Exclusives remain the spearhead of home consoles, but also of different platforms and other subscription services. These last years, Microsoft And Epic Games took out the checkbook several times to offer themselves the exclusivity of games, particularly independent ones, on the Game Pass and theEpic Games Store.
A practice that is becoming increasingly rare today, to the great dismay of independent developers. PC Gaming spoke with the developers of Slay the Spire (Casey Yano of Mega Crit) And Darkest Dungeon (Chris Bourassa of Red Hook Studios) on the occasion of the Game Developers Conference 2024the latter admit to being privileged, but the independent game sector is in bad shape. Casey Yano says:
I spoke to at least five small teams, with 35 members or less, during GDC, and they tell me: cuts, cuts, cuts, canceled funding, year-long discussions, cancellation. It looks like shit. We are definitely very privileged to be able to self-finance. Otherwise, I would be very, very, very scared right now.
Chris Bourassa gets into the subject a little more and explains that agreements with Microsoft for exclusivity in the Game Pass have greatly reduced since the launch of the subscription service, same story on another platform:
Epic too. The gold rush is over. I’m from the Northwest Territories. The town I’m from was built on gold, then they found diamonds further north. Maybe another paradigm shift lies ahead, but I really think the scale of deals I’m hearing about is significantly reduced compared to the big days. We really got our deal with Epic at the right time.
Red Hook Studios actually first came out Darkest Dungeon II exclusively on theEpic Games Store in Early Accessbefore launching version 1.0 on theEGS And Steam. The agreement was signed with Epic Games from 2019, since then, the video game market is doing badly, whether among manufacturers, big studios or independent teams. The latter intend to raise the bar, Mega Crit, Red Hook Studios and a bunch of other indie developers are going to be hosting next month The Triple-i Initiativea presentation entirely dedicated to independent games.
You can find Darkest Dungeon from €22.99 on Amazon, there Fnac And GOG.com.
Read also: Microsoft: Phil Spencer justifies layoffs by “lack of growth” in the industry
| Clint008 Editor – Tester |
