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Is Exclusivity Hurting Digital Downloads?
Posted by Maggie Greene at 6:30 AM on July 14, 2008
Gamasutra has an interesting look at the issue of casual portal exclusives and how such exclusives may be hurting the casual games industry — and pulling developers into a no-win fray. Russell Carroll compares the digital milieu to regular retail establishments: "I can't imagine having to go to Target to get EA games and to Wal-Mart to get Activision games", and notes that this could be a good thing if it winds up being a Pepsi/Coke type thing (which, frankly, I can't quite imagine, since beverages and games are just slightly different animals). And what of the poor developers?:
One of the most intriguing pieces of this new battle is how it brings the developers into the fray. Developers must choose between having exclusivity on one portal, potentially limiting their distribution, or fully distributing on all portals, and missing out on the rewards that exclusivity can bring.
There are certainly arguments that can be made as to which is the financially better approach, and certainly there is no clear path that is always financially more viable, but regardless of what path is chosen, developers are choosing a path that aligns them with one portal's approach or another's.
Developers are being unwittingly recruited into the battle and are at the forefront of the current skirmish, and as it true of all battles, those on the front lines are the most likely to be injured by the fighting.
Carroll notes that while exclusivity may be a positive thing for individual portals, it's bad for the industry on the whole; the developers are still losing out, since they're treading on uncertain ground when weighing the potential benefits of exclusive titles versus wide ranging distribution.
'Coopetition' - Digital Distribution's Enemy? [Gamasutra]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
BoringJob
Posted 6:58 AM 14/7/08
While they're are gems on each of the 3 consoles, I'm all for 'casual' gaming dying.
Why are companies catering to people who don't want their product? It makes no sense.
BoringJob
Sugaray
Posted 6:54 AM 14/7/08
How many casual games are successful and actually make money? Developing a casual game exclusively for XBL Arcade is going to involve a helluva lot less risk than developing the same game for 3 consoles and watching it fail across three platforms instead of failing across one.Fact remains that MOST casual games don't make money thus making it less of a risk and a loss on one console than three.
Sugaray
iFlingPoo
Posted 6:50 AM 14/7/08
I'm not afraid of big business, I'm afraid of BAD business. Exclusivity limits my freedom as a consumer.
iFlingPoo
iFlingPoo
Posted 6:48 AM 14/7/08
@MOP88: Then I can go somewhere else :P
iFlingPoo
Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc
Posted 6:48 AM 14/7/08
@MOP88: Isn't it on Steam now?
Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc
MOP88
Posted 6:47 AM 14/7/08
@iFlingPoo: And what happens when your wee little shop becomes a corporate behemoth? No retail business was founded with warehouses full of products. Remember, Samsung started as rice grinding company.
MOP88
iFlingPoo
Posted 6:44 AM 14/7/08
As a concious consumer, it is nice to be able to go to a store you want to support, and not some evil corporate entity, ehem... *walmart*, and buy the games I want.
iFlingPoo
MOP88
Posted 6:42 AM 14/7/08
@sarusa: True. I would have bought PA game, but since it is not on steam... Well, what reason did they have for not putting it there?
I might get it for XBLA however...
MOP88
sarusa
Posted 6:39 AM 14/7/08
This is true. I have Steam. I am not signing up now for Gametap and EA's crappy download service or Penny Arcade's crappy download service or whatever. If it's not on Steam or outright purchasable so it's not locked down to a portal I'm not going to bother buying it, even for casual games.
sarusa
Moonshadow101
Posted 6:36 AM 14/7/08
@Clarke: /slap
Peggle does not have any negative effect on GTAIV.
Moonshadow101
Clarke
Posted 6:33 AM 14/7/08
"Hurting the casual games industry"? I don't think any of us have a problem with that.
Clarke
mistake
Posted 7:28 AM 14/7/08
Actually it's very easy for casual games to make money because their development costs are minimal.
mistake
Narishma
Posted 7:57 AM 14/7/08
MOP88: Penny Arcade's game is on Steam now. I guess the reason they didn't choose it when the game came out is that Steam only works on Windows and they needed something that supported Mac and Linux too.
Narishma
perrinbar
Posted 7:55 AM 14/7/08
Show of hands: Who actually read the article?.....
That's what I thought.
The point of the piece is more a discussion of publishing exclusivity on developers and the major casual game portals. Is it worth it for the portals to hold a game to an exclusive because they can get better sales? What does that do to the customer base? It's an interesting subject and one that doesn't hurt us "hardcore gamers" at all. So all you idiots with the "casual games can die" crap should really educate yourself. How does having less diversity help? Taking ideas from casual games is a good thing! Besides, they aren't poaching developers or dollars from hardcore games, it's just a different industry.
perrinbar
arstal
Posted 7:50 AM 14/7/08
Other companies are copying Steam's Model. Stardock and Paradox off the top of my head. Paradox is going for a simpler model for strategy games, while Stardock seems to want to go after Steam directly. Impulse right now is like Steam when it started, but will end up running better, cause Stardock tends to code better then most game devs given their background.
As for Casual games, the way I look at it. Are Casual Game players spending dollars now that they would have spent on say, a game I like instead? Probably not, so it's not hurting the stuff I care about at all.
arstal
toejam316
Posted 7:37 AM 14/7/08
I'm staying with Steam, no way in hell they can get me off it now. You know why?
STEAM IS UNIFIED. Valve are truly making a effort, and it shows. Go and take a look at Steam V1. It was horrific, at best. Steam V2, a disaster. Steam V3, a noticeable improvement. And now look at Steam (which is still technically V3), it's come a hell of a long way. With a unified friends list, and open tools for developers to implement into their games (and by open, I mean they don't have to pay through the nose for them, or even pay), and they make it affordable for indy developers to get out to the wider market.
toejam316
samdu
Posted 9:12 AM 14/7/08
Bad analogy. As you have to, today, go to a store to pick up games that can only be played on a particular console. Digital distribution of exclusive content is no different than brick and mortar distribution of exclusive content.
samdu
Talleh
Posted 9:01 AM 14/7/08
While stores might not have exclusivity, there is the situation where one will refuse to carry it. Like if Gametap suddenly wanted to get Steam to carry old console games, they'd probably refuse(well not really, but lets say they would for this case). The same way that Walmart refuses to carry games with certain ratings, or just certain games all together.
As for exclusivity hurting casual games, unless someone DESPERATELY wants to get a certain casual game, which kinda contradicts the thing about casual games and them just being impulse buys, there really wont be an issue.
What might become an issue, is if each publisher has their own distribution service. Do I REALLY need to install the EA downloader? Didn't THQ's service go belly up because nobody used it? Consolidation could be a good thing, for the universality of say, Steam's chat functions that I can use in any game that I have, or haven't bought on steam. The ability to easily sort and search through games without the worry that some aren't available or belong to another group.
Talleh
mustang
Posted 8:54 AM 14/7/08
There's and has always been vendor lock-ins and exclusivity deals in all spheres of gamming. From consoles to windows and delivery services.
This has always limited developers/producers to reach consumers and consumers to reach games/content.
mustang
deathtastic
Posted 9:20 AM 14/7/08
Eventually Walmart is going to employ it's own private military and take over a couple countries.
deathtastic
Kia
Posted 10:17 AM 14/7/08
Wait, what? What the hell is a "portal?" I'm not hip on this weird PC lingo.
Regardless, to hell with exclusive distribution. Steam has never EVER worked on my PC (which isn't low-spec by any means), produces an error, and yet Valve has shown themselves to be completely incompetent by never answering -any- of the support tickets I've opened.
Thanks to this complete crap, I have no way to play Audiosurf, a game that's been attracting me since Day 1. Thanks a hell of a lot, Valve. Really.
Now go F yourselves.
Kia
Ryuujin1024
Posted 10:52 AM 14/7/08
@Kia: No offence but if mostly all other people can run it then you should look to your own computer for answers.
Ryuujin1024
karateka
Posted 11:54 AM 14/7/08
Well I know I didn't get that special Metal Gear exclusivee thing they have at Gamestop and opted for the regular MGS when it came out in stores. I'm not going to go get something if I have to get it at one place only. I like to have choices. I don't really care if the game is exclusive or not, but I don't want to buy a game because it's multiplatform and no one bother to take advantage of a hardware's capability. What if the game play and look the same as a wii game when you own a 360? You'd be pissed. What if MGS4 was a lot shorter because it was made with the 360 in mind. I think some people likes exclusives because they know it is develope for that particular platform and it's given the best effort rather than a washed down version of a game.
karateka
dowingba
Posted 3:08 PM 14/7/08
Is there a non-digital type of download?
dowingba
Strangelove
Posted 12:09 AM 15/7/08
I would say yes. I prefer to get a physical copy of every game I buy, but if I can't find one or I'm too lazy, I'll get it on Steam, but only if it's available on Steam. I haven't used any of the other services besides Steam for digital downloads (with the exception of XBL).
Strangelove
fuchikoma
Posted 1:38 AM 15/7/08
I can't imagine having to go to Target to get EA games and to Wal-Mart to get Activision games, but if you consider the situation to be more like Pepsi and Coke, then it is conceivable that it may be helping the industry.
The author is a Coke fan!
If you want Pepsi, good luck finding it at a fast food place, restaurant, or campus! If things were like Coke and Pepsi, then you'd have to go to a little warehouse style game store to buy something that wasn't EA.
Anyway, I can see why they wouldn't want to host another store's game after an exclusive launch. No one wants to be caught holding the Tamagotchi once the craze dies, lol...
fuchikoma