Controversy Clocking Episode 1: The Mess that is the Exclusivity Deal

Welcome to a series I call Controversy Clocking; in it I’ll be commenting on numerous controversies and bad business decisions in gaming (and possibly the film industry) while also looking at any positive steps that have been taken to ensure they don’t happen again. For this first episode I’m putting exclusivity on the chopping block, specifically that seen on modern gaming consoles.

The business surrounding the exclusivity deal has recently become very messy and the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One are the prime offenders, putting out large sums of money to buy out companies in a bid to get more units sold. It all gets rather confusing when you have games like Star Wars: Battlefront and Call of Duty Black Ops 3; titles which have exclusive betas and early access on Xbox One and early map packs on PlayStation 4.

Unfortunately the bad decisions surrounding exclusivity went a step further, with companies taking games which originally released on all platforms simultaneously and forcing consumers to wait for the sequel to come out on the opposite platforms many months down the line. The most infamous case of this was Microsoft’s acquisition of Rise of the Tomb Raider last year; many of the fans acted with outrage to the decision, a vast majority declaring that they would not buy an Xbox One just for the game. The anger still continues to this day, more so from the PlayStation crowd who were especially frustrated at having to wait all the way to the fourth quarter of 2016. Sure enough, Square Enix recently came out to officially confirm that the game would arrive on both the PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016. One of the biggest problems with these kinds of deals is that they’re so vague with how they came about; while some may say that Bayonetta 2 wouldn’t have existed without support from Nintendo, others are quick to call out Microsoft and Sony for bribing other companies. What is the difference between supporting the developer and straight up bribery? It’s always been hard to tell given how the transparency of companies could be better.

One of the main tactics employed in exclusivity deals nowadays is something I like to call “sugar-coating”; the process goes as follows…

Step 1: A company makes an announcement of a game, presenting it as an exclusive to their system. This is sometimes accompanied by a brief message stating “First on this console” which quickly flashes by, missing the common viewer.

Step 2: The inquests from the gaming community begin, asking whether or not the title is a full or timed exclusive. Both the console manufacturer and the game developer who took the payment either misdirect or refuse to answer the question, prompting wild speculation and guessing games.

Step 3: Several months roll on and the community still has no answer to their question; the sugar coating finally ends and the game company confirms a release date on other platforms (which we recently saw with Rise of the Tomb Raider on PS4 and PC).

I recently went over to a friend’s house to play some Smash Bros for the Wii U and I also showed him the trailer for the Final Fantasy 7 HD remake; he was really excited for the game and turned to me afterwards saying “Looks like I’ll have to get a PS4 to play the game”. I then pointed out that the message at the end said “Play it first on PlayStation 4”, implying that the game may come to PC at some point. It was interesting to see this kind of sugar-coating working on people; had I not pointed out that the remake may well have been a timed exclusive, he may well have gone on to put down the money for a PlayStation 4. As much I hate to admit it, these kinds of deals do work to a certain extent; why else would the companies keep paying out for them if they didn’t convince people?

What have the exclusivity deals done? Ignited the fanboy wars, angered fanbases and above all else, confuse and mislead consumers. Content in multi-platform releases and franchises that were once multi-platform should not be split off in this way and ultimately the deals really don’t have any point to them. If the content is going to come out on other systems anyway then why do it?

The aftermath

Thankfully when it comes to exclusivity deals, a positive move was made recently; Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox recently came forward to say that there wouldn’t be any more third-party deals like the one they did for Rise of the Tomb Raider. Instead Xbox will focus on its first party content in the future and this is the right choice to make. While exclusive content may be here to stay, it’s good to see that Microsoft saw and took on-board the anger and frustration from the gaming community and chose to cut back on these kinds of decisions.