Tomb Raider exclusivity fallout thread *spawn

[Deleted member 11852]

It would still be dark because of all the smoke from the fires. Your analogy doesn't work.

Smoke rises. The SE/CD wagon is a wagon with wheels not a new fancy sky car!

 

[Dave Baumann]

I'm not sure how making the game exclusive to the platform with half the userbase of the competition can be considered rescuing the franchise, at most it's postponing it's demise.

Limiting to a particular platform for a certain amount of time does not necessarily equate to a lower return on investment to the publisher/developer. Even in the case that a title were entirely exclusive it is still conceivable that the returns can be greater. If MS have waived the publisher license fees on copies sold, that will considerably raise their returned per copy sold, likewise with MS doing the heavy lifting on the initial marketing the overall spend will be much reduced; other things may be done such as a forced bundling deal for a period that will result in a higher percentage of copies sold into XBOX customers than achieved naturally, etc., etc.

So, yes, limiting to a platform can result in a higher rate of return. These are exactly the factors that the business folks will be reviewing.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm not sure how making the game exclusive to the platform with half the userbase of the competition can be considered rescuing the franchise, at most it's postponing it's demise.

Potential: lowered development costs (money from MS), lowered marketing costs (free marketing from MS), lowered licensing fees (more money recouped per sale). You don't need to sell as much to turn a profit. Performance will vary depending on how much Microsoft has invested and if they lower their licensing/royalty rate, or whatever you want to call it.

 

[MrFox]

Let's say it's delayed to March for PC and PS4. The delay can actually help SE/CD stay away from the UC4 launch window on PS4, while providing a competing game for XB1 in a window that MS really need it. They'd get lots of help money from MS, and no lost sales since it's coming out anyway, and possibly more sales because of the additional marketing from MS. The real loss would be a loss of reputation, but that's difficult to quantify.

 

[-tkf-]

They didn't take anything out of your hands. Have you even seen a screenshot of gameplay? As far as I know, there haven't been any. You haven't paid a penny for the product either. It is not yours. You did not own it. Nothing was taken from you. I suppose you could say they took away the opportunity to play it, even though that now seems they've just delayed your opportunity to play it. From everything I've read, it sounds like Microsoft is helping to pay for development and is directly lending a hand in terms of technical assistance. It is more of a business arrangement than a lump sum of money and some papers signed.

Wouldn't you consider it very unusual if BF3 wasn't followed up by BF4 on every console?
Wouldn't you say it was expected that the next Tomb Raider, a follow up to a multiplatform titlle, would release on the major platforms again.
Wouldn't you say that from the outside it looks like a stupid move to skip the best selling platform for the last Tomb Raider

If a "7 million copies sold" game needs financial help to get a successor then something is wrong in our gaming world. We have no evidence but i would be surprised if Microsoft didn't throw a lot of money after TR:Rise.

The saddest part is that no matter what Square Enix does now, Tomb Raider is weakened as a Franchise on the next generation machines.

And i am so tired of "it's business", when Sony and Microsoft does stuff like this, real people get upset, yeah sure, it's only games, and so what, the emotions are still real. It's understandable business from a pure capitalistic view, but imho i think the gamers that are getting fucked over on a franchise they love are 100% entitled to consider it wrong, and they are not going to forget this. Money was chosen over them.

Personally am very happy that i haven't anything invested in this round of Consoles, there isn't any Proxy war going on that i find myself invested in. I got a feeling that this isn't the last "one" we well see, it's good to own them all.

 

[shredenvain]

"I got a feeling that this isn't the last "one" we well see, it's good to own them all."

Completely agree with this statement. Bravo Sir.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm not sure how making the game exclusive to the platform with half the userbase of the competition can be considered rescuing the franchise, at most it's postponing it's demise.

There's an assumption that development was on track and healthily financed. Although that may be true, there's the possibility that the game was precariously positioned. What if SE felt they couldn't afford to finish the game? There'd be several options, from getting a loan to doing a deal with a console company. It's wrong to assume MS weren't needed and aren't the saviours here; we don't have enough details to know. I'll agree that in likelihood MS probably weren't needed, but 'innocent until proven guilty.' It's bad form to be throwing around accusations as fact (and I hold up my hands an accept that my original belief was just moneyhatting).

Also, when you buy a game, you're not paying for the sequel. You're playing for the game you're playing. You bought TR, not the sequel. What does a company owe you after you've given them money and they've given you the product you paid for?

I don't think that purely capitalistic view is accurate or a health way for developers/artists to approach their business. Beyond the material experience of the game, there are emotional connections made and, if your game is very good, a desire to revisit the game world. That's why devs/publishers like franchises, because they give much more after the original investment in the IP. So after giving gamers this experience and them knowing more is coming, to withhold that generates negative feelings. If a game folds due to business reasons, fans are sad. If the game is blocked by legal reasons, fans get angry. In this case, when the product is being made but with a change in conditions needed to access it making it very costly, fans also get angry. It's similar to an artist taking a work like Game of Thrones or Harry Potter and charging $200 for the last episode/series. In business terms that's perfectly fair, but the response from fans would not be quiet acceptance. Whether people should except that or not is an RSPCA discussion. For the purpose of discussing gaming business, devs/publishers should be aware of how people are going to respond and make their choices accordingly. In business terms I guess you'd call it 'good will' and then you stick a dollar value on it.

If a "7 million copies sold" game needs financial help to get a successor

It depends on how well SE as a company is doing. If the profits from TR have been spent on other things and there's no money left, it's quite possible the success of TR isn't enough to sustain its sequel.

 

[DavidGraham]

Sony never does these things anymore, my ass. They are just better at marketing it than Microsoft.

Yep, Sony is just as guilty of doing this kind of shady practices as Microsoft, In fact Sony is much worse, at least Microsoft is more tolerant to losing exclusives to PCs than Sony.

 

[AzBat]

Do we know if MS' deal with Square predates E3?

The whole reason behind E3 is to do business. People forget it's it's not really about gamers getting to play or see new games. That's part of it, but the behind the scenes business dealing is the biggest reason. So I'm pretty sure it's where this deal would have been brokered. I'm not really sure we've seen the last of it either. Any other holes in Microsoft's game lineup against Sony's that could be filled with another 3rd party timed exclusive?

Tommy McClain

 

[Scott_Arm]

...
I don't think that purely capitalistic view is accurate or a health way for developers/artists to approach their business. Beyond the material experience of the game, there are emotional connections made and, if your game is very good, a desire to revisit the game world. That's why devs/publishers like franchises, because they give much more after the original investment in the IP. So after giving gamers this experience and them knowing more is coming, to withhold that generates negative feelings. If a game folds due to business reasons, fans are sad. If the game is blocked by legal reasons, fans get angry. In this case, when the product is being made but with a change in conditions needed to access it making it very costly, fans also get angry. It's similar to an artist taking a work like Game of Thrones or Harry Potter and charging $200 for the last episode/series. In business terms that's perfectly fair, but the response from fans would not be quiet acceptance. Whether people should except that or not is an RSPCA discussion. For the purpose of discussing gaming business, devs/publishers should be aware of how people are going to respond and make their choices accordingly. In business terms I guess you'd call it 'good will' and then you stick a dollar value on it.

I wouldn't even describe myself as a capitalist. I guess every response I can post to this is RSPCA territory. All the best to the people who never learn they are not a victim every time they feel disappointed. They have a life-long emotional roller-coaster ahead. PM me if you're struggling.

 

[-tkf-]

Yep, Sony is just as guilty of doing this kind of shady practices as Microsoft, In fact Sony is much worse, at least Microsoft is more tolerant to losing exclusives to PCs than Sony.

Is this sarcasm?
While Microsoft all but abandoned the pc they still have an interest in providing games for their windows platform.

I hope that the lesson Sony learned from their past is not to piss off gamers. First of all, it's bad business, second of all gamers don't deserve it.

 

[temesgen]

I wouldn't even describe myself as a capitalist. I guess every response I can post to this is RSPCA territory. All the best to the people who never learn they are not a victim every time they feel disappointed. They have a life-long emotional roller-coaster ahead. PM me if you're struggling.

Where was the number to your suicide hotline when board was melting down due to Destiny getting DLC exclusive content for PS4?

I agree the reactions of some have been over the top but people are entitled to their opinions...

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm not sure how making the game exclusive to the platform with half the userbase of the competition can be considered rescuing the franchise, at most it's postponing it's demise.

There's a lot of scenarios.

[1] The title is well funded and the company is in decent financial condition. It is going to be extremely difficult to negotiate a timed exclusive. IE - not likely to happen. Nothing can stop the game from coming out.

[2] The title is well funded, but the company is having some financial difficulties. Timed exclusive is more likely. Game will come out anyway.

[3] The company is having such difficulties that it is becoming difficult to properly finish the title. Either content is cut, game is released early, game is cancelled, and/or money for timed exclusive comes into play.

[4] The company is having difficulties and can no longer afford the cash drain to continue developement of X title and is forced to focus developement resources on a few chosen titles. Title is either cancelled or some form of exclusivity deal is negotiated to fund remain developement AND marketing AND potentially help fund production and distribution.

In situation [4], 9 times out of 10 (or even more often) the title will be cancelled. This is NOT uncommon in the game industry. Even for high profile titles that have done well in the past.

Titan Fall was either in situation [3] or [4] when MS jumped in and provided funds to finish developement and help provide marketing. From the sounds of it, it's quite likely it was in situation [4] and thus ended up with the title becoming console exclusive but not all platform exclusive. PC version released simultaneously. That was likely a negotiated part of the deal, and likely because development was close enough to the end that Microsoft felt it didn't interfere with the release schedule for the console version.

Tomb Raider appears to be in a similar state to that. What platforms it appears on will determine just how dire the situation was. If it later only appears on PC and not PS4 then it was likely worse off than Titan Fall was. If it later appears on both PC and PS4 then the situation was likely not as dire (and hence SE would be unwilling to deny release on PS4).

At this point there isn't enough information to know just how dire the funding situation was with regards to Tomb Raider. As I mentioned before it's quite likely that with limited funds, in house Square Enix Eidos money was likely funneled to make sure that traditional Square Enix titles would continue to be funded to completion. Japanese investors would be less tolerant of a traditional SE title being jeopardized in favor of a western title aquired though the purchase of Eidos. Hence, putting Tomb Raider in a position to be cancelled or greatly delayed. Similar to how many titles at EA, Activision, 2k games, etc. were cut a few years back when the recession really hit the industry hard and they were forced to continue funding only on those games they felt had the best chance of making a large enough profit to recoup not only the investment in the game but the lost investment from the cancelled games.

We'll know a lot more in 2+ years time when we finally see what platforms it finally ends up on and to what degree they were delayed.

It's always easy to point fingers, but rarely are those fingers pointed correctly without knowing the financial standing of the company, the funding level of a game compared to the actual cost to develop that game (cost overruns, changing market conditions, etc.), or the strategic decisions a company makes with regards to continued funding based on operating income from currently released games.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

So Microsoft is spending money buying software now (that will have no effect anyway), instead of spending (less) money on the GPU in the first place so they wouldn't have to do that.

About right, and the reason why weaker hardware costs you more than it can ever save.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

So Microsoft is spending money buying software now (that will have no effect anyway), instead of spending (less) money on the GPU in the first place so they wouldn't have to do that.

Didn't Microsoft buy exclusivity last gen (GTA IV DLC and probably other things) when multiplats were often stronger visually on 360?

I don't think weaker graphics is the catalyst for opening the company vault.

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

I was listening to a podcast that made an interesting point; if you're already an Xbox One owner you gain nothing from this because you were already guaranteed the game anyway.

I don't get Microsoft sometimes. This move has the potential to piss everyone off that already owns a current-gen system. They'd be much better off buying studios, or setting up new ones. I suspect it's only a matter of time before we hearing about acquisitions.

They spent far too much money on NFL licenses etc.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I was listening to a podcast that made an interesting point; if you're already an Xbox One owner you gain nothing from this because you were already guaranteed the game anyway.

As has been discussed, that's not necessarily the cause. At the very least it safeguards the possibility of playing the game and at best it has the potential to result in a better game. So, no, I don't believe that it will result in nothing.

I don't get Microsoft sometimes. This move has the potential to piss everyone off that already owns a current-gen system.

Current owners are already a captured audience, which are not the primary driver for such deals.

 

[Strange]

Just to jog up some memories...

I can't believe they're splitting them up by console. That's extremely lame. I don't have either of those consoles, so it's no real worry to me, but I think it will be disappointing to fans.

As has been discussed, that's not necessarily the cause. At the very least it safeguards the possibility of playing the game and at best it has the potential to result in a better game. So, no, I don't believe that it will result in nothing.


Current owners are already a captured audience, which are not the primary driver for such deals.

Which risks the plan backfiring in their faces, especially in this new age. Money-hatting to reduce the market size generally isn't taken kindly by consumers.

 

[Phil]

My point is that the fud was gaming website generated, which is becoming the modus operandi of this gen. Or you could argue that Microsoft got smart and knew that the media would twist and contort whatever they were going to say, so they used the media as a fud generation tool knowing they would do exactly what they did to start false talk and outrage (ie, free advertising). Two can play at that game, so they may as well use those jackals for something beneficial to the company.

Errr, no it wasn't. If you go back to page 1 (well, page 1 of the Rise of the Tomb Raider thread), you will see what started this; The first piece of news stating that the next Tomb Raider is an Xbox exclusive. The entire article is practically a short well worded announcement by Crystal Dynamics Head of Studios, going on about the importance of their partnership with Microsoft and why their support is of great importance. And in other words, they're not abandoning their other fans on other platforms - please go and play the Temple of Orisis or the Definite Edition of the last Tomb Raider on PS4.

That to me never sounded like a timed exclusive, but an announcement in an tad apologetic manner on why they are going exclusive. If there ever was any FUD spread, it's because of the way this announcement of made by Crystal Dynamics themselves. The media hat little to do with it this time.

 

[Prophecy2k]

There's an assumption that development was on track and healthily financed. Although that may be true, there's the possibility that the game was precariously positioned. What if SE felt they couldn't afford to finish the game? There'd be several options, from getting a loan to doing a deal with a console company.).

SE can afford to develop AAA 10x TR games.

If the game's development was being being mismanaged, and was taking too long, then I don't see why that would present an appealing prospect to an external platform holder to step in an help fund. Why should MS step in and share the risk on a project being developed by a developer SE knew beforehand was incompentent and was likely to f**k up? That's grounds for a law suit right there.

It's wrong to assume MS weren't needed and aren't the saviours here; we don't have enough details to know.

I would contend this strongly. It isn't wrong to assume this at all. You make assumptions on things you don't know for a fact but have every reason to believe are most likely because all evidence points in that direction. SE is a multinational publisher of hundreds of games, and funds multiple studios the world over. To assume that they didn't have enough cash on hand to fund a single TR game is more wrong to me than not to assume so. If the game was having dev problems, SE most likely wouldn't have gone outside for funding unless they were ready to hand off the game to a different developer. Since this didn't happen we can infer that no such dev problems occured.

Fair enough we don't know any of it for a fact, but it's a very reasonable assumption to make that SE can on its own afford to develop its own games.

And considering Phil Spencer's comments quoted by Scott Arm earlier in the thread, it sounds more like MS is simply stepping in to provide marketing dollars, which by the precedent already set, we KNOW is the very way many of these moneyhat exclusivity deals are done.

I'll agree that in likelihood MS probably weren't needed, but 'innocent until proven guilty.'

Why? When the evidence we have strongly suggest otherwise?

It's bad form to be throwing around accusations as fact (and I hold up my hands an accept that my original belief was just moneyhatting).

Alleging (since very few are stating anything as fact, rather merely assuption) MS signed a marketing deal with a third party publisher to get a previously multiplatform game as an exclusive to their platform, is not the same as making some libelous claim that they did something illegal.

The facts as they stand are pretty plain and inarguable. MS paid SE (whatever you want to believe the money was used for is up to you) and SE cancelled development of TR on all other platforms. That is the definition of a money hat, and whether you want to drink the PR coolaid and believe MS is a hero for denying PS4 and PC owners access to a game they would have gotten otherwise, it doesn't change the fact that the ultimate result is the same. It's a win for MS and a loss for everyone else.

Is anyone really naive enough to believe that MS just goes round looking for ailing developers to bail out, on condition of exclusivity, for the good of the devs/industry at large? They knew exactly the result they intended and they went for it. It's hardly something you blame them for given their first party situation, but at the end of the day, MS and SE knew what they wanted to achieve with this deal.