developer of the game is Abstergo Entertainment. This game, Liberation writer Richard Farrese told me with a rhetorical wink, is the commercialized version of the Animus. It is a product of Abstergo Industries. If you know the series, this is an extraordinary concept. The Animus is the name for the device in this series that lets people relive memories of their ancestors (or, if I'm getting the lore of the multiplayer of recent games right, the Animus will let you role-play a life in another era, like a Star Trek holo-deck). I don't think there have been any hints in the series that Abstergo wanted to sell Animus units to the public. And, if they did, considering that they're the bad guys of the modern-day parts of this series, to what end?
The game is set in late 18th-century New Orleans and the surrounding bayou over the course of a dozen years, as the local French rebel against the Spanish rulers of the former Louisiana colony. (There's also at least one side trip to Mexico.) The game's protagonist Aveline is, theoretically, an assassin hero who helps the resistance while taking aim at Templars. She is not an ancestor of Desmond Miles, Farrese told me, making her the first protagonist in the series without a family connection to Assassin's Creed's modern-day main character. Now I'm wondering if she was even a "real" figure in the game's world or a turncoat. After all, why would Abstergo, a company that essentially is a front for the Assassin-hating Templars, create and sell an Animus/game that lets regular people experience the life of an Assassin? Farrese said that was a good question to ask.
The idea of the game as an Abstergo propaganda tool makes Liberation suddenly seem much more interesting. I was not able to play the game. Farrese played it in front of me. So I can't yet say how smoothly it maps to the Vita controls. But it looks lovely and seems to house some clever ideas, such as an optional pause-the-game-and-tap-your-enemies-to-set-up-an-attack-chain combo system and the ability to pickpocket people using the machine's rear touch panel (why, I never!)
We'll have more on the game closer to its October launch. But for now, feel free to wonder: what would Abstergo be up to making a game like this?
Commenter Normalaatsra has never told his parents or brother his darkest secret: he loves Tekken. For many people this would not be a problem. So why is Normalaatsra hiding the disc from his family? Find out in today's very special episode of Speak Up on Kotaku.
I just bought Tekken 6 from a friend of mine who was selling it because his baby brother accidentally reformatted his PS3 which fortunately did not delete save files, but his huge music and anime collection (and wasn't raging about it)! He decided to sell the games he doesn't want to play anymore, and Tekken 6's post-game completion slump is as high as a building, and also the fact that Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is coming out very soon in 2 months. As a secret Tekken fan, I would love to take this opportunity to start really get the Tekken experience that I would have at home by buying my first Tekken game, since I secretly play Tag Tournament 2 at the local arcade with no luck with real-life opponents.
When I got home my mother was at home. That's when I started getting anxious about popping the game into my PS3 straight away.
I had always kept a pacifist nature to my brother and my parents when it comes to gaming. Because of that, I play lots of racing games, never anything else outside of that genre, or related to that like, and as a result, I was not bothered by my parents on what I was playing. However I was an outcast for other gamers, since I stood by racing games whenever my pals are out playing shooters. But I did play these other games when I'm with someone else, I sucked so badly, but the experience is amazingly fun.
I became more aware of Tekken when I started learning about the story of it. That time Tekken 6 was released to arcades, brand new. And it's there where I took the courage to try it. I became fascinated, obsessed, and became a fanboy within days! Tekken is awesome.
But now I'm just shy of what I am playing in front of my TV. At the arcades, I've already got myself playing Time Crisis 4, although I rarely get past Stage 1. A direct result of keeping it with the racing genre. If it wasn't for a faraway arcade, I would never have had the chance to come out secretly and accept what I am doing.
Still keeping quiet on what I was playing, I downloaded the Mirror's Edge demo on to my PS3, and my dad showed up behind me, saying that it's a stupid game (he doesn't like crazy sports action). I freaked out. But last year I secretly purchased Portal 2 and Mirror's Edge for PC while on vacation. I showed Portal 2 to my brother who was looking for a Mac game other than The Sims 3. Then he exclaimed "What is this, a shooting game?" I had remained silent since. And that's not all. Playing Mirror's Edge on the laptop, my dad overheard the sounds of machine gun firing. He asked me why I was playing a game with shooting involved.. I bluffed out that it was the sound of helicopters shooting me in Need for Speed The Run.
Right now I have stashed my Tekken 6 disc underneath piles of socks in a drawer, and have no plans to touch it when my parents are at home. I could not hide my new found likes any longer from my family! I guess I need help coming out.
Photo by Suzanne Tucker / Shutterstock
Rumors are swirling that Capcom Vancouver, the development studio behind Dead Rising 2, has laid off multiple people.
One source contacted Kotaku to tell us he knew several people who were laid off today. Multiple people also reported the layoffs both on Twitter and the gaming message board NeoGAF.
Yesterday on Twitter in response to news that BioWare Austin had laid off employees, a recruiter for Capcom Vancouver said they were hiring.
I've reached out to Capcom for comment and will update should they respond.
Update: Our source has just informed us that there is a company-wide meeting scheduled for 3pm Pacific Time.
Update 2: In response to Kotaku's request for comment, Capcom sent us the following statement: "Capcom Vancouver has laid off 20 staff as part of its regular periodic assessment of overall studio goals. The studio is actively hiring talented staff to support its goal of delivering high quality games."
If you've been to a lot of concerts, chances are you've talked smack about an opening act. It's something of a time-honored tradition—we don't really want to see opening bands! They are, after all, just warming us up for the show we paid to see.
Sometimes talking smack on an opening act will get you in trouble, even if you only do it on Twitter. Sometimes, it'll even get you kicked out of the show.
That very thing happened last night to Mike Taylor, who writes for the gaming site Game-Boat.com. Taylor was attending a show by nerdcore rapper Christopher "MC Chris" Ward in Philadelphia last night, when a tweet critical of the opening act got him ejected from the show.
UPDATE - MC Chris has since posted an apology video.
According to an account posted on Kotaku's Talk Amongst Yourselves forum, Taylor was unimpressed with one of the opening acts, Richie Branson. "I felt his lyrics were lame and pandering to us gamers and other assorted nerd fans," Taylor writes. "I also didn't think his delivery was good and his beats were mostly sampled from others songs and music (from games, anime and whatnot. I didn't like any of it."
So, Taylor tweeted the following:
![Geek Rap Star Kicks Fan Out Of Concert Over Tweet [Update] Geek Rap Star Kicks Fan Out Of Concert Over Tweet [Update]](http://img.gawkerassets.com/post/9/2012/07/taylortweet.jpg)
I spoke with MC Chris on the phone, and he explained what happened when he saw the tweet. "I was in my green room checking on my Twitter," he said. "During the show, someone tweeted something negative about Richie. And I don't have a problem with stuff like this. I get made fun of and called all sorts of name every day. But if someone messes with my friend I have this weird reaction that happens, and I do things that probably are kind of not normal, abnormal. I just become extremely protective.
"I marched onstage, and in between songs with Richie, I grabbed the microphone and I said 'Who is this person's name,' he came up, and I said, 'You're going to have to go off with somebody with the venue and tell them to escort you off for talking shit on Twitter.'"
From Taylor's account:
I walked out to the lobby, grabbed a soda and was sitting there when I heard the crowd went nuts and mc chris started talking, and I heard him ask for my real name. My friend and I looked at each other confused and heard him ask for it again. I got up, walked back onto the floor and raised my hand. He then pointed at me and yelled, "Security is going to take you the fuck out now! That's what you get for talking shit on Twitter!"
"People can say whatever they want on Twitter," MC Chris told me. "I'm not naive, I understand what Twitter is. This is an MC Chris show. It's different than other shows. You're not at a Sleigh Bells concert talking about the opening act. You're at my show, where we're all nerds, we've all been bullied, we've all suffered, and now we're together, we're having a good time, and we're not talking trash on each other while we're in the same building together."
Taylor felt differently:
As you could imagine, my combination of humiliation, shock and disappointment wasn't great. I've been a diehard mc chris fan since about 2004, with plenty of fond memories of listening to Life's a Bitch and I'm Her Pimp and Eating's Not Cheating on repeat while commuting back and forth to college. This situation kinda sullies those memories. I realize my tweet is snarky, but I'm a smartass and I can understand a guy being mad and protective of his opener. However, publicly kicking out a long-time paying fan because they tweeted a negative response about the opener of your show? Are you serious? I realize what I said was petty, but how immature is it to publicly humiliate someone for something tweeted to just my hundred (which are mostly bots) or so followers? Am I not allowed to have a negative opinion? Didn't mc chris just post a video on Youtube not long ago criticizing the Avengers movie for screwing up Hawkeye? Should the producers of the movie publicly embarrassed him and Marvel cut off his comic book description? No, they're bigger than that, and he should be too.
In an email to Kotaku, Taylor explained that the venue gave him his money back, and that even after he was escorted out, he asked if he could stay.
"When I was escorted out to the lobby," Taylor said, "no one put their hands on me or anything a security worker politely asked me to come with him and I walked out under my own power, MC Chris's tour manager was waiting for me, as were representatives for Union Transfer, the venue. The tour manager apologized, saying that Chris has thrown out fans from his concerts before for other slights. The tour manager and venue worker asked me to please leave without a fuss. I expressed to them my sadness and disbelief, letting them know I wasn't angry and I wanted to let Chris know I'm a huge fan of his and would like to stick around. They advised me it wouldn't be a good idea, they wouldn't want other fans to point me out or for Chris to see me there. They simply gave me my cash back and I left, promising I held nothing against them."
MC Chris concurred that this isn't the first time he's kicked fans out of his concerts. "I've had people hold up Nintendo DSs that say 'You Suck' to my openers," he told me. "I kick those people out. Because it's rude. It's not because they have opinions and I'm Hitler and I don't like opinions, it's because they're being rude at a nerd show! You don't go to Comic Con and call everyone a geek and push them down."
I asked him if he sees a difference between behavior that's actually disruptive at a show, like holding up signs or being loud or dunk, and non-disruptive behavior like Twitter criticism.
"Is Twitter different than [a drunk fan]? Yeah, sure. It's something that's passive aggressive, and it's a stealthy attack, and no one knows it's happening. And it can just float on by into the ether and never be noticed again. And it probably should've stayed that way, you know, I definitely know my fiancee would prefer it if I left things alone. You know…[laughs], what can I tell you? I hate passive aggressiveness, I hate people insulting my friends and thinking they can get away with it. This guy insulted my openers and thinks he can go and see Powerglove and MC Chris afterwards. That's not how it works. You have to be polite for the people who are performing for you. It doesn't sound crazy to me when I say it out loud. "
Taylor urges caution to those who would attend MC Chris shows in the future. "I feel gamers and other fans have a right to know that if they go to an MC Chris show, make sure to keep your opinions to yourself, you might find yourself kicked out for not praising him or his crew."
For MC Chris' part, he says he's not going to react to further online criticism. "I'm gonna give my phone to my fiancee for the rest of the day and I'm not allowed to tweet anymore. It'll definitely happen again tonight, and I'm not going to react to it. I want to say to everyone: you can say whatever you want at a show. You can do whatever you like. I'm probably not going to react every time."
However, he still urges that his fans be mindful about what they say—and tweet. "Just because it's America doesn't mean anything goes. And just because we have technology doesn't mean we can say whatever we want."