• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Phil Spencer on indie parity clause "I want people to feel like they're first class"

A

Apathy

Member
As an aside since that tweet brought it up, what is it with people that would call themselves "gamers" (as much as I hate that term) but then go and say shit like that about indie games. Indie games are fun, and a lot are very creative and most at a good value, hell and more and more you get quality out of them. Basically some indies are becoming the middle tier developers that we lost last gen.I cannot see how great games like those can be overlooked by some people nonchalantly.

BTW, all t his is rhetorical no one needs to try to answer it.
 
H

hbkdx12

Member
SwiftDeath said:
Things that are objectively bad for consumers are objectively bad for consumers

What consumer benefits from less indies on XB1 or indies struggling to try and deliver multiple platforms day and date of each other?

Tomb Raider only on XB1 is bad for consumers if Square Enix would've funded it regardless as it would come to all platforms naturally had MS not made their deal [it's probably a timed exclusive I imagine] thus who does it benefit? XB1 gamers would've gotten the game in either case, now PC/PS gamers either don't get it or have to wait because MS made a deal of some sort with Square Enix. Consumers don't benefit

Destiny PS timed exclusive content doesn't benefit any consumer as PS consumers would get it regardless but now Xbox consumers have to wait a year. Dumb

Destiny Co-marketing obfuscates availability of a game [or is supposed to] in an attempt to mislead consumers. Co-marketing is therefore harmful to consumers and dumb. [Same with Madden, Diablo, Shadows of Mordor co-marketing etc.]

It's all bad regardless of who the platform holder is. Although some of it is far more harmful to consumers than others.
Click to expand...

Sure, the case could be made that the tomb raider/destiny content would have come to every platform but the fact that it doesnt means that you can only get it from one place which drives incentive and value towards the platform that does have it. If you want the content bad enough you'll have to get it on that platform. It seems like ppl conveniently overlook why the practice exists

Conversely, the parity clause is meant to combat that by not giving the competing platform the advantage and upper hand of releasing the same content later.

Are there better ways they could be going about this? Surely but if i only have the ability to choose one console, I'd want the one that either consistently grants me additional content or gets content to me sooner.

Dragonborn said:
I don't mind exclusive content. It's a necessary evil as companies try to differentiate the consoles and get people to get multiplats on their console. Timed exclusive stuff and things like this parity clause are unacceptable in my eyes. Moneyhats serve no one except the moneyhatter (they don't provide anything new or help make something that wouldn't otherwise exist), and deprive gamers of a game that would have existed anyways.

As for this parity clause, it's clearly bullying. Maybe it worked last gen when the 360 was doing great, but as the gap continue to widen day by day, this clause will only hurt the X1 more. Not to mention, every time they make an exception, they'll look bad.

Like, for example, I'm sure MS would never deny NMS or the Witness from releasing on Xbox, even they came a year or more late. It's hypocritical.
Click to expand...
Im not suggesting the actual outcome or ramifications of clause work in their favor (its clearly not) but the reason it exists atleast makes sense; its meant to benefit Xbox users. Its not meant to give two shits about playstation consumers
 
H

Head.spawn

Junior Member
Rymuth said:
Classism? That's just great...Hasn’t history proven that Marx’s vision of an egalitarian utopia is unattainable, inevitably creating an oligarchy more oppressive to the proletariat than the bourgeoisie it vilifies?
Click to expand...

B741FAEB0.gif
 
S

serversurfer

Member
Peltz said:
No. The reason why larding up someone else's shoes in your example is "anti-competitive", is because it's against the rules. That's why it's wrong. But if we had a sport where that was an allowed skill, then it wouldn't be anti-competitive, it'd simply be scathingly competitive.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but not only are you being pedantic, you're putting the cart before the horse. It isn't anti-competitive because it's against the rules; it's against the rules because it's anti-competitive.

Microsoft didn't break any rule. The only court that will judge them is the court of public opinion. We may not like their way of doing business, but to call it anti-competitive really isn't fair.
Click to expand...
It's perfectly fair. The fact that the law hasn't caught up with Microsoft's shenanigans doesn't excuse them in any way. Shitty, anti-competitive business practices are shitty and anti-competitive, whether they're legal or not.

I don't like their way of doing business because it's anti-competitive. I don't really care what the law — or anyone else — has to say on the subject. There's plenty of shitty stuff that's legal, and plenty of benign and beneficial stuff that's illegal. If you're using the law as your personal morality barometer, you're doing it wrong.
 
C

Cess007

Member
Marcel said:
I want him to go full-on Glenn Beck chalkboard for my entertainment, yes. Speedy is basically a caricature anyway so he can change it up.
Click to expand...

Off-Topic: As a non-US citizen i had to google to know what were you talking about. All i can say is "WTF?"


On-Topic. It's really sad that people still have that mentality that indie=crap :(
 
M

Man-is-Obsolete

Member
In other words if you are friends with Phil or if you are popular enough, we can talk about options?

This policy sounds like a forthright admittance to what many thought was happening last gen, that MS was deciding when games would get released. Retro City Rampage being a very open example of this as cert complete versions were being delayed for the 360 version, to which the developer finally got fed up and just released it on PS instead first.
 
J

Josman

Member
*Talks about what is fair for xbox gamers*
Makes deals to deny games to gamers from other platforms and imposes a scumbag policy that affects small indie developers

The guy is still a hypocrite to me.

Also, great timing... you know, with the talk about AC: parity. It's only fair for Xbox gamers.
 
T

TheDarkKnight774

Member
Ugh disgusting. Another case of "good guy Phil" showing his true colors. What irritates me the most is they shouldn't have this leverage given their poor performance compared to Sony. They didn't do shit to cultivate indies to their console until way late and then they slap this bullshot clause to slow down releases on competitors.
 
T

travisbickle

Member
After there was a movie made about how shitty it is making game for Xbox live, you'd think MS would've calmed down on rules and regulations.

I think the only reason there's so many on PS4 is because Adam Boyes made a lot of calls telling devs it ain't as bad as you've heard, I don't think there was an immediate passion from devs to put their games out on new hardware with consumer bases so small.
 
S

SwiftDeath

Member
hbkdx12 said:
Sure, the case could be made that the tomb raider/destiny content would have come to every platform but the fact that it doesnt means that you can only get it from one place which drives incentive and value towards the platform that does have it. If you want the content bad enough you'll have to get it on that platform. It seems like ppl conveniently overlook why the practice exists

Conversely, the parity clause is meant to combat that by not giving the competing platform the advantage and upper hand of releasing the same content later.

Are there better ways they could be going about this? Surely but if i only have the ability to choose one console, I'd want the one that either consistently grants me additional content or gets content to me sooner.
Click to expand...

I read your original post as "people" -> gaffers/core gamers/gamers -> consumers and therefore answered it from a consumer perspective. I have a large interest in the commercial side of these types of decisions and while I will maintain that something like co-marketing in general serves no benefit to consumer and is actually probably harmful, it most certainly serves strong benefits to companies who utilize it within the industry . From a business perspective, 3rd party exclusives and/or timed exclusives make sense as does co-marketing. But I don't see a consumer benefit to any of these examples including the XB1 indie parity clause. Even from a business perspective I'm not sure the indie day and date clause makes sense as it limits your offerings in a time when software offerings are at an all time low numerically.
 
R

RoKKeR

Member
xxracerxx said:
1GN2yVW.png


Jesus.
Click to expand...

You forgot to get the Xbox One twitter background in the picture here.

It's pretty embarrassing that we still have people so obviously towing a party line when Phil has directly responded to this criticism already, saying the policy needs to be looked at.

I don't really understand the implications of this clause but it clearly seems to negatively impact the system's library, so why anybody would support it is beyond me. Good news is they at least are aware of the negative responses to it.
 
B

Birgitte2004

Member
I find it fascinating that when confronted with the claim they don't have enough First Party exclusives, Microsoft re-defined what first party means, and in doing so confused the issue so much that people now argue what the meaning of first party is.

Mission accomplished I suppose.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
RoKKeR said:
You forgot to get the Xbox One twitter background in the picture here.

It's pretty embarrassing that we still have people so obviously towing a party line when Phil has directly responded to this criticism already, saying the policy needs to be looked at.

I don't really understand the implications of this clause but it clearly seems to negatively impact the system's library, so why anybody would support it is beyond me. Good news is they at least are aware of the negative responses to it.
Click to expand...



They've been aware for over a year, though.

We've been having this song and dance for a while. And the only thing that has changed is that the justification now involves the trailing market share of the Xbox One.
 
R

RoKKeR

Member
hawk2025 said:
They've been aware for over a year, though.

We've been having this song and dance for a while. And the only thing that has changed is that the justification now involves the trailing market share of the Xbox One.
Click to expand...

Huh, I wasn't aware that this had been in discussion since that far back. Haven't been following it closely... unfortunate that nothing has changed.
 
F

Figments

Member
serversurfer said:
Sorry, but not only are you being pedantic, you're putting the cart before the horse. It isn't anti-competitive because it's against the rules; it's against the rules because it's anti-competitive.


It's perfectly fair. The fact that the law hasn't caught up with Microsoft's shenanigans doesn't excuse them in any way. Shitty, anti-competitive business practices are shitty and anti-competitive, whether they're legal or not.

I don't like their way of doing business because it's anti-competitive. I don't really care what the law — or anyone else — has to say on the subject. There's plenty of shitty stuff that's legal, and plenty of benign and beneficial stuff that's illegal. If you're using the law as your personal morality barometer, you're doing it wrong.
Click to expand...

I would start by defining what exactly you mean by "anti-competitive", because the law does indeed give its definition, which is something that you, apparently, don't agree with.
 
X

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
RoKKeR said:
Huh, I wasn't aware that this had been in discussion since that far back. Haven't been following it closely... unfortunate that nothing has changed.
Click to expand...

Discussion about this clause have gone back since they announced it. Changes are not happening quickly.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Figments said:
I would start by defining what exactly you mean by "anti-competitive", because the law does indeed give its definition, which is something that you, apparently, don't agree with.
Click to expand...



You can start by reading up on how the DOJ debates Most Favored Nation clauses and how they relate to antitrust policies:

http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/mfn/


http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/division-update/2013/workshops.html

The workshop consisted of a series of panels exploring the conditions under which MFNs thwart competition and harm consumers. Among other topics, panelists covered the legal treatment of MFNs, economic theories concerning MFNs, and industry experiences with MFNs.
Click to expand...


It's a hotly debated topic, and one that absolutely leads to anti-competitive results depending on the market setting -- in my opinion, including this one.
 
FUNKNOWN iXi

FUNKNOWN iXi

Member
Speedy got exactly what he's always wanted:
Attention.

Way to go GAF. At least you're making this kid's life better; that's one positive way to look at this. He's like a fat turkey filled with stuffing after reading all these comments.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Figments said:
I enact my debater's right to be lazy. Ergo, provide a definition in your own words.
Click to expand...



An anti-competitive measure is one that reduces the consumer surplus in any given market by constraining the effects of competition on prices and quantities supplied, through the utilization of bargaining and/or market power.
 
R

rrc1594

Member
Birgitte2004 said:
I find it fascinating that when confronted with the claim they don't have enough First Party exclusives, Microsoft re-defined what first party means, and in doing so confused the issue so much that people now argue what the meaning of first party is.

Mission accomplished I suppose.
Click to expand...

A game doesn't need to be made by internal studio to be called first-party. I remember Sony calling Disney based games first-party in PS2 era
 
F

Figments

Member
hawk2025 said:
An anti-competitive measure is one that reduces the consumer surplus in any given market by constraining the effects of competition on prices and quantities supplied, through the utilization of bargaining and/or market power.
Click to expand...

Awesome. Thanks for this.

Now, my next question is: how does this apply to the current situation?

I'm going somewhere with this. Just bear with me here.
 
M

Massa

Member
SwiftDeath said:
Destiny Co-marketing obfuscates availability of a game [or is supposed to] in an attempt to mislead consumers. Co-marketing is therefore harmful to consumers and dumb. [Same with Madden, Diablo, Shadows of Mordor co-marketing etc.]
Click to expand...

I disagree here. I don't think the effect of co-marketing is misleading consumers, that's just a small side effect for a tiny percentage of consumers. It instead creates a brand association that is usually beneficial to both the platform holder and game publisher.

The Destiny co-marketing deal was effective in that it sold more PS4's to people interested in the game, and it sold more copies of Destiny to PS4 owners than it would have otherwise. Xbox owners still knew the game was coming, saw it on shelves and bought it if they wanted to. Heck, I'm sure many Xbox owners even bought it after seeing many ads for the game which happened to be paid for by Sony. It's not that hard for consumers to find out if a game is coming to their platform, specially game consumers who are very much internet connected for the most part.

All that money spent by Sony helped sell the game on both Xbox and Playstation, which is a plus for the game industry overall.

If co-marketing deals didn't exist we'd simply see less money spent marketing games, which would be bad for everybody.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Figments said:
Awesome. Thanks for this.

Now, my next question is: how does this apply to the current situation?

I'm going somewhere with this. Just bear with me here.
Click to expand...



MFNs control the supply artifically. By attempting to limit the supply of new content to competitor's platforms, it reduces consumer surplus and increases costs for content creators.

It has been a relevant problem in the cable industry for decades. Yes, the cable industry, one of the most grossly inefficient parts of the US economy:


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303410404577466940749077080

http://www.project-disco.org/competition/when-mfn-clauses-go-bad/


The case is even more clear when applied to videogames: Microsoft is artificially controlling the supply and cost for competing platforms by designing contracts with MFN clauses.
 
F

Figments

Member
hawk2025 said:
MFNs control the supply artifically. By attempting to limit the supply of new content to competitor's platforms, it reduces consumer surplus and increases costs for content creators.

It has been a relevant problem in the cable industry for decades. Yes, the cable industry, one of the most grossly inefficient parts of the US economy:


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303410404577466940749077080


The case is even more clear when applied to videogames: Microsoft is artificially controlling the supply and cost for competing platforms by designing contracts with MFN clauses.
Click to expand...

Awesome.

Now my final question:

If Microsoft is indeed attempting to artificially control the supply using MFN clauses, how, then, does that work in their favor when content creators simply skip them altogether for a competing platform that doesn't feature the same restrictions?

Is this due to the opposing platform's success, or the nature of the restriction itself?

Certainly, the success would far outweigh the restriction. If anything, the restriction just adds fuel to the fire.

In an ideal situation, indie game development for consoles would be: Xbox One --> PS4/PC/Wii U

That in and of itself doesn't really account for simultaneous releases on Xbone/PS4, but it still states their intention.

In any case, my point is: how is it [anti-consumer], when it doesn't even benefit the platform that's implementing the policy? Barely anyone's following it.

NOTE: The part in braces is erroneous. I meant to type "anti-competitive", not 'anti-consumer".
 
P

Peltz

Member
serversurfer said:
Sorry, but not only are you being pedantic, you're putting the cart before the horse. It isn't anti-competitive because it's against the rules; it's against the rules because it's anti-competitive.


It's perfectly fair. The fact that the law hasn't caught up with Microsoft's shenanigans doesn't excuse them in any way. Shitty, anti-competitive business practices are shitty and anti-competitive, whether they're legal or not.

I don't like their way of doing business because it's anti-competitive. I don't really care what the law — or anyone else — has to say on the subject. There's plenty of shitty stuff that's legal, and plenty of benign and beneficial stuff that's illegal. If you're using the law as your personal morality barometer, you're doing it wrong.
Click to expand...

I'm not using the law as a personal morality barometer. Whether it's right or wrong is a different discussion from whether it's competitive or anti-competitive. I agree it's wrong. I don't agree it's anti-competitive.
 
S

StarBlazers1

Member
Bgamer90 said:
Man. Funny how things switched. Last gen there were many PS guys that said indies don't matter. Now it's the Xbox guys.
Click to expand...

That tweet is ridiculous. But I wouldn't say Xbox doesn't care. There are over 500 developers making games. MS also has a good list of "first on console" exclusives.
This was an older list from Gamescom, but still good.

http://news.xbox.com/2014/08/gamescom-id-xbox-games-coming-to-xbox-one
I mean who doesn't like Goat simulator, Smite and Massive Chalice. Seems to be working for them. Would I like to see everything eventually come to XB1 and the Parity clause out? yes, but I am happy with the indie games coming.
 
B

Bgamer90

Banned
StarBlazers1 said:
That tweet is ridiculous. But I wouldn't say Xbox doesn't care. There are over 500 developers making games. MS also has a good list of "first on console" exclusives.
This was an older list from Gamescom, but still good.

http://news.xbox.com/2014/08/gamescom-id-xbox-games-coming-to-xbox-one
I mean who doesn't like Goat simulator, Smite and Massive Chalice. Seems to be working for them. Would I like to see everything eventually come to XB1 and the Parity clause out? yes, but I am happy with the indie games coming.
Click to expand...

They definitely care about indies, however, they need to drop the clause if they want the XB1 to be similar to the Xbox 360 in terms of its indie game library.
 
K

Killer

Banned
That's their way of business. No one complained about No Man's Sky and other indies being PS 4 exclusive. Does Sony get a pass and MS not?
 
S

Sydle

Member
I think Xbox is losing out, but consumers know it when they buy into the system. Phil does a lot more right than he has done wrong, so this is a non-issue with me (and I have a PC so whatevs). I believe he'll eventually budge.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Figments said:
Awesome.

Now my final question:

If Microsoft is indeed attempting to artificially control the supply using MFN clauses, how, then, does that work in their favor when content creators simply skip them altogether for a competing platform that doesn't feature the same restrictions?

Is this due to the opposing platform's success, or the nature of the restriction itself?

Certainly, the success would far outweigh the restriction. If anything, the restriction just adds fuel to the fire.

In an ideal situation, indie game development for consoles would be: Xbox One --> PS4/PC/Wii U

That in and of itself doesn't really account for simultaneous releases on Xbone/PS4, but it still states their intention.
Click to expand...


I don't think it does work in their favor: In my professional opinion, from what I know of the gaming industry and with experience with supply contracts in vertical markets, I think they are making a mistake, and playing a dangerous game: They can't afford to have Sony match their contract clauses, which would only increase the gap in content.

It's a miscalculation. They believe they have more bargaining power than they actually have. But the point I was making was responding on what characterizes the strategy as anti-competitive, and it's divorced from what I think is the business sense of such a move. While my point of view agrees in this particular case regarding the business and the anti-trust aspects of the contract, it's not always the case.
 
R

Ricky_R

Member
ALLseeingEYE said:
This isn't true actually, a first-party relationship is when a game is developed by an internal 1st party development studio.

The order is still being developed by a second party developer. This was also true of Silicon Knights when they developed Eternal Darkness for Nintendo.
Click to expand...

Second party, like what you quoted clearly states, is more to differentiate games developed in house or by independent developers. The end result is still the same though, a first party game. An IP owned by the platform holder.

At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter who develops the game if the IP is owned by the platform holder.
 
M

Miles Quaritch

Member
Killer said:
That's their way of business. No one complained about No Man's Sky and other indies being PS 4 exclusive. Does Sony get a pass and MS not?
Click to expand...

Sony saw a ripe opportunity with NMS, can't fault them for grabbing it with both hands.

That Hello were probably desperate for a cash injection after they were flooded is neither here or there...
 
P

Paz

Member
My weirdest part of this thread is all the people suggesting a free dev kit / engine license is so incredibly valuable it justifies any request, in an era where those two things have never been more affordable.

Yes that's very generous of them and I'm so, so grateful things are moving in this direction as it will lower the barriers for devs, but you must realize platform holders take a big chunk of the money a game makes on that platform right? Like, forever.

It's a win-win scenario and should be treated as such.
 
M

Miles Quaritch

Member
Paz said:
My weirdest part of this thread is all the people suggesting a free dev kit / engine license is so incredibly valuable it justifies any request, in an era where those two things have never been more affordable.

Yes that's very generous of them and I'm so, so grateful things are moving in this direction as it will lower the barriers for devs, but you must realize platform holders take a big chunk of the money a game makes on that platform right? Like, forever.

It's a win-win scenario and should be treated as such.
Click to expand...

Weren't Sony charging something like 10k for a dev kit?

I vaguely remember reading that they didn't have any free kits left and the dev was instead given the option to buy one for 10k or somewhere in that region.
 
S

SwiftDeath

Member
Massa said:
I disagree here. I don't think the effect of co-marketing is misleading consumers, that's just a small side effect for a tiny percentage of consumers. It instead creates a brand association that is usually beneficial to both the platform holder and game publisher.

The Destiny co-marketing deal was effective in that it sold more PS4's to people interested in the game, and it sold more copies of Destiny to PS4 owners than it would have otherwise. Xbox owners still knew the game was coming, saw it on shelves and bought it if they wanted to. Heck, I'm sure many Xbox owners even bought it after seeing many ads for the game which happened to be paid for by Sony. It's not that hard for consumers to find out if a game is coming to their platform, specially game consumers who are very much internet connected for the most part.

All that money spent by Sony helped sell the game on both Xbox and Playstation, which is a plus for the game industry overall.

If co-marketing deals didn't exist we'd simply see less money spent marketing games, which would be bad for everybody.
Click to expand...

You've hit on another element of discussion for this which I would term the long-term effect. In the short-term, consumers strictly speaking do not benefit at all from co-marketing because they would get the game either way on whichever system they wanted had they perfect information so marketing for one platform doesn't benefit them. However in the long-term it could be argued that consumers may benefit from those publishers getting a better return on investment and hence investing more in games and thus generating benefit to consumers with better future games, more future games etc. The long-term is certainly a valid discussion but not one that I can think of in any constructive productive manner as it tends to involve predicting what would happen otherwise in the next 3 years or so had this [co-marketing for example] or that never happened

Also while I don't like co-marketing, it is by far the least harmful to consumers in the short-term
 
RedAssedApe

RedAssedApe

Banned
lol...speedy. granted he's toned it down a bit. seemed to learn his lesson after getting his hand slapped. at least on gaf

twitter/facebook/instagram is the wild wild west for posting dumb things though. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Phil Spencer Has Now Been Head of Xbox for 10 Years; We Look Back at His First Decade
4
642
Oppoi replied
  • Locked
  • Poll
If Phil Spencer tears down the wall of exclusives on Xbox, will those of you who own an Xbox sell their system?
23
1K
Kururu replied
Devolver co-founder talks about competing with live service AAA titles for players' time and why indies may have a harder time on Xbox and PlayStation
Opinion Business Game Dev
10
780
Hypereides replied
VGC: "Phil Spencer, for so long cast as Xbox’s saviour, may ultimately be remembered as the man who killed it.”
Opinion Business 2 3
142
11K
March Climber replied
IGN: Phil Spencer Has Now Been Head of Xbox for 10 Years; We Look Back at His First Decade
Opinion Analysis 2 3
130
9K
ZehDon replied
Top Bottom