They are anti-consumer, but for smaller devs in particular, they can mean the difference between between canceling and releasing a game, between bankruptcy and the studio’s continued existence.
If your success depends on a storefront paying you to sell your game to less people, maybe it is for the best that it doesn’t succeed.
Do you see developers making games exclusively for one console manufacturer the same way? Are you willing to deprive the gaming community as a whole from these titles? Games like Shadow of the Colossus or Alan Wake 2 would not have happened without exclusivity.
Games like Shadow of the Colossus or Alan Wake 2 would not have happened without exclusivity.
Bullshit. If the publishers for those games had made them for more platforms, they would have sold more copies. Exclusivity deals are made between console makers and publishers in order to sell more consoles and are an anticompetitive practice that should be illegal.