Exclusivity, or deliberate exclusion?

Cliff Bleszinski stirred “controversy” when he announced the demo for Bulletstorm was coming to 360/PS3 and remarked on PC gamers being grumpy about it. Well, why wouldn’t we be? It makes no sense for a multi-platform game to have a demo on consoles but not PC. The same thing happened with Dead Space 2, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, and many others over the past few years. “Oh, well, piracy!” Does the standard anti-PC excuse really apply here, though? It’s true that some forms of copy protection can be bypassed by using code from the DRM-free demo executable, but games get cracked regardless of whether or not there was a demo available, so what does it matter? You could argue that not releasing one actually encourages piracy, since many people rationalize downloading the game for free as a way to try it out before they buy in the absence of a proper demo. There may be plenty of excuses not to release a demo on PC, but there isn’t really a good reason that I can see.

In the same vein, it’s so not cool when one platform has the exclusive on a game’s DLC for a certain period of time. Actually, it’s even more of an insult than insisting you pay for it in the first place, like saying “We don’t just want to charge you too much for a bit of fresh content, we’re also hoping you buy this version of the game because you can’t wait two months for us to charge you too much for a bit of fresh content on your platform of choice.” Really, does that ever work on people? Worse still is the fact that it’s usually Microsoft doling out inappropriately large sums to get the exclusive for their precious Xbox, blatantly defying their so-called resolution to support Windows gaming. At least I could understand if Sony wanted the exclusive, since they’re only looking out for themselves. They’ve built a legacy on the PlayStation with temporary exclusivity of games such as Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil, which is fine because there’s no conflict of interest. In the end, however, I suppose having to wait for a game or DLC to come to PC is better than not getting it at all…


Granted, this is a PC gaming site, so most of us here have a definite bias toward our gaming platform of choice. As such, we like to complain when things don’t go our way, but you have to admit we used to be the envy of the console gaming crowd. Remember when there was no way to get demos for console games without buying a magazine to get the promotional disc that came with it and hoping what you wanted was on there? Not to mention, there was no way at all to receive patches or content updates. Since then, consoles have come a long way in catching up to the PC, but they’re still not on the same footing. The only reason we get slighted the way we do is the degree of popularity they’ve achieved, and thus the power they wield over the players in the industry has leveled the playing field. I just wish it would have stopped there, instead of leading to a regression of sorts where the PC is often treated as the red-headed step-child of the gaming platforms, even though that perception couldn’t be farther removed from reality.


Though it has become increasingly rare, there are some companies that treat the PC with the respect it ought to be, and in different ways: an exclusive game, a multiplatform one designed for PC first, free downloadable content, avoiding DRM that only punishes legitimate users, the simple courtesy of treating all platforms equally, etc. Any time we’re treated this way, it only serves to remind the console crowd the ways in which they’re underappreciated (Aww, you have to pay for that DLC because MS doesn’t allow freebies? Too bad…). These developers and publishers deserve respect in return because, as cheesy as it may sound, what goes around comes around. Support the companies that support the PC, because we really can’t afford to lose any more.

Firing Points is a weekly editorial that explores popular, pressing, or otherwise provocative topics in the world of gaming. The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the rest of the FiringSquad team, or anyone else for that matter.