They did it again. Microsoft is one of those companies, which seem to think, that instead of making better products you dominate market by locking competitors off. Earlier this week Motiga, developer of upcoming MOBA Gigantic announced at PAX East that their game will be available only on Xbox One and Windows 10.
This is not the first time Microsoft is pulling stunt like this. Last year they made a deal with Crystal Dynamics - developer behind current installment of Tomb Raider franchise. Upcoming Raise of the Tomb Raider will be Xbox exclusive at launch. PC and PlayStation players will probably get it at some point in time. Let's just hope this will not take as much as getting GTA V to PC market.
This announcement is bad news for several reasons. Releasing a game on smaller number of platforms transfers into smaller
playerbase which can result in shorter lifespan of the game. Especially if you releasing free to play title and let's face it - if Gigantic's developer wants to have a shot at gathering even medium size audience as a MOBA it MUST launch F2P. Recent Superdata report showed just how small is percentage of initial playerbase that sticks with F2P game for a longer time.
Of course Motiga didn't voluntarily limit their potential audience for no reason. I think it is safe to assume that they were "compensated" by Microsoft for making this decision. Deals like this create very uncomfortable situation for devs. If large portion of money you make comes from third party instead of players you are serving two masters. And I don't think that interests of players will often coincide with interests of Microsoft.
Part of the announcement that simply boggles my mind is limiting playerbase on PC to people using Windows 10 - an operating system that hasn't been released yet. MOBAs similarly to MMOs are harder to develop and maintain than single player games because of the online component. As a result they tend to be quite buggy at launch and few months (years in some cases) after. So what we are going to have with Gigantic is a newly released game running on a newly released operating system. What could possibly go wrong?
No one will switch to another operating system because of one game. That is why I think this is a part of the larger strategy. I won't be surprised if in the following months other games are announced to be Windows 10 exclusive. Before any fanboy will jump to defend Microsoft by saying that upgrade to 10 is free I'd like to point out that it's free for 8.1 users and only for first year. So sooner or later everyone will have to pay.
Unfortunately not many people think it's a big deal. At least that's my conclusion after reading about this on few major websites. Few concerned voices here and there instead of major uproar. Which shows that in the market where AAA games have microtransactions and are pushed out of the door months before being ready we as a community are used to be treated like idiots. And who's fault is it?
Unfortunately not many people think it's a big deal. At least that's my conclusion after reading about this on few major websites. Few concerned voices here and there instead of major uproar. Which shows that in the market where AAA games have microtransactions and are pushed out of the door months before being ready we as a community are used to be treated like idiots. And who's fault is it?
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