It's made third parties into soft, weak entities who won't bother to give the time of day to anyone who won't throw free money their way first.

Publishing partnerships are a different matter, but moneyhatting is deplorable.

Bad example.  FF 14 isn't on the 360 because of Microsoft policy.

If you are a developer/Publisher and M$ or Sony offers to pay you a certain amount of $$$ to go console exclusive to them, why do you take the deal?  I think it is because you want to be able to make more games and that $$$ guarantees that your game is profitable or the risk is drastically reduced.  So, in essence, it allows for more games to hit the market.  I do agree that it does take the game away from some people who don't buy multiple systems, but EVERY game that is console exclusive does that.  What real difference does it make when in the development process that happens?  I usually get all of the consoles, so i am normally not as affected by it that way.

Well my point still stands.  Just replace it with a different game or DLC and the story works out the same way.

Indie devs were onboard with Sony likely due to Microsoft's only recently reversed policies towards them. Considering that Microsoft apparently mocked Sony's relationship with Indie devs, I'm willing to bet few of them cared much for that. I'm sure Sony probably went to a couple and offered some cash for their project but I think it's far more likely that it was disdain with Microsoft's policies that led them to develop on the PlayStation 4 instead.

Moneyhatting isn't so much a bad thing as much as it has served as an indication that Microsoft was not ready to let their first party studios do a lot of the talking. So they instead went out and started gobbling up third party support. Some people feel it should be purely based on a developer or publisher wanting to develop on the platform for what the platform can do and not because they were given an "incentive". Others feel it's dirty because it denies what would have otherwise been a title that more people could have experienced without buying even more hardware.

Ultimately, it's just complaining because they quite often have no problem when their company of choice does it. Sony has bought up third-party talent in the past. Guerrilla Games, Media Molecule, Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch... all of them were third-party at one time. Sony bought them to make games only for them and deny the competition. That's not terribly different. In fact, I am actually betting that Sony will buy even more developers this year. Ready At Dawn among them.

just buy your way out of all problems.. seems legit

As a business your job is to increase your profits above you previous year.The money the largest publishers make from MS and Sony for exclusive content tips the scales and gives them an edge. Remember Microsoft and Sony have been profiting more off of third party than Nintendo, so they will continue to maintain that relationship with third parties. Billions in third party revenue. There is a difference between an actual exclusive being made for a console and published vs a moneyhatted third party title. Gears of War is a moneyhatted third party title which was supposed to be multiplat, GTA 3-San Andreas was moneyhatted for 50 million last gen to be kept away from Microsoft for a specific period of time by Sony. Microsoft dont really have to worry about Nintendo with third party so they dont fear them, they only fear one another. Microsoft knows Europe will buy more PS4's because Sony is more popular over there (naturally)  so they paid for a shit ton of DLC and will now bundle all preorder bundles with FIFA 14 in the Xbox One.

I dislike the idea of paying for exclusivity. It's bad for publishers, and its bad for customers. There are reasons for not releasing for a platform, but it should never be "because their competitor paid us not to."

With that said, I don't mind the idea of what Nintendo is doing, which is basically the developer/publisher relationship the way it is supposed to work. Nintendo is publishing those games, not Platinum, so they get to call the shots. Fair enough.

Also, I wouldn't mind paying for "inclusivity" as well. For instance, if a publisher doesn't plan on releasing on a platform because it doesn't look like a profitable venture, and the platform holder wants to pave the way for a sequel, that sounds fine to me.

It was bad way back in 1994/1995 when sony "pioneered".... oops relied on it due to their weak first party offerings.

And it's still bad now.

Depends what you mean.

As in paying money for a game to be exlcusive when originally it was meant to be on more platforms? Why shouldn't someone be pissed about that?


Paying someone so a game gets funded that previously wouldn't or funded more to the creators vision. Nobody should be pissed about that.



As for why people might perfer moneyhatting indies to AAA games. Really just look at the person getting the money and realize a lot of people hate corporations.

EA is getting a bunch of money to make a game PS4 exclusive. Well fuck EA. They're a huge corproation.

An indie game is moneyhatted to be PS4 exclusive? Well that dude who made the game by himself is set before sales even come out. Good for him.