Why are more and more former exclusives not exclusive anymore?

[Caperfin]

GameStop won't be around much longer. Didn't they file for bankruptcy or something? .

I believe so, it's looking very grim for them. Last I heard they're make a last ditch effort with an online-type store thing.

[Chonar]

Because we're living through the death throes of late-stage capitalism.

[Rennadrel]

That still holds no reason beyond "I don't want you to."

Reviewers aren't exactly 100% reliable. Especially these days.

Gaming journalism as a whole is complete trash tier quality these days for the most part. There is zero reason to pre-order games, supply is never an issue. Unless you want some limited edition collectors pack, it's a waste of effort. If a game is crap, you didn't waste the effort of going to the store to order it. It's more than just the money spent, if you drive to the store, it's gas wasted or bus fare spent, not just the cost of the game.

[ErrandRunner]

Most gamers are against exclusives as they are anti-consumer. You should be able to play any game you want on either a modern PC, or the latest Xbox/PS/Nintendo. You think you want exclusives, but deep down you don't.

[Darklurker]

I just hope for a PC port of Bloodborne now. It's the only console game I'd really like to play.

[Faroth]

So you save money by pre-ordering, but you could also save money by waiting. Let the bugs get fixed, let the good reviewers get their hands on the game. If you're looking for an honest review of a game within the first week of release then you won't find it. You need to give the proper reviewers some time to fully experience the game before determining if the game is worth your time or not. Also please tell me you're not using the Best Buy Gamers Club Unlocked A.K.A. GCU? That program ended in 2018 and cost $30 a year, before it was originally $100 a year. You must have not pre-ordered a game in a while I see? Unless GCU means something else, because I'm really bad with acronyms.

You're damn right it was Gamer's Club Unlocked. Why the hell would I not have used that to the utmost advantage? It ended in 2018, but active memberships weren't cancelled. They were valid until they expired. It was by far the best deal from any retailer from the customer side. It was pretty damaging for profit on their end, though.

$30 was for TWO years, not one.
20% off on every new game. Didn't matter if it was brand new, years old, or on sale or clearance, you got 20% off. Price dropped to $20? It's only $16 for you.
20% off on strategy guides, art books, amiibos, as well.
Still got reward certs from dollars spent on top of the discount.
They went extra stupid when I first signed up and the 20% was applying to their Black Friday sale prices as well. Afterwards, they fixed that and Black Friday was the only sale that the 20% didn't discount. However, if a game wasn't on sale for Black Friday it still applied the 20% off.

I don't want GameStop, Best Buy, and every other conceivable market to collapse and Amazon & Digital be the sole source of video games. If anyone things that's a healthy future, they're completely clueless.

I don't think you understand, I pirate my games before I buy. Only way to ensure I don't waste my money on crap. Reviewers are spotty and even the ones I trust I take them with a grain of salt. Don't know why people like Persona 5 so much, I felt it was an awful game. Dunkey even said it was a great game and I put a lot of faith in his opinions.

Oh, okay, so you're actually someone who actively participates in tanking the industry & retail while claiming to be pro-consumer. Cool, cool.

Be honest, after you've pirated and played through a game, how many times do you really go and pay retail price for it just to support the studio since you've already played it pirated.

GameStop won't be around much longer. Didn't they file for bankruptcy or something?

Not yet, but probably soon. Pre-orders have nothing to do with why, though.

[Kumorii]

It's a genius move what Sony did.

First racking up console sales due to exclusive, then maximise game sales by releasing it to other platforms. Not sure what's hard to see.

[Faroth]

Gaming journalism as a whole is complete trash tier quality these days for the most part. There is zero reason to pre-order games, supply is never an issue. Unless you want some limited edition collectors pack, it's a waste of effort. If a game is crap, you didn't waste the effort of going to the store to order it. It's more than just the money spent, if you drive to the store, it's gas wasted or bus fare spent, not just the cost of the game.

Why would I drive to the store to place the order when the Internet exists?

Though you are right that Collector's Editions/Limited Editions or the limited production runs are my primary pre-orders.

[Vash The Stampede]

You're damn right it was Gamer's Club Unlocked. Why the hell would I not have used that to the utmost advantage? It ended in 2018, but active memberships weren't cancelled. They were valid until they expired. It was by far the best deal from any retailer from the customer side. It was pretty damaging for profit on their end, though.

So how can someone get the same deals you get from a program that's dead 2 years ago?

I don't want GameStop, Best Buy, and every other conceivable market to collapse and Amazon & Digital be the sole source of video games. If anyone things that's a healthy future, they're completely clueless.

I'm not saying it's a healthy future, but an inevitable one. Retail in general has gone the way of the Dodo.

Oh, okay, so you're actually someone who actively participates in tanking the industry & retail while claiming to be pro-consumer. Cool, cool.

If the industry has good return policies and demos for every game they sell then I wouldn't need to try before I buy. You said yourself that you're happy with some of the pre-order perks... so long as you don't open the box and play the game. How do you know it's a good game until you play it? If you play it and hate it, how can you return it? Not something I have to worry about. Remember shareware? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Giving the industry money for making a mediocre or poor game is not something I want to encourage. 2019 was littered with terrible and mediocre games.

Be honest, after you've pirated and played through a game, how many times do you really go and pay retail price for it just to support the studio since you've already played it pirated.

Depends if I enjoyed the game or not. Dark Souls 1-3, Hollow Knight, UnderTale, Fallout 4, are games I've pirated before I bought them. I would have bought Witcher 3 but there's no Linux port, which was something they promised they would do. Something about the Witcher 2 port being terrible on Linux and they wanted to avoid bad press.

[ParanoiD84]

Thankfully most if not all xbox games is on pc to these days so only need a ps4 next to my pc, well a switch to perhaps and yeah exclusives sucks but i can see they need something to sell their consoles with.

Mostly play strategy games anyways so pretty much only pc.

[Wildmoon]

Exclusives prevent me from trying so many games. Hopefully, it fades away.

[nexellent]

Gamers keep making this term lose meaning. Congrats.

How is forcing gamers into buying multiple consoles for the games they want to play anything but anti consumer

[Tech614]

How is forcing gamers into buying multiple consoles for the games they want to play anything but anti consumer

You have a funny definition of the term "forcing". No one is forcing you to do anything. If you want to watch The Witcher you subscribe to netflix, if you want to play Zelda you buy a nintendo system, if you want IOS apps you buy an apple device. No one is forcing you to do anything, nor are you entitled to get anything you want on a single platform.

Most exclusives wouldn't exist if they weren't exclusives. Again, stop with the "anything I don't like is anti consumer" bs.

[Biomega]

I'm not sure what's confusing about companies trying to sell things to the most people they can. Exclusives work based on FOMO, but the added value of that is self-limiting, because withholding product from potential customers that aren't going to buy into additional barriers to the purchase isn't a long-term positive strategy. So you stop the barriers, and increase sales. Economics 101.

[Tech614]

I'm not sure what's confusing about companies trying to sell things to the most people they can. Exclusives work based on FOMO, but the added value of that is self-limiting, because withholding product from potential customers that aren't going to buy into additional barriers to the purchase isn't a long-term positive strategy. So you stop the barriers, and increase sales. Economics 101.

Again, this isn't why exclusives exist. Nobody makes a game exclusive to sell the most copies possible. They do it for adopting consumers into their ecosystems and likely to spend more money in said ecosystem.

There is a reason no 3rd party companies are funding high level single player games at the rate Sony and Nintendo are. Because the ways to monetize them are limited past initial sales. Sony and Nintendo can afford to keep doing it non stop because it attracts players to their hardware, which in return sells more games on their hardware, sells the hardware itself, sells subscriptions on said hardware and sells accessories on said hardware.

If you honestly think BoTW sales on other platforms would make up for the money it made Nintendo in attracting people to buy a Switch well, I got some beach front property in Arizona with your name on it. But you know "economics 101".

[Polybius]

The goal of exclusives is not to sell the most copies possible, it's to get you into that ecosystem and likely to spend more money in it in the future. Why do people still not get this lol.

Because that's not today's reality. Consoles aren't selling as much as they used to.

[Tech614]

Because that's not today's reality. Consoles aren't selling as much as they used to.

Switch and PS4 literally laughing at this claim.

The only console selling like shit is the Xbox One, surprise surprise also lacking in exclusives. Not a coincidence.

[BloodSense]

Console exclusives are an outdated idea and a holdover from the pre-digital era. Used to be that a platforms profitability was directly linked to their install base, and prior to roughly the 128-bit generation the hardware itself was fairly profitable because the systems used a lot of off the shelf parts. Alternately now, the cost of producing modern hardware has risen drastically so sony/ms/nintendo make very little profit off the systems themselves. Exclusives have long been system sellers especially for Nintendo and Son, but with the rise of digital distribution, and the wide adoption of streaming on the horizon, exclusivity with only serve to more and more limit the potential sale of new games to the people willing to plop down for a single platform as opposed to reaching anyone interested in the product. Microsoft is already leading the way on this by looking to turn "Xbox" into a brand and digital platform instead of a piece of hardware. I'm not a huge console gamer, but honestly to me buying a Series X is a no brainer as a significant portion of my games will be cross buy with my PC, have cloud save features and if their deal with nintendo is any indication, mobile play using my switch to stream xbox games.

[Biomega]

Again, this isn't why exclusives exist. Nobody makes a game exclusive to sell the most copies possible. They do it for adopting consumers into their ecosystems and likely to spend more money in said ecosystem.

That's why I didn't say "sell games" but "sell things". It includes hardware, services, etc. etc. But the principle is the same - it's self-limiting, and there comes a point where you generate more profit from lifting exclusivity restrictions. The question is merely where that point lies, because it's a delicate balance between getting the customers who don't buy into exclusivity vs. losing customers who would but now have an expectation that they won't have to if they wait a little.

[Jastall]

Consider how many more copies would have sold if it were available on 4 platforms instead of only the one that you admittedly state has a very low adoption rate. 25% or less of the potential audience is a very small minority.

Many of the the most profitable games in the world are on one platform (usually mobile, sometimes PC or a very popular console exclusive). People will absolutely fork over hundreds of dollars for a platform that holds one, or a group of, game that they really want. Do you believe it a coincidence that the PS4 has absolutely crushed the One this generation, while at the same time boasting a far greater library of high-quality and popular exclusives?

Exclusivity can drive sales, no question about it. There's a good reason myriads of companies such as Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Steam, and Epic Games indulge in the practice. There's a reason series like The Witcher or The Mandalorian (to name only these two) are channel-exclusive. Because it works.