Crimson Desert Dev Found PS5 Exclusive Opportunity Appealing

Don't know what the point would even be anymore. Sony doesn't have competition with Xbox anymore.

Glad it was declined. Paid exclusivity deals aren't good for anybody.

At least it's not the usual korean gacha rubbish Sony usually flings at us.

@AdamNovice @get2sammyb @Frmknst I think gamers as a whole have come to see the industry only from their point of view. If games aren't geared toward them in particular then those games shouldn't exist. The past 4-6 months around here have brought me to that conclusion.

Most comments sections are littered with people who don't even care for the game they're commenting on. Just there to say they don't like it and want something else.

I've seen such diversity in this generation but most people see the opposite. I always have an analogy for this happening. It's like if you have 100 things, you give someone 90 of those 100 things, then give someone else the next 5 of those 100 things, the person who got the 90 will be upset that you've now decided to support someone else. That's basically what gaming has become; people who are upset that game companies now focus on gamers who aren't themselves.

@Owyn yeah like I said what would be the point. If they made it exclusive it would have still launched on PC, and games sale better on PlayStation vs Xbox, so exclusivity would have been pointless

Hopefully the exclusivity deals are permanently dying off.

@Bigmanfan I'd argue they're good for indie developers who struggle financially and may run out of funds before the game is complete. Other than that, I wish all companies would use their funds for new games, not to block other games from experiencing a third party game.

@AhmadSumadi yup. Same with politics and pretty much everything else.

Been looking forward to this one since I saw the first trailer… exclusive or not!

@Owyn Which makes a console exclusive deal even more pointless, correct

Great news, because an open world like this, I usually play it on my PC.

@Americansamurai1
AND THEN THEY RELEASE THEIR EXCLUSIVES ON PC LMAO

Anyways...
>this is a single player release highly inspired by the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

What is this game and when can I play it!?

This actually makes me want to buy it more, it's almost a guarantee it won't be soiled by ESG

@McTwist no one said they did not. I'm saying they don't have to pay for 3rd party exclusives anymore. It's a waste when you no longer have real competition

It sounds like they offered them a publishing deal, which is very different from paid exclusivity. They would have been taking on the costs of getting the game out and actively assisting in its development.

@McTwist it does look really good in trailers. And being inspired by 2 of my favourite games does make this one of my most anticipated games

I'm not mad at Sony for trying, not mad at the studio for declining. Just hope the game is great regardless.

People saying theses type of second or third party deals are pointless are clueless themselves. With the Rising cost of game development Sony can’t just Rely on they’re First party developers anymore unless you like getting one or two exclusive games a year.

@Americansamurai1
Nono, I was agreeing with you on the ridiculousness of it all

This game looked really fantastic, but time will tell if it’s as good as it showed.
As for the exclusivity, it seems wise for Sony to pursue this game as it has potential to be a cult hit like Stellar Blade. But it’s also probably going to work out better for the developers to take the chance at self-publishing if it is successful as it appears. Of course none of us know what the development costs are and the marketing budget. Sony could have helped them take less risk by providing backup funding. It will be interesting to see.

Makes sense. Not clear if it would be a Final fantasy/silent hill 3rd party deal or a 2nd party stellar blade deal but timed exclusivity is fading away. Square failing to consistently hit sales expectations vs the other major 3rd party Japanese publishers being fully multiplatform and finding all sorts of success with the likes of Sega/Atlus, Capcom, Fromsoftware, etc. for sure AAA 3rd party games need to be on PS5 and PC day and date if you are going to two 2 platforms you might as well do Xbox since all are x86 based. Could see Sony still getting deals like this for newer ip and studios like Shift Up for Stellar Blade or questionable returns like Bloober Team and Silent Hill 2, but established teams don’t really have an incentive. Pearl Abyss is huge with Black Desert and owning CCP and Eve, they don’t need Sony to publish it.

Well Sony are trying to increase their market share in China and Korea so maybe they thought this game could help them do that in those markets.

@naruball True, but even then, I think exclusivity deals aren't the best way for indie devs to make money. Game pass and PS plus both shell out a lot of money for games to be on the services. Plus, many indie games see a lot of success from early access launches. Kickstarters are another good way. Rather that than lock it away from the majority of players.

@Jay767 makes sense for Sony yes but it’s starting to make less sense for 3rd parties. Look at Square having financial issues vs Sega/Atlus, Capcom, Fromsoftware and more all finding success being fully multiplatform. Yes 2nd party is different but that’s more so for newer teams and such.

Meaning the studio has integrity and cares for all gamers across platforms.

Very good for them.

They may as well got the extra money from Sony. Microsoft is no longer competition and I don't know if this can even run on the switch. lol

@ChrisDeku like they did with SFV despite Xbox 360 having the best competition during SF4

@Americansamurai1 It's still the biggest company in the world MS.

Not everyone can be paid off Sony. Lol.

@Fishmasterflex96 square enix having Financial issues isn’t Sony fault it’s square enix fault putting out a lot games both Multiplatform and exclusive that flop. Bamco is having Financial issues as well and they put all they’re games on all platforms.

@Jay767 not saying it’s Sony’s Fault. Saying the exclusivity deals aren’t doing enough to make Square the money they are expecting from both 16 and Rebirth and that they would have been better off being fully multiplatform releases. Then I used the success that Capcom, Sega/Atlus, and Fromsoftware as examples of great success that publishers/developers can find by being fully multiplatform, especially with how expensive game development has gotten. And yes Bandai is having issues but you still are better off being on everything and having the chance of making more money from all platforms vs only being on one. Mainly not being on pc.

@Fishmasterflex96 have much you think those final Fantasy games were gonna sold on Xbox a few Thousand extra copies at best that wouldn’t help much. ff16 just released on pc and flop hard. Sony help funded and help develop and market both ff16 and ff7r Sony give Square enix a really good deal so isn’t Sony fault.

@Jay767 I mainly said not launching on PC day and date hurt sales. With how good both of those games are and how well reviewed they are they would have done very well on PC. Launching later of any platform is going to hamper its sales potential. Yea Xbox would have probably not helped too much but with how similar all the platforms are if you make a game for 2 of the 3 might as well make it for the third one, especially if you are a 3rd party. Also not saying Sony didn’t give them a good deal, just that Square’s expectations of the deal were clearly not meant and that they would have been better off being fully multiplat.

@Flaming_Kaiser hasn't helped them so far so..

@Deityjester Not really sure what this means as Sony most definitely did not publish SFV, nor was it released during the Xbox 360 era, it was released during the era where PS4 was the dominant console. I also highly suspect that SFIV sold considerably better on the PS3 considering its a japanese game.

@Major_Player Got nothing better going on with your life Johnny?

Crimson desert is going to be a big hit.it looks excellent.word up son

Where is the Redemption 2 inspiration?

@Americansamurai1 And yet competition is needed in the industry

@Nakatomi_Uk definitely agree with that.

@get2sammyb I think his point was that there’s no point in paying to keep a third-party game off Xbox and instead that same money should be invested in their first-party output or not trying to milk out customers to offset their low profit margins because of losses from a failed live-service push.

I do agree that Sony most of the time has good eye and the fact they’re willing to pay for exclusivity means that the game is promising, but it won’t be better or worse if being kept as a Sony exclusive.

@Bigmanfan it worked out for GameFreak and Nintendo

@Zemo55 Not really the same situation exactly. There's actually a rather weird and complicated history there. If the topic Interests you at all though, there's a really neat YT video from the channel moon channel that I would highly highly recommend. A long video, but worth the watch. But basically, it's not really the same situation at all.

I wonder if Xbox heard about this and they ended up giving them a bag... Because we have seen this game at Xbox shows.

No Game Pass deal or anything, just seen at shows

Allegedly. I think of sony and remember concord, sad for all involved.

As good as I hope this game is like many Pearl Abyss games that seem interesting of upcoming and waiting.

Sony could spend their money on smaller games or funding other things that matter then something big like this or not rebooting/cancelling tv shows in the works and getting better staff to really think about the projects to make them then swapping staff or rebooting things too often like Uncharted had and finally came out.

Compared to merch and other things they sign deals for.

But whatever they want to waste their money on I guess.

I think multiplatform makes most sense for this game to succeed then 1 platform or 1 console platform.

I think more and more devs are realizing exclusivity is bad in the long run. If your a tiny dev, you're better off getting on GP or PSN vs being exclusive. And big devs need the larger player base to make IPs "successful" now it seems.

DAMN. 33% of the profits go to the developer. Seems kinda *****.

They expect maybe 4 million or more? They better market the crap out of it, then.

I love fantasy settings and RPG's and am quite bad at controlling my wallet 😅, but even I really need this to review well/have good word of mouth to buy it day one.

Now if we take a look at Johnny Casual, who won't have even heard of Crimson Desert, it is going to take a great deal of marketing to get them to even notice that the game exists. At least in the days of digital the PS storefront will help sell copies if they use that well, and maybe Steam numbers if people jump on it early. I hope they don't underestimate the power of marketing and just assume it will sell.

That said, if it's 4 million lifetime, it's not so bad, and I hope it gets more like 10+ million if it is genuinely a good to great game.

And this is my call to arms, if the game reviews pretty well, then buy it, people. Don't "oh, I'll wait for a sale" it, be a part of a new IP's success 🫡

If Microsoft filled their pockets with money I'm sure they would accept and everyone would applaud, or do you really believe that they didn't accept Sony's proposal because it was better for the players, Sony just didn't make the right proposal, everyone has a price and everything revolves around money... I remember that Black Desert was an exclusive console for the Xbox One for a long time... so exclusivity for Microsoft is allowed. I'm increasingly convinced that the vast majority of the comments on this site are from PlayStation haters.

Be ironic if the Xbox version gets delayed due to the series s version.

Beating the dead horse with a new article?

It's perfectly ok to have studios to choose gamers across multiple platforms than choosing money at front with platform exclusivity.

I guess proofreading is an outdated profession now.

@AhmadSumadi That is probably the most levelheaded and spot on thing I’ve ever read on here. Sure, I’ll make snarky comments occasionally if I don’t necessarily like something. But I don’t just go onto articles throwing fits if it’s about something I dislike. At the end of the day, we’re all gamers, to some degree, and have games that are for us or things that aren’t. For me it’s JRPGs or mobile games, for someone else it’s getting a Platinum Trophy in Call of Duty. To each our own.

@EddieGallad You should see NintendoLife whenever Nintendo rightfully sues anyone. You’d think the comments there were from people who hated Nintendo more than anything.

@IOI @Frmknst

The problem with have got is that gamers are getting insight into the business side and are unaware how actual business works esp.on the games industry.

This is standard practise for every single publisher.

Sony literally has a load of first party studios, who have their own budgets and finances.

The money used to do deals with other developers has 0 impact on the money used on first party developers.

Not only this but Sony has literslly bought in the passed 4 years a load of new studios to put under their umbrella.
Bungie
Nixxies
Blue point
A studio which had a similar deal in place before hand, showed them how good they was so playstation offered to bring them into the fold.

Insomanic
A studio who also had deals in place and a close relationship with Sony with exclusive titles, showed how good they was and offered them into the fold.

Housemarque
Same again Sony saw potential offered them deals with games, became great, made Sony a great game decided to offer them a deal they couldn't refuse, brought them into the fold.

Then also brought in brand new developers into the mix and put money up front,
1 team failed and was disbanded but Sony hadn't bought them only money.

Concord developers it was a long shot but there was potential there, they went for it, unfortunately it failed.

Haven they see great potential so brought them into the mix.

Playstation in its long history even to this day, do and will risk on potential.

But this has nothing to do with the money which is untouchable to their core first party developers, they get what they want when they want.

Unfortunately money does not make games be developed faster.

Xbox gamers rarely buy games anymore, they mostly play on gamepass (like I do when I have xbox series back then lol). Crimson desert dev should take the opportunity, as long as the pc version can also be released day one.

@Ravix It's not a new IP, it's part of the Black Desert IP that's been running for quite a while. It doesn't get the headlines but it's a pretty successful MMORPG. This is just the single player spinoff. The MMO's still going to be running.

I think like Wukong, most of their market is going to be on PC, and overlap with their existing Black Desert market. Additional I don't think they wanted to miss out on Xbox, because they already have a presence and history of Black Desert Game Pass perks on Xbox, so they know they have some amount of market on the platform. Being mostly on PC, keeping the 35% of publishing revenue on PS, and the 70% of revenue on Xbox, it makes sense that self publishing is the best bet for them, and keeps GP opportunities available to them, since they already have a history with the program. Especially with PC being a primary market for them.

They looked at the numbers and want with what they feel is the best deal. Sony also being a business thought they could have a slice of profits and made a proposal.

So much gamer discourse is people projecting emotions on clinical business decisions. X company did this did this because they want everyone to enjoy the game or they have integrity ect.

It's a business, like every other industry they make judgements on what's the best predicted trajectory that equals the most growth/profit that's it. They're not interested in console wars or players feelings towards them supporting X, Y and Z platforms.

@get2sammyb maybe to Sony. Buy not the company on the other end. Every game that signed a deal has sold far less and I'm glad studios are realizing its a dumb route to go.

@NEStalgia I mean... it kind of is

"Pearl Abyss have since suggested that it is not especially connected to Black Desert, and instead is its own standalone IP which shares some themes."

I just hope they do appreciate what Sony would have added for them in brand value, and properly market the game well themselves, rather than just plop it out there and hope to make up the numbers by simply having a larger percentage of profits, rather than really push to up sales figures and make more that way.

But I do agree, the PC market should help a lot. I just want to see the big new fantasy RPG really succeed, and for that marketing will be absolutely key.

Good choice, locking the game on a platform would limit it's potential buyer numbers by default.

@Ravix I'm not sure the whole "being published by Sony boosts your brand value" thing really pans out these days. Look at FFXVI and Remake, we have ShiftUp expecting better sales on PC, on the opposite end we have Wukong, which is a special case, etc. I think that has a certain fanfare to a certain niche of the market, but I'm not sure in real world numbers that moves the needle all that much like it used to. I think Sony's publishing value at this point lies squarely in the raw numbers of the deal, not so much in raising brand value due to a "prestige" publisher. In the brick and mortar discs on a shelf days I think that had more power. In the social marketing world, I'm not sure the name on the corner means as much.

I think it works if you're too small to publish the game yourself and Sony offers a boon like that, like for ShiftUp, or if Sony's offering dev resources you don't have available, mocap for free etc, it might pay. But if you've got a solid studio that already has those resources, I doubt it's worth it to turn over so much control and revenue share to an external publisher. Heck, Sony wouldn't be offering the deal if it wasn't to their benefit, and it's not like they're worried about Xbox surpassing them if they don't score the big games.

@NEStalgia yeah, I mostly agree tbh. I just meant adding value in making a product that is known in the casual space, not just by hardcore gamers. If Sony published the next big Fantasy RPG with a large budget behind advertising, then that IP stands a good chance at being universally known, and being universally known helps a tonne with generating sales from casuals.

I do think if they market it themselves in a Sony manner there could also be similar results. I'm just not sure if they will push the boat out with ad campaigns or not. They may well do, as they made a good amount from their MMO. But I think the marketing department and technical help are the best things a dev can get from Sony right now. But, like you say, it's maybe not quite what it was in other areas, and PC is going to be a decent chunk of sales.

@Ravix Yeah, though TBH, I think even the publishers are struggling to figure out how making a game popular in the casual space happens, these days. The market changed so much, and the companies keep flaming out trying to figure out what it changed to. To a large extent I don't think any of this "big" games are capable of being popular in the casual space, that's not what the casual market is interested in. Seems they either want quick pick-up-and-play experiences (mobile, Nintendo, sports games, Vampire Survivor), or they want social engagement spaces with activities. These "big" games keep struggling because they don't budget to recognize that their market isn't a very big one, and overlaps the same customers for every single other big game. In that sense, I'm not sure the marketing matters (cue Xbox jokes), so much as just getting people to talk about your game on the socials (Bear Sex(TM)) so that the non-casual in-the-know gamers feel like they need to participate. But even then, the games are a flash in the pan and then everyone moves on. Nintendo gets that more right with those long tail sales, where a game is made to be desirable for years and years rather than hyped.

Probably the best comparison for Pearl Abyss might be Frontier. The PC-focused, long standing MMO, the smaller games that never hit trend, but always sell in modest numbers, etc. In a lot of ways I think the PC market is a lot more stable than the console market. Console is about sell everything in a weekend, then everyone forgets about the game. PC seems to generate those long tail sales. Lower margin per unit, but even old games keep selling forever and ever.

The "Sony sales formula" seems dated. It used to work, but it now seems like they spend more on advertising than it can possibly generate. It makes a thing seem big, but they get no real return to speak of as a result, because the market doesn't respond like it did in the pre-internet 90's when a big marketing campaign was the only thing you saw and heard about. They can put XVI posters on as many busses as they want, but everyone will still play Vampire Survivor instead because that's what they heard everyone else talking about.

IMO what it comes down to is expectations. If they budgeted the game appropriately for sales expectations, don't overspend on advertising (lets face it $100-150M of the 300M Sony spent on Spiderman2 wasn't development, it was marketing expense), and let natural sales, press, and conversation sell the game, AND don't rely on "blockbuster launch" sales and expect to make their sales over a period of years (like Nintendo), I think they could easily end up ahead rather than chasing "launch weekend" sales.

But these days, who knows. Devs seem like they get it right, then fire the whole team for "disappointing sales'.

@NEStalgia yeah, I'm probably quite old school in my thinking tbh. The market is a mess these days and everything, by and large, flops or is considered a flop 😅

At least we still have things like Baldur's Gate 3, that you mentioned, that probably succeeded because they had potential players on side way before launch, they talked to those people and made a game with love and respect for the IP, product and, those who would buy it to make something people actually wanted. Unlike, say, Concord 😬

But that turns me back onto the worried side of Crimson Desert. Did they just stick a bunch of stuff from other popular games into one game because they think it will be what people want in a very disconnected way, which is how it looks at times, or did they make it with passion and care to create something that people will really connect with, which is what I'm really hoping for. And if it is the latter, sales should handle themselves with fantasy/rpg gamers, at least.

@Ravix Interesting thing with BG3, I'm actually wondering if "Bear Sex(TM)" was the source of most of its success after all. I still haven't played it yet despite being a massive BG1 and 2 fan. Something never clicked for me. But I've been getting tempted from all the rave reviews. But I was reading through the reviews, especially early access reviews on GoG, and most were actually negative (despite an overall 4.5/5 rating), saying that it was BG in name only and it was obvious the game is just Divinity 3 with a Forgotten Realms skin slapped on top and it has no similarity to BG 1 and 2. Which mirrors how I'd felt about it from originally seeing it. Not that Divinity 3 would be a bad game, but it seems that it's not quite as rosy as it seems either. It might be why Larian didn't want to do a sequel, they really didn't know what to do with the BG world if they'd really made a Divinity game at the heart.

But yeah, I think if it's an exceptional game sales will thrive, if it's not....I'm not sure even mega marketing could save it, and then they'd lose another 35% of the revenue. Their games don't seem to be blockbuster material TBH, but that's not a bad thing, and they seem to attract a decent following.

I'm glad they declined, coz exclusivity sucks. I prefer when 3rd parties stay multiplatform.

@Americansamurai1 With infinite money you can do anything. The even make money of the US military.

@Flaming_Kaiser no such thing as infinite money. There's always a cost, no matter how big a company is they have to be able to justify spending money that could go to their shareholders.