Because delaying a multiplatform game from launching on other platforms for an undefined time by paying a lot of money is the same as keeping it off them permanently by paying a lot of money? SE is still fucking over their userbase.
This is an entire game, not some DLC, nobody cares about DLC, what we do care about are actual games.
I kind of expect things like this to happen when the market is as lopsided as it is. When MS is behind like they need some type of content to draw people in and if it can secure a big name 3rd party game/franchise then it is going to do so. It's a tactic many don't like, but when you're in the cutthroat gaming business these types of tactics will be used. When Sony starts finally making serious money off the PS4 I won't be surprised if they do the same thing. It's been done before and will be done again.
It does suck for the platform holders who don't get the games right away. I understand the feeling of scorn as someone who was pissed at the time when Sony did it, but I got over it. Looking back it was a smart business decision by Sony. It helped secure success of PS1 and confirm dominance. At least this time around it is the lesser selling console that has gained timed exclusivity so it will be interesting to see how the game's sales do and if it has any tangible effect on XB1 as a whole.
Awesome idea, wish I'd have thought of that earlier. I'll just go out and buy a £350 console that I don't want and have no space for + a £50 game that will look and play worse than the one I wanted to get for £20 on my current platform. What on Earth was I worrying about!
As for the moral and ethical issues associated with this decision, I'd say it's certanly morally questionable, or at least very poor form for Microsoft to claim it supports PC gaming while simultaneously paying SE to ensure it's Windows customers are unable to play one of the systems longest running and most successful franchises.
And from SE point of view, again very bad form to effectively abandon the bulk of the users who've supported them for the last several years. The only reason the franchise is even desirable to MS to purchase in this way is in large part due to the support those users gave them, the same users they are now turning their backs on. It's hardly suprising that people are going to feel let down by the company, especially people who were actively vocal supporters for the last few games like myself.
Note my comments above only really stand if this is a full exclusive and not a timed exclusive. If timed then it's just a bit annoying, at least to me as I don't really care how long I have to wait for a game as long as I get to play it. Others may feel differently and they've every right to do so without being insulted.
So wait , you weren't going to buy it at full price anyway and your upset that its not coming lol.
If you want to play all the games you need all 4 platforms. I own 3 of the 4 and I don't care for the historic sony exclusives so that is the console I choose not to buy and now that money is sitting in my gaming account waiting to be spent on pc upgrades
What more is there to discuss other than "company __ is evil" and "HA HA my platform has it and yours don't!"?
If you want it early, get the platform its on, if not wait. Or continue to get mad over something that has been happening since the dawn of electronic gaming.
Although I don't like 3rd party IP exclusive, as long as it's just a timed exclusive, then wouldn't mind at all. What annoys me is how SE/CD/MS handle this announcement. They try very hard to make it look like the game is permanent exclusive. Even right now they are still ambiguous about whether Rise can appear on other platform. There is no direct answer to that. What is certain that MS doesn't own the Tomb Raider IP and Rise is definitely not going to appear in other platform on 2015. It would be funny though if it just end up like other timed exclusive -> SE and MS co-promote it with MS releasing a special edition TR X1 console and give SE/CD a stage presence on MS presentation at games conventions and Rise launch on PS4 I don't 2016. If that's the case, then MS basically gave a bit more money for SE/CD to not talk about other platforms until the deal is expired.
This isn't some big conspiracy against xbox, I'd feel exactly the same way had it been Sony, Nintendo or even Valve for the steam box. And so would you for matter (if XBO was the platform being cut off from the game).
Anyway this whole discussion is academic now. Its only a times exclusive so who cares? I'll still get to play the game as I'd hoped. I don't really care about when.
Yup it still may never show up on PS4. Timed exclusive could also be similar to the timed exclusive with Dead Rising 3 (Xbox One only, then PC version gets released). We'll have to see what platforms it eventually makes it onto. But at least I'm glad to know I'll likely get to play it on the PC.
^ If i had known about that then as a kid, i would have been just as pissed. Even though its never happened since then, i have to imagine that people are thinking about now in regards to buying into this shit.
Hurting people's feelings has nothing to do with it. A lot of us think artificially walling a game behind a publisher with no other reason other than they just payed out the ass to be in bad taste and will more likely alienate players than the intended effect, which would be to get them interested.
I actually had an xbox one on my list to buy along with a several games after another pricedrop, because MS seemed like they were atleast making an effort to fix their outward projection, but then this happened, and so i shelved those plans. I just don't want to support practices like this in the industry regardless of who does them.
Never happened since? Are you that naive? As a huge huge fan of Quantic Dream when they were a multiplatform developer (PC, Xbox, Playstation) I followed them quite closely after the release of Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy). They were well into developement on their next game for PC, Playstation and Xbox when they ran into financial issues. They approached both Sony and Microsoft about funding. Microsoft declined due to the concerns over the suitability of the content for the Xbox ecosystem, but Sony smartly signed up to provide funding to finish the game. What happens? Not only does the Xbox version get cancelled (to be expected with Sony funding it) but the PC version gets cancelled as well.
Considering how dedicated they were to the PC platform prior to Sony "throwing money" at them to secure an exclusive it REALLY pissed me off royally at the time. Sony still won't allow any PC ports of "purchased" exclusives unlike Microsoft and that still royally pisses me off. But hopefully that starts to change in the future starting with timed exclusives and hopefully at some point moving to actual 3rd party exclusives.
But I generally don't go onto internet forums to whine about it like I'm somehow entitled to those games. It's business. It happens. I move on.
Sony never does these things anymore, my ass. They are just better at marketing it than Microsoft. And I don't think either is better or worse than the other when they do it. It's business. Although I do favor the company that still allows the 3rd party exclusive developer to release on PC.
It sucks for me who liked the reboot and only has a pc and ps4. I dont have any ill feelings towards Microsoft about it though, remember Square Enix had to agree to it. So it must of made business sense for the two parties. All this moral outrage is poppycock.
Never happened since? Are you that naive? As a huge huge fan of Quantic Dream when they were a multiplatform developer (PC, Xbox, Playstation) I followed them quite closely after the release of Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy). They were well into developement on their next game for PC, Playstation and Xbox when they ran into financial issues. They approached both Sony and Microsoft about funding. Microsoft declined due to the concerns over the suitability of the content for the Xbox ecosystem, but Sony smartly signed up to provide funding to finish the game. What happens? Not only does the Xbox version get cancelled (to be expected with Sony funding it) but the PC version gets cancelled as well.
Considering how dedicated they were to the PC platform prior to Sony "throwing money" at them to secure an exclusive it REALLY pissed me off royally at the time. Sony still won't allow any PC ports of "purchased" exclusives unlike Microsoft and that still royally pisses me off. But hopefully that starts to change in the future starting with timed exclusives and hopefully at some point moving to actual 3rd party exclusives.
But I generally don't go onto internet forums to whine about it like I'm somehow entitled to those games. It's business. It happens. I move on.
Sony never does these things anymore, my ass. They are just better at marketing it than Microsoft. And I don't think either is better or worse than the other when they do it. It's business. Although I do favor the company that still allows the 3rd party exclusive developer to release on PC.
It seems like your intentionally misunderstanding the point to act funny.
I repeat. : SE is fully funding Rise of the Tomb Raider.
CD has always said they were funding it, since last year they said SE were funding it, and Microsoft have said they have no claims whatsoever to the franchise, or publishing rights, or marketing rights.
They have never said that they are helping in any way to bring the game out. The game would have come out regardless on cross gen platforms and PC hell store listings already put it up as a full cross gen title for all systems at the time.
It has nothing to do with picking up a game with financial troubles and helping it live. That is what happened with Bayonetta.
What i'm talking about is the situation in which a company, buys exclusivity from a multiplatform franchise, with literally no other reason than to keep it away from other platforms, with no other actual involvement in that franchise except throwing money at the publisher to keep it exclusive. If you can point out an actual example and not a wrong one in which this has happened let me know, because as i said, besides what Sony apparently did 20 years ago, in the modern era i have never once seen that.
At best, from devs pov, this deal bring some technical expertise from MS and probably more budget to make the game even better. But the game itself would come to fruition with or without MS money.
I'm not sure if the game had no real marketing back in March 2013 or it was just bad timing with the new consoles looming. At the time I had completely ignored it after Dead Space 3 but I'm glad I got the DE version back in Feb 2014. Wouldn't surprise me if they ran into money flow problems when it didn't generate the expected sales during the normal sales window.
Wow, looks like this thread quickly got out of hand quickly - I only just noticed it and now it’s already 10 pages long.
I seem to remember having a conversation a bit like this in the E3 prediction thread. Somebody had suggested Microsoft buy some big third-party franchise and I suggested that it might upset a lot of people. Hey, at least it’s one prediction we got right (I’m ignoring the fact that it’s months later).
I enjoyed the last Tomb Raider game, but I don’t feel so strongly about it to be angry at Microsoft, nor I do feel strongly enough that it persuades me to buy an Xbox One – I’m still waiting for that reason, it hasn’t come yet. I do understand why it would upset people though.
There was a bit of nonsense earlier in the thread that suggested games shouldn’t be emotional - it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard for a while. Games are fully intended to be emotional, probably the most often felt emotion that games invoke is anger, so quite why we’re surprised that people are angry about this beggars belief.
Microsoft must have spent a lot of money on getting some upper-middling franchise to be a timed exclusive. Maybe the conversation should now be whether it’ll make a difference in their sales. I’m honestly not sure that it’ll have much of an effect
Oh, here we go, from wikipedia:
...
So there you go.
Sony getting done unto them as they did unto Sega. Except Saturn Tomb Raider 2 got canned well into development, and Sony were stamping on a crippled Sega at the time.
If we were to bring current B3D back to 1997, I expect we'd hear exactly the same complaints from Sega fans, and the same complaints that Sony is evil and acting unfairly. Just lots less of them. Spin on 20 years and those Sega fans now see the world differently, it's just business. They've come to terms with it. But people not used to this experience and are experiencing it fresh will have the same reaction as those Sega fans had.
There's also an ethical debate as to whether Sony was evil or not back then. The comparison between MS and Sony could be interpreted as Sony being evil and MS also being evil, without anyone being fair. That then doesn't justify any of their actions as acceptable and put a lid on people's outrage - you can't use the 'Entity A was evil first' argument to justify Entity B being evil
philosophically debatable
. Then there's the time difference, and you can't necessarily equate an entity's past actions with its present, especially when said entity is made of lots of changing parts. How many people at present Sony are the same as those 20 years ago? Would present Sony make the same choices, or are they noble? Would actions deemed acceptable 20 years ago be deemed acceptable now?
Point being, discussion on right and wrong is complex and meandering and never comes to any answers anyone likes anyway, so it's pretty pointless to pursue in a games forum. I take the claims of 'evil' as language chosen to convey how upset the audience is. That is, it's not directly their claim nor their argument. The argument is 'I'm really upset by this' and the language chosen comes out in poorly considered accusations that might not stand up to any analysis. Someone hurts you, you hurt them back - that's typical human behaviour.
My most recent run in with evil gaming companies was 22 Cans and Godus on iOS. I got remarkably angry over them. They presented a game, asked for a rating, then started changing the rules to add more and more reasons to buy IAPs. Are they allowed to do it within the rules of business? Yes. Does that make them evil? No. But at the same time, decoupled from a set of business ethics and looking at it from an emotional human perspective, I considered the practice very unpleasant and underhanded. At the time, I could have been heard calling 22 Cans and Molyneux all sorts of names.
It was never explicitly announced for a named console, but the implied release was as strong as any and every multiplat. A sequel was in development and there was no reason to think that the sequel wouldn't come to every machine like the previous TR's. It was as perfectly reasonable and logical to expect TR for XB1, PS4 and PC as it is to expect Madden or FIFA or COD on all those platforms.
As far as i remember, the press statement said it was coming to "next gen platforms". And at the time it was announced, there were already retail listings for all platforms for the game, ps3 360 xbox one ps4 and PC.
I think we can be assured that before MS locked down the game like they did with Titanfall, it was definitely to come to the other platforms. I got irritated about this as i did when they went behind Respawn's back and brokered with EA. Apparently Respawn didn't even know about permanent exclusivity until the deal was made.
I just don't like that kind of shit. Maybe it is hypocritical of me to dismiss exclusive DLC and whatever like Assasin's Creed and Call Of Duty, but entire games is something i can't overlook.
I'm not sure if the game had no real marketing back in March 2013 or it was just bad timing with the new consoles looming. At the time I had completely ignored it after Dead Space 3 but I'm glad I got the DE version back in Feb 2014. Wouldn't surprise me if they ran into money flow problems when it didn't generate the expected sales during the normal sales window.
They marketed the shit out of TR actually. The amount of large-ass adds plastered everywhere in my city (building-sized ones too) was only rivaled by GTA 5's add density.
Whatever, I can wait. Still, business sense or not, these kinda practices do feel a bit like a kicking your loyal fanbase in the balls. Thanks you for purchsing our game by the millions (and the TR games sold significantly better on Sony systems too), now go and fuck yourselves because you cannot have the sequel on time. Nothing wrong with exclsuve new franchises like Sunset Overdrive, or Gears of War, or whatever Remedy is cooking up next to be platform exclusive. I'm also a-okay when platform holders flex their muscles when the money is sorely needed to get unlikely sequels up and running like in the case of Bayonetta. However when it comes to direct sequels to long running mega franchises, and when 70% of your fanbase has gone with the other team, the whole thing starts to smell rather foul. Certainly does nothing to drive me to the MS camp. If anything it accomplishes the opposite.
I don't see the problem. If MS/dev/pub thinks this is going to earn them more money then let them, it's a free market.
Ofcourse it is a shitty thing for the consumer but if you think about it, is TR only coming out on XO really that different from the many many games that only came out on ps2 or ps360 and not on gc/wii/pc?
If you are against this sort of practices then don't buy a XO and/or TR. If everybody does then this sort of thing will quickly stop. I do the exact same thing with games with first day DLC are DLC that is already on the disk. I simply don't buy them or wait until there is some $5 complete edition.
"Hey Microsoft, were at 25 fps and 900p on xbox one, but were at 1080p60 on PS4"
Before the phone was put down, someone would be on a plane.
Anyway, I don't see the fuss, the reboot wasn't that good, and the franchise itself has been on life support for years. All this talk of it being one of the best franchises ever is the biggest load of crap I've heard. The games only claim to fame, aside from Lara formerly having large breasts, is my townsfolk voted a new road be named after Lara Croft I assume as some sort of joke.
I bet Microsoft didn't expect the backlash, but I guess this is what Sony get for selling their stake in Square-Enix.
There are much better Multiplatform games that could've been brought. This guy is breathing a huge sign of relief it's only Tomb Raider.
Spin on 20 years and those Sega fans now see the world differently, it's just business. They've come to terms with it. But people not used to this experience and are experiencing it fresh will have the same reaction as those Sega fans had.
