Welcome to Respawning’s Games Club! The purpose of this is to get a bunch of us together every Monday to allow us the chance to chat shit about whatever takes our fancy in the world of video games and discuss what we’re currently playing.
With Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice soon to be launching on Xbox One, and Insomniac Games outright telling fans that their new Spiderman title will NEVER come to Xbox One, we thought now is an appropriate time to discuss our thoughts on Timed Exclusives!!
Will
Good god, all the mixed feelings.
So, since I see games as a new and important art form (Yeah, I’m kinda pretentious like that), I’m opposed to the idea of exclusivity. I want people to be able to experience games no matter what console they can afford to buy. But, as a realist, I see that some games (See: Bayonetta 2) just wouldn’t exist without it. Sometimes exclusivity brings in that much-needed cash boost to bring a game into existence, something I also want to happen. The more quality games that exist, expanding our medium, the better. Sometimes that means restricting to a single console. Sometimes, that means making the console yourself, so you can focus on making the best use of the hardware – ‘the Nintendo approach’.
But, times exclusives confuse me somewhat. Maybe this is something I’ll understand more when I have some insider experience, but for now, it sees to get the worst of both worlds.
Looking at timed exclusives like ‘Rise of the Tomb Raider, it’s clear that the (smaller) sum of money a timed exclusive gives isn’t going to add much to the end product, but is still going to limit access to a game. Imagine how difficult it would be if a story-heavy game launched 6 months early on a different console to what you owned- avoiding spoilers alone is a nightmare.
So, yeah. Seems pretty consumer unfriendly to me, with little to convince me it’s worth it. Can’t get behind this one.
Ben
One of the things I believe in is that certain words have specific meanings, if the word is spelt differently that’s a different matter. In this case, the word exclusive. The term exclusive within the world of gaming that a title will only be making an appearance on one device. Ok sure, good idea. It’s a great idea to get people who want to play a game get your console. Making something a timed exclusive means that it’s no longer an exclusive. It doesn’t belong too one team or another spcificaly.
Yeah, they may get content early like Call Of Duty and Battlefeild do with PlayStation but it enevitably always moves over to XBone. I believe that either the comunity or the publishers need to come up with a different way of marketing the game if it’s going to appear on one device later than the other. Maybe “coming to you on (console) first”. I’m not asking for information on how long it will be on the device before the other, just state that the port to another console is coming.
Josef
As someone who owns all major consoles of the current generation the issue has never directly impacted me and made me upset like it would for someone who is exclusive to a certain platform. However as someone who plays video games I can’t help but feel like the entire idea is a pure ego trip or nostalgic resource. Crash is something a lot of people associated with the early days of the playstation, so to have it an exclusive didn’t feel like a crime and would later be a treat to over platforms, especially ones like the switch.
Personally the entire idea of exclusives in general has always been something I don’t like. I love being able to play with friends and their personal choices shouldn’t be the main barrier to stop us having fun together. But the whole industry has to be about Sony vs Microsoft in a war of ages. That just brings me onto console wars in general which is a topic I could rant on for days.