Yesterday we brought you some information lifted from an interview ID@Xbox that highlighted some confusing points that seem to contradict the Xbox One Parity Clause. In a separate interview on a related subject, the creator of the succesful Kickstarter funded game Hyper Light Drifter, Alex Preston, has expressed his own opinion.
Speaking on The Inner Circle, Preston said, “It’s been great[ID@Xbox]. I’ve talked to a few of people now. Chris Charla was the person that we hooked up with to get involved in the first place. He’s awesome. He’s a great evangelist for indies on the platform. We’ve had a few other interactions and it’s been a very smooth experience overall. No complaints from me on them.”
He goes on to comment on the ID@Xbox program and says that there are problems on Sony’s end too, despite their platform being considerably more Indie friendly, he said, “The program has its issues like any program would that’s part of a large corporation. These problems exist on Sony’s side too, which is very indie friendly these days. Everyone solves their issues. Overall, it’s a marked improvement over last generation including the way they interact with people and the response time. It’s all been a very positive experience on our end. There are kinks that need to be worked out and the parity clause can be problematic. Overall, it’s much harder to complain about these programs now than it was 4-5 years ago.”
Having highlighted the fact that there are problems on both sides of the fence, Preston continues on to say that the Parity Clause can be a hindrance to smaller developers, but that he understands why it is in place. He said, “It’s a hinderance for smaller developers. I get why Microsoft have it in there for larger developers. Developers like us, even with the money we made on Kickstarter, find that a game is really expensive to make. People with even smaller budgets find it harder. You’re forcing them to do a lot of work up front to get on your platform instead of doing it when they can. You’re either telling them you can’t be on our platform, or spend $30,000 extra to get on here at the same time as you would on Sony’s platform.”
His final words seem to perfectly encapsulate the current situation, “It’s corporate culture. It’s small entities within larger entities, within all these different things. It’s complicated.”
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