There are no guaranteed successes in the video game industry, but it never hurts to get a game on as many platforms as possible. Pocketwatch Games’ Monaco: What's Yours is Mine had a strong debut on the PC and Mac, and while many people might assume that the XBLA version would also find success, multiple factors that were out of the hands of the game’s creator lead to a great deal of disappointment.
In a post on Reddit, creator Andy Schatz discussed just what went wrong with the console port of this robbery simulator. One of the major issues that he addressed was the unexpected delay, which stemmed from an Xbox-exclusive bug that essentially broke the game’s cooperative features. It wasn’t detected until after certification, and caused the studio plenty of problems.
"I was never depending on the Xbox being our primary revenue generator, but I was very disappointed in Xbox sales nonetheless," Schatz said. "We put a ton of effort porting the game, and to have that effort be largely wasted was really disappointing.”
The second major issue Schatz tackled was the game’s demo, which he felt wasn’t a strong representation feature depth in the game.
“I don't think the demo was particularly strong… so it could be that the game wouldn't have done better on Xbox even if it had a simultaneous launch (though IMO it would have performed at least twice as well),” he continued. "We had to submit two patches, and luckily they had already relaxed the charges for that process about a month prior."
We’ve heard this story before from vocal members of the community. Many of the policies and practices Microsoft incorporates into its downloadable market just aren’t developer friendly, but Schatz understands that he shouldn’t sit around and bash the company that just helped publish his game.
"As for Microsoft's treatment of us through the process… well we had a publisher (Majesco) that buffered us from them. I don't really feel like it's a good idea to piss in the pool, so whatever complaints I have I think it's best that I keep them between me, Majesco, and Microsoft," he concluded.
