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Pre-order bonuses or those exclusive to specific retailers have been getting a bit ridiculous as of late. Watch Dogs showed us the new extremes of the segregated content and it may be set to get even more convoluted, as high street retailer Gamestop, wants to help fund game development in exchange for even more exclusive content for games bought through its outlets.
This news comes from an analyst at investment firm, R.W Baird called Colin Sebastian, who has been meeting with Gamestop as of late and described its plans to Venturebeat. He explained that Gamestop has been courting publishers and trying to build up an exclusive relationship when it comes to content, but that in the future was hoping to go much further, “getting involved at the time of game development where there could be some content exclusive to [the retailer] included in the game.”
Of course Gamestop was also quizzed on the news. Is it hoping to fund development in exchange for unique content? It wouldn't be drawn on specifics, but reiterated that it loved digital and physical exclusives:
“We are working with our [development] partners to build in a longer lead time,” GameStop said. “And we are working with them to get both physical and digital exclusives for our customers.”
This is of course a move that has a lot of benefits for developers and for Gamestop, which is battling to stay afloat in a landscape increasingly dominated by digital downloads on Steam and elsewhere. However this does mean that many gamers will miss out on certain content because they don't want to buy from a store.
Gamestop has assured those that are worried about it stepping on the developers toes though, that it won't be heavily involved. In a statement a spokesperson said that it “will not be involved in the creative process.”
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KitGuru Says: As beneficial as I see this for everyone involved, I don't think it's good for gamers. It segments the population and makes the purchasing decision more complicated. It could also lead to Gamestop charging a premium, since its stocked games will be more definitive since they'll have that more content than other versions of the game in other outlets.
Image Source: Mike Mozart
As soon as 1 person buys the DLC, there are methods of extracting the files and sharing them, it wont crack down on piracy.
Exclusives are the absolute worst thing to happen to gaming since E.T. Why does anyone in the industry think they’re a fair and good idea? The worst thing about it is PC’s almost never get exclusive content which is bad enough on top of the fact that games are nothing more than ports. Lets just get rid of exclusives and throw them in as global micro dlc’s
The game producers are already
screwing us customers by having 3rd party activations and it’s probably going
to get worse. I noticed one of the new games I was going to buy that required
you to have an account at a 3rd party site that I currently don’t belong to. I
have come to the conclusion that as much as I wanted to play the game, the developer
doesn’t really care about the customer’s experience, just the money.
I already have Steam and Origin, and they suck, so I decided no more!
I have been a PC gamer since 1990 and have spent thousands of dollars on these companies products, only to have them crap on me.