As long as storefronts have to compete for games, this is what that looks like. There's not really any way to get rid of exclusives without hurting competition. Would you want a law passed for games to be required to be put on certain storefronts? For storefronts to be required to accept all games submitted to it? Either one would hurt competition by giving too much power to either the game publisher or the storefront.
No I think what I want is pretty obvious. No exclusives. I don't honestly care what shitty storefront something is on, as long as its not limited to one. That's literally my only gripe.
Besides publishers are already free to decide where the games they publish go or don't, so I'm not sure where the "too much power to publishers" thing is coming from.
>I don't honestly care what shitty storefront something is on, as long as its not limited to one.
But that's not unique to paid exclusives. That's not even unique to Epic, Valve's own games are exclusive to a single storefront. You should boycott them for the same reason.
There is a cost to releasing games on multiple storefronts, forcing games to release on multiple stores only hurts smaller developers. Some smaller developers also skip storefronts altogether. Minecraft and Factorio were initially sold without any storefront. Is that still considered limited to one and therefore an exclusive?
>Besides publishers are already free to decide where the games they publish go or don't, so I'm not sure where the "too much power to publishers" thing is coming from.
I'm talking about cases where the storefront doesn't want to sell the game. Say the game has adult content, or the game has is just unfinished and not good. If storefronts are required to carry games. Otherwise games that only get accepted to a single store will continue to be exclusive to that single store.
Same thing with smaller developers, are they expected to cater to the whim of multiple storefronts to be able to release a game? One of my favorites, Zachtronic's Opus Magnum was rejected from GoG initially.
I'm strictly talking about the ones that are paid timed exclusives, nothing else. No where did I say anything about being anyone being required to do anything. You added that.
If a publisher chooses to do a single store front, then fine w/e. I don't have a problem with that. Its when a storefront bribes a publisher to keep a product exclusive to one store, in an attempt to force consumers on to that store that they likely otherwise wouldn't have used, that I have problem with.
I was going off your initial point of what you want: No exclusives. Not just paid timed exclusives.
>Its when a storefront bribes a publisher to keep a product exclusive to one store
That's not a bribe, that's a business transaction. Do you bribe a store to give you a product?
>If a publisher chooses to do a single store front, then fine w/e.
This contrasts with your previous: "as long as its not limited to one"
So now publishers are allowed to choose one storefront, but somehow they can't be paid to make that choice? How should they be making that choice if not by how much each storefront is offering?
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
As long as storefronts have to compete for games, this is what that looks like. There's not really any way to get rid of exclusives without hurting competition. Would you want a law passed for games to be required to be put on certain storefronts? For storefronts to be required to accept all games submitted to it? Either one would hurt competition by giving too much power to either the game publisher or the storefront.