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JWeinCom on 19 March 2024
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Azzanation said:
JWeinCom said:

"1) Developers have a larger market to sell their games on, increasing popularity and profits. Keeping the lights on."

That was literally exactly your first point.That third party exclusivity decreases probability and will prevent devs from keeping the lights on. XD That's the point I was arguing. As you are now saying the exact opposite, I accept your concession of the point.

What you quoted me as saying is not something I said, or even a reasonable paraphrase of something I actually said. I'm generally happy to defend the things I say, but I am not going to defend things I did not say.

I am a little confused with your entire Reponses. I have brought up the good and bad.

Exclusivity deals can also hurt the developers. We see it plenty of times where a game takes an exclusive deal, then undersells on its primary platform. 

Maybe i read into your replies too much, but it seems you were saying all devs take these deals when all i was pointing out that plenty of companies release games without deals.

If you're confused we'll take it slow. Please answer yes or no to these two questions. 

Quote 1: "What would the industry be like if all 3rd party games released on all platforms, with the only exception of exclusives are 1st party games. 

1) Developers have a larger market to sell their games on, increasing popularity and profits. Keeping the lights on."

Quote 2: "I am not arguing if it's hurting the devs, I am debating that it's hurting the industry."

Does your first quote say that third party exclusivity existing in the industry hurts third party developers by decreasing profitability and harming their prospects of staying in business? 

Does the second quote say that third party exclusivity does not (at least not necessarily) hurt third party developers?

If your answer to both of those questions is yes, and if you are honest it should be, then you have agreed to the point I was trying to make. That third party exclusivity does not necessarily hurt third party developers. Therefore the first reason you presented for third party exclusivity hurting the industry is wrong. If we agree on that point, we could potentially move on to the other reasons you have for exclusivity being bad, but don't know how inclined I am to continue as I'm not sure you're willing to honestly engage. I think I'm being extremely clear, and it honestly feels like you're just trying to change your argument (or rather that part of the argument) on the fly cause you see it is wrong. 

 I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you genuinely misunderstood me. You absolutely read too much into my replies. In particular, you read the word ALL which I am fairly certain I never used. Clearly not all developers use third party exclusives and not all of them should.

My argument is that arms length deals made between two parties will  only be made if both parties find them to be beneficial. Developers sometimes opt to make their games exclusive, which means at least sometimes exclusivity is predicted to be beneficial. As these types of deals have been made for years, we can safely assume that in the past they have indeed turned out to be beneficial.

As most third party games are not exclusive, it is pretty clear that most of the times, making a game exclusive would be detrimental either to at least one of the parties involved. So, I'm obviously not arguing that all third party games should be exclusives. But, the option to make exclusivity deals is obviously beneficial to third parties. And so, what is best for them is probably to simply continue exactly as they have been doing.