Chickens Can't Fly returns to Windows Phone without Xbox features. Get the inside story here

Last month, Microsoft pulled 11 Xbox games from the Windows Telephone Store, 10 of which had used Microsoft Points as the payment method for their In-App Purchases. At the time, we speculated that only a few games would return at all, and generally stripped of their Xbox features.

Today the first of those delisted games has returned: Chickens Can't Fly. Unfortunately, it has indeed returned as an indie game. Only hey, at least Windows Telephone gamers can play it again – if they repurchase. We can't place the blame for this on developer Amused Sloth, though. They've but posted a lengthy caption for change on their web log. Equally you might look, stripping the game of its Xbox features came from a higher ability...

The road to Xbox Alive

Before nosotros continue, be aware that I'k going to be critical of Microsoft in this story. Most of the difficult stuff and whatever information that wasn't part of Amused Sloth'south blog post comes from my research and separate sources – NOT Tickled Sloth, who are taking a diplomatic arroyo to this state of affairs.

Chickens Tin't Fly arrived on Windows Phone 7 back in February 2022. The month before that, Microsoft's interest in creating, funding, and/or publishing Xbox games for Windows Phone had just dried up thanks to the executive Karl Stricker's departure as the Xbox LIVE Senior Business Manager. But the programs and projects Stricker had created during his tenure would linger on for a while, including the Must Have Games promotion which ran for its 2nd and final time that February.

Independent of Karl, Microsoft has long held a restrictive policy that requires Xbox games for whatsoever platform to have an established publisher who has shipped retail Xbox games. Ostensibly, the policy was created to… Okay, I tin can't think of a way to whitewash information technology.

The policy was created to restrict indie developers from publishing their games. If an indie really wanted to release an Xbox game, they had to sign on with a publisher and share some of the profits from the game. That policy has apparently been lifted on the Xbox 360, just this story proves that it notwithstanding exists on Windows Phone.

Xbox games have higher visibility and a more than aristocracy status perception than indie games. They besides include Achievements that integrate with a user's Xbox Live/Microsoft profile, which many Windows Phone gamers consider a major selling bespeak. Amused Sloth wanted their sequel to indie game Chickens Can Dream to be Xbox branded, and so they signed up with Microsoft Studios as the publisher.

The Microsoft Points conundrum

Amused Sloth had greater aspirations for Chickens Tin't Fly than just Xbox Achievements. They likewise worked to include unlockable Xbox Avatar items and In-App Purchases in their game. They would take even offered extra Achievements along with the paid DLC Dojo level, had they not been prevented from doing so by inexplicable Xbox Windows Phone policies. Only one Windows Phone game was ever allowed that privilege: Babaroga'southward Zombies!!!, another game that eventually got delisted due to its unmarried In-App Purchase.

Adding In-App Purchases to the 15 or so Windows Phone 7 games that offered them would prove challenging for developers.  Windows Telephone 7 did not (and still doesn't) natively support IAPs when it launched in 2022, despite the fact that IAPs were already a standard offer in mobile games and apps, not to mention console games, at that time. Native IAPs would not come along until the launch of Windows Phone eight in Nov 2022.

Rather than updating Windows Telephone 7 to natively comprise In-App Purchases, Microsoft's solution in 2022 was to create a framework for developers to use that accepted Microsoft Points as currency. This despite the fact that Microsoft Points could never be used to buy the Windows Phone games themselves. Here is where the train started to exit the tracks…

See, the framework for accepting Microsoft Points was fabricated available Merely to Xbox developers. Indie games and apps simply couldn't use information technology. Fifty-fifty now, in that location is no built-in way for Windows Telephone vii developers to sell items and goods through their games or apps.

Some games like MonsterUp Adventures accept offered purchases through a separate website that can and so exist redeemed within the game itself (The Windows Phone 8 version of the game has IAPS built in). Other games similar the Windows Phone 7 version of Ragdoll Run have opted to use Fortumo'due south carrier-based billing model for IAPs.

Death sentence

Beards & Beaks from Microsoft Studios

Shirking the non-Xbox developers wasn't the real trouble with incorporating Microsoft Points every bit the sole payment method for Xbox Windows Phone 7 IAPs though. The Real reason it should never take been done is that Microsoft Points were already on their mode out.

Windows Telephone Primal has learned from multiple sources that Microsoft knew that a transition from Points to regional currency was in the works at the same time the Windows Phone 7 IAP framework was developed in tardily 2022. In fact, we covered that verbal rumor in Jan 2022 – simply every bit Gravity Guy became the start third-party Windows Phone 7 game with IAPs (Microsoft's Beards & Beaks was the commencement 1st-party title in August 2022).

Knowing that the IAP method was not future proof and that whatever Windows Phone game to accept Microsoft Points as payment would take its IAPs broken by the transition to regional currency, Microsoft yet provided that payment framework to Xbox developers. They sent Chickens Tin can't Fly, Zombies!!!, Tentacles, and several other games out to dice.

In Baronial 2022, Microsoft Points were finally decommissioned. The next month, 10 of the Windows Phone seven games that accustomed them for IAPs got pulled from the Store.

Publisher apathy

While the loss of a game's IAPs volition be damaging to its revenue construction, the majority of the delisted games were not gratis to play. They could have been updated to remove their IAPs without doing much impairment. Makes sense, right?

Well, the decision to update a game doesn't fall on the programmer; information technology's up to the publisher. "The pick to do the update was out of our easily," Catalin Zima-Zegreanu of Amused Sloth explains. And this is why you don't want Microsoft to publish your Windows Phone game. Microsoft, the platform holder and company behind the Windows Phone 7 IAP debacle, has opted non to update any of the afflicted games information technology published. Chickens Can't Fly, Tentacles, and Beards & Beaks will not be returning to Xbox Alive.

It would be and then easy to disable the IAPs in those games and return them to the Store with removing their Xbox features. It'due south not like the source code was lost or annihilation. When publishing a simple title update is too much trouble, it looks like Microsoft just doesn't care well-nigh supporting Xbox games on Windows Telephone any more.

Many gamers had hoped that the restructuring of the arrangement instituted by Steve Ballmer before his departure would lead to meliorate decision making towards Windows Phone games. But clearly decisions similar pulling these games and not allowing them to be updated come from someone who is apathetic (if non hostile) towards games.

Chickens Tin can still fly though

Thankfully, Chickens Tin can't Wing is a high quality game that tin can alive on without Xbox back up. Tickled Sloth released an iOS version a few weeks ago, followed by the Android version this week.

Now Chickens Can't Wing has returned to Windows Telephone 7 and viii as an indie game as well. The game still costs 99 cents, but now includes the previous IAPs for free. It also runs at sixty frames per 2d, whereas the previous version only ran at 30. The former Xbox Achievements are still available as in-game Achievements, though non beingness able to share them with friends removes some of their luster.

Gamers who bought the Xbox Windows Telephone version of Chickens Can't Wing tin seek a refund through Microsoft by heading to the Xbox support website and initiating a support conversation. I personally scored refunds on 2 (!) of the xi delisted games, although I ain all 11. If y'all really like Chickens, make sure you grab the indie version. Amused Sloth created a great game and they deserve our continued back up.

• Chickens Can't Wing – Windows Phone 7 and eight – 46 MB – $.99 – Store Link

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/chickens-cant-fly-returns-windows-phone

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