Microsoft apologizes for being past due on XBLIG dev payments

Microsoft has publicly apologized for a delay in its most recent round of payments to a number of Xbox Live Indie Games developers after a member of the Destructoid community published a blog post taking the company to task over the missing money. When reached for comment, a Microsoft representative confirmed the delay to Gamasutra and gave the following statement: "Due to a technical issue in our system, we recently learned that some payments to select developers in the Xbox Live Indie Games program on Xbox 360 were delayed." "Our partners are important to us and we work hard to help make sure they have a great development experience. This was an unfortunate error and we are working hard to fix it. We apologize for this incident and anticipate developers will receive payments within the next two weeks." However, in speaking to developers Gamasutra learned that Microsoft is often late on making payments to Xbox Live Indie Games developers; so often, in fact, that some of those affected didn't much notice or care that this most recent round of payments was late. Ska Studios (Charlie Murder) founder James Silva confirmed that his latest XBLIG payment from Microsoft is 1-2 weeks later than usual, but noted that it's almost par for the course. "I wouldn't flip out about it," Silva told Gamasutra. "I swear they've been way later in the past." Magical Time Bean's Ian Stocker (Escape Goat 2) added that he couldn't recall experiencing significant XBLIG payment delays, but that he also stopped paying much attention to Microsoft's pay schedule after XBLIG faded from the market. While developer interest in XBLIG may have dwindled, the "do-it-yourself" console game service served as a career-making springboard for a number of proactive indie game makers during its heyday; many of them shared their stories with Gamasutra in a recent feature about the enduring value of Xbox Live Indie Games.