Curve Studios, the developer of Stealth Inc., has spoken out against Microsoft's controversial parity clause, which is causing developers grief--particularly among small development studios.
In case you're not aware, Microsoft requires developers to adhere to a parity clause that limits the ability of developers to publish their games in the order they'd like. Within the rules of the clause, studios can only release their games on Xbox One if the titles are no available on another platform first.
This ensures that Microsoft is getting the release of many games first or, at the least, alongside other systems if the developers ever want their titles to appear on Xbox One, giving small studios in particular a headache. Speaking to IGN, Curve Studios marketing manager Rob Clarke expressed his frustrations.
"For us, it's an annoyance. It's preventing us from bringing some of the older stuff through and doing what we want. There's 40 of us, and we're still saying we should be able to work around it, so you can imagine how hard it is for smaller developers in one and two man teams who are faced with having to release on PlayStation and Xbox simultaneously. We'll hopefully be on the Xbox One at some stage."
The studio is clearly irritated with the rules, which I'm sure reflect the feelings of many studios in the industry. Most small developers can't financially justify skipping the Xbox One entirely, though, so they're often left with no choice but to rush both releases out together.
"We've been with ID@Xbox since launch. We weren't in the initial announcement only because it conflicted with something going on with Sony at the time. We've had the kits for a long time and we've been talking to them for a long time about Xbox One. Almost six months. Hopefully we'll get there soon, but then that's because we're big enough to handle the launch parity thing.
"Hopefully Microsoft will drop it. They've been told by a lot of the industry it'd be better if they did, but they haven't yet. It's a shame. The frustrating thing for a lot of developers is they have dropped it for a lot of people, but it's not very clear why.
"Is it a case of size? Is it a case of how well you know people at the company? It's not a great way to treat indies because they see it as being unbalanced. I went to a UKIE talk about how to get your game on Microsoft systems, and a lot of the reaction seemed to be the demand was there among the developers, but it just isn't clear."
It's a business advantage for Microsoft to be sure (as long as it doesn't frustrate enough developers to the point where studios are abandoning the system), but it's unfortunate that the company is enforcing rules that are making it difficult for small developers--perhaps they eventually reconsider.
