I entered a debate with a friend of mine recently about exclusivity of games and cross-platform compatibility. I believe that all games should be platform agnostic so that everyone can play them, but he disagrees, and likes the current model. Here are his arguments…
It would be bad for business if companies gave up their exclusivity
You’re not a business major, nor do you own a business. I’m in the same boat. We’re not here to talk about “what’s good for business” because we’re not qualified to. So this argument is fallacious and invalid.
Look what happened to Sega
“See how their games went to shit when they stopped making consoles?”
Sega failed for a lot of reasons, and none of them involved “giving up the hardware biz” so they could make games that were cross-platform… In other words: we’re really not comparing apples to apples here. Furthermore, Sega’s games started sucking the moment they dropped the Sega CD and 32X. Did you know anyone who had the Sega CD, 32X, and the Saturn? You likely only had the Megadrive/Genesis, and maybe one of those other peripherals. They were terrible.
Sonic began crapping out right about the time they released Sonic Spinball. After that was Sonic 3D blast (which I hear was a good game, but I’ve seen let’s play footage and I’m not impressed… Looks too much like Marble Madness). And it all went to shit after that. I haven’t even gotten started on Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. Yes, that game was awful, are you kidding me? Had we forgotten what made Sonic awesome? The older games were great because they were simple and easy to understand, but difficult to master. They took you through very vibrant and beautiful worlds, and had lots of powerups and ways of keeping the gameplay interesting… Also, they told the story by showing rather than telling, and not forcing you through countless cutscenes of bad voice acting.
My point is their games were shit long before they quit making consoles, and they didn’t fail hard simply because they wanted to stop making hardware. Your argument is completely invalid here.
You’re just mad that you can’t play everything on your precious PC
You say this condescendingly… like I should be ashamed of this. Actually, your statement is wrong, as I stated above that all games should be playable on all platforms (unless it’s a smaller one designed for convenience and portability…). This isn’t about “my precious PC”. I don’t think my PC should have all the fun either – you should be able to play PC games on your consoles. I am wholeheartedly against platform exclusivity, no matter what the platform is.
But still, you say it like I shouldn’t feel this way… that I should instead be “glad?” that exclusivity exists? That I should be ashamed of being upset that I can’t play games with console players? Ok, I’ll bite… why? Why should I feel ashamed of this? Why is this feeling wrong? I don’t mean that rhetorically, though I have little hope you actually have a valid argument here.
What about the handheld markets that Nintendo dominates?
“Why would Nintendo give that up?”
I don’t know… who cares? What does that matter? Nintendo’s business problems are not my problems, so let Nintendo figure that out. I personally think that if they gave up the hardware part, their games would sell in greater numbers to a greater number of devices, and they’d more than recuperate their losses for it… But again, we’re not business majors, nor do we own any businesses. Business people do a lot of crazy things and are somehow successful, so as to “why would they give that up,” I can’t answer that, and neither can you, and furthermore it doesn’t matter whether we know the answer or not because we don’t work for Nintendo.
The game market is oversaturated
“There are just way too many games. Too many choices. How are 3rd party and indie developers supposed to get any exposure or anything in lieu of all the other games around them? Without the platform exclusivity, you’d never be able to see these games.”
(This is in reference to a few indie developers with exclusive titles on the Wii console).
Y’know, these 3rd party and indie developers who develop for other platforms don’t seem to have any problem with “oversaturation”, so why are the precious Nintendo-driven indie developers at risk, exactly? Once again, you speak of things you know nothing about…
Yes, the market has a lot of games, and a lot of choices. On the surface, it can seem as though the little indie guy will be lost, overlooked, and forgotten if he puts his game out there, right? Wrong. You’re looking at the wrong side of the equation. Nobody goes into the games store to browse the titles… Although in the case of Steam they might, especially if Steam is having a sale… “Hmmm, this game is 50% off… $5 game… what’s this game all about?” People hear about these great titles through gaming websites, forum threads, communities, word of mouth, advertisements, youtube gamers, and social media. That’s how anyone hears about a great game these days. So no, I’m not worried about a game not getting exposure.
But let’s take this a step further… How does exclusivity help here, exactly? You’re under the misguided belief that the platform company is benevolent in giving these indie developers the exposure they deserve, when actually none of that is happening at all. When a console has these big AAA titles exclusive to their console, they’re trying to rope you in. The AAA titles don’t drop often, so they have to supplement their income in other ways. Enter the indie market. Once they’ve got you roped in, they make their real money off the cuts of you buying the indie titles. When an indie game company pitches their ideas, Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo decide if it would make a lot of money, then start bidding. The indie developer takes the highest bidder, and develops for that platform.
The indie developer knows their game would have a lot more sales if it was cross-platform, but with one of these console companies footing the bill, they have entered a low-risk situation. Now they’ve got a huge payout, and the console companies try to make as much money as they can off of the recently purchased rights.
In other words: we’ve forgotten what makes good games, and instead focused on what makes games sell the best. This was a monetary transaction… This wasn’t a game devleoped by someone with a passion for games – this was someone looking to make a buck. Philosophically, this makes games decrease in quality over time, because then it becomes the race of “how can we do as little work as possible and still have lots of people buying our shit?” Hello EA, nice to see you.
People don’t buy the Nintendo to play the big flagship titles.
“They buy it for the Nintendo titles, such as the new Mario or Zelda.”
So… You’re saying Nintendo is somehow absolved of all sin because they’re “in their own market” so to speak, and not really competing with the other companies since they aren’t selling the same games? Fallacious, once again. None of that matters – it’s still exclusive games that you can only get on their platform. It’s no different than the Halo games on the Xbox, or the Metal Gear games on the Playstation. Whether they’re big, flashy, and with bleeding edge graphics is irrelevant. Your fanboy loyalty for Nintendo is blinding you.
Let’s put Nintendo to bed here. I will say this condescendingly: you are blindly submissive to a company that is screwing you. This is a company that issues DMCA’s against youtubers who do let’s plays of their games (yes, they have a legal right to, but no other gaming company does this because they’re not dicks). You have an overinflated sense of how good Nintendo’s games have been over the years (since 2010, the quality of games has been waning, as have their sales). source
You’re just worried that any threat to their business means you won’t get to play your precious shitty new Mario game that comes out. You think you have to protect Nintendo from any nay-sayer, because they’re this small precious thing to you that should be cherished.
Fuck Nintendo
Yeah, I said it. I was raised off of that company. I still remember when Super Mario Bros. 3 was brand new. I still remember when Link to the Past was new. I started playing this shit long before you did, and I watched as their quality and name-brand recognition became a stigma. I’ve played indie games that were inspired by Nintendo’s classics that were far better than the reboots of the same old shit Nintendo keeps doing (Okami was better than Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword combined).
I’m sure they make decent games now and again, but I refuse to support them. Similarly, I don’t support Walmart, even though they have the lowest prices on everything. As a business, Nintendo has done too many shady things, held my childhood and nostalgia hostage, and have exploited us all in the process. I don’t care how cool the new Zelda looks – anything released by that conglomerate shit pile won’t get any support from me.
I condescend to you because yes, you should be ashamed of loyalty to such an openly greedy and exploitative company.
In Closing
Gaming is something I’m passionate about. Despite how different I am from most people, when it comes to games, I suddenly have something in common with people from all walks of life. It doesn’t matter how smart or stupid we are, how rich or poor we are, how pretty or ugly we are… because we both shared that same frustration and victorious pride at beating Dark Souls, or that same set of tears from watching Aeris die in Final Fantasy VII, or that big belly laugh at Trevor’s antics in GTA V, or that heart-pounding fear at Silent Hill.
My best friends for well over 10 years now I met online, playing games with them. I also have another friend of over 25 years, and I haven’t played a game with him in a long time because he sticks to consoles.
I want to play with my friends, and share these wonderful moments. I still remember that one day in Final Fantasy XI, where we were in a dungeon competing with a rival guild that we had previously left and still felt jaded about, trying desperately to find the treasure chest that housed a really awesome set of armor for my character… We raced that rival guild through this maze-like dungeon, until we were met with a fork. One of our guys said “split up! I have a very good feeling the chest is down the left fork, but let’s split up and confuse the other guild! Maybe they’ll be fooled into going right!” It was the gamble of a lifetime… that the chest was even located down the left path, but further still, that this rival guild would be fooled enough to go down the wrong path. and it worked. That guild followed the decoy group into the right fork, and sure enough the chest we sought was in the left fork. We had amassed quite the following of monsters through our sprint, and they would surely eat us alive. I had to act fast if I was going to open this chest and claim my magical armor in time before I was killed. I was shaking with adrenaline, and it became difficult to press the buttons on the keyboard without pressing others. Tension was high. But I was able to trade my coffer key to the chest, successfully opening it, and claiming my armor!
Then I died, mercilessly destroyed by monsters… but it didn’t matter – I had my armor now. The monsters were slaughtering other members one by one. Then the leader guy who told us to split stood next to us and cast his paladin spell of invincibility… it made him invincible for about 20 seconds, during which time he whipped out his warp staff, waved goodbye, and warped back home, all the while in teamspeak saying “pfft, I’m not a marine! I ain’t stickin’ around for all this shit! Hahahah so long, motherfuckers!” “God damn you, paladin! You asshole! Die honorably with the rest of us!” “Fuck that shit! *warp* lolololol.”
I didn’t get to share moments like that with my console friend.
I refuse to accept that exclusivity is a good thing. I don’t care how “good” or “bad” it is for business – that’s not my problem. To the gaming industry, and the corporations the lead it: figure it out. Figure out how to make your games platform-independent, and stay in good business. You’re the ones qualified to do so. I may not know how, but I’m not qualified to tell you how anyway. You are. You figure it out. Make it happen.
Because until you do, I will continue to condescend to anyone who still buys into Nintendo’s bullshit, or any console for that matter (except the Steam Machine).
P.S. Yes, PC master race
PC gamers are more invested in the gaming hobby than console gamers are. They have a higher level of appreciation for games than consolers do. PC games allow modifications, fixes, a plethora of peripherals, full backwards compatibility, and emulators to finally play all those platform-exclusive games we weren’t able to play before. Our library is bigger and older than yours, and our attention to detail is far greater. We spend far more time and money on gaming than you ever will. Hey consolers, you still playing Skyrim? No? Why not? I know people who have modded Skyrim so much that they never really did get started playing it on PC… and this is 5 years later. That’s dedication. How long did you play Skyrim for?