Thread by @CNaggarock

@Mortiel I apologise in advance if I seem to jump from one part of things to another, I tend to struggle with the structure of my responses at times.

@Mortiel Firstly I would agree if it was an ideal situation, it unfortunatly isn't so I have to disagree with positive reinforcement. It doesn't work on publishers, (Most of them anyway) An example of this. BL3 going exclusive in a display of pure unmitigated avarice.

@Mortiel I want to believe that most developers that are currently taking epic deals would respond to what you suggest and I honnestly cannot definatively say that they wouldn't, most of them anyway. There are very few self publishing devs (That I know of at this time) that have taken

@Mortiel The deals and not just been civil and honnest about things. I've seen plenty of ass covering and in atleast one case (Ooblets) thinly veiled hostility. And the majority of publishers that I have seen taken the deals have been, well publishers, alot of words not alot of real truth

@Mortiel As the one point you made "However, it leaves the 'why' open to interpretation" The failing here is on my part for not going into depth there, When I said let the devs know. I meant that literaly. Directly contacting the developers, going right past the publishers and mailing/

@Mortiel dming/emailing developer studios/publicly posting the exact reason I stated for why they will not play that developer studios game.
The reason I feel this would work is, I honnestly believe that the bulk of game developers still make games not just for money, but because they

@Mortiel Love games, they want to and enjoy pouring their hearts an souls into making a wonderful piece of entertainment software that people the world over will enjoy. Therefore if people are suddenly stating they will not even give it the time of day because of a decision the CEO or the

@Mortiel Publisher made. Then (idealy) that would hit them hard enough Both economicaly and ethicly that masses of them would begin to seek change.
The second reason I believe it would work is that if people just arn't buying the games that go exclusive, then the one buying the exclusive

@Mortiel contracts, is likely to see an impact on the account labled "unnessacerily large pile of cash set aside for exclusives" and (idealy) would stop trying to buy them.
As a limited third reason, the sheer level of pr hell that the deals stir up should have a minor impact on devs

@Mortiel considering the deals.

Given the situation as it stands, I do not see any merit to (effectively) tell publishers "You made a bad choice for us, we're upset, but we're still going to give you money in a years time anyway"
I do not dispute that it has a chance of having the impact

@Mortiel you hope it would, but that chance is (atleast from my perspective) bording on non existant when it comes to publishers and the bulk of those currently taking the deals.
They simply will not see it as "Oh hey, We'd have gotten all of that right then and there if we didn't do the

@Mortiel deal with epic" They will see it as "Wow. We did that deal with epic. there was a giant outcry and we STILL got all of that moeny in the end anyway. Huge upfront profit, Huge secondary profit. this method is amazing"

@Mortiel As abbrasive and prone to getting angry as I am. I (In the bulk of cases) agree that there shouldn't be any format of insult levvied at either dev or publisher.
But I will remain brutally honnest when it comes to calling a company that lies and overall acts like scum, well

@Mortiel exactly that.
However I do feel that those two should at the least be kept seperate. In the sense that,
Calling a spade a spade
And the criticism
Should be kept apart, Criticism should be given from an objective standpoint not an emmotional one and I must admit not always keeping

@Mortiel them seperated, which does as you say "creates an excuse to ignore the criticism."
As a side note to that though I feel that the bulk of publishers just ignore criticism when offered a million or two to make the greedy choice in the first place.
Even without most would ignore it

@Mortiel The short version is.
Publishers are the bulk of the issue and tend to not care what consumers think if "Minimum guarenteed sales" is ever mentioned
Criticism and emmotional response should idealy be kept seperate but often bleed into one another.
I should have gone further into

@Mortiel the explination of communicating with the devs the first time (Which I have now done)
The better format of approach (In my opinion) is to break the good devs/publishers away from the bad ones via how we spend and with direct communication

@Mortiel And I feel like I don't get to say "Pure unmitigated avarice" enough. It oddly feels nice to say.

@Mortiel Last minute addition. I recognise that some developers may actualy NEED the money to stay afloat.
To that I say. There are better ways to get it. Like being honnest with consumers and asking if there are those willing to help out.
If there arn't people willing to help out.

@Mortiel then the chances are the game wouldn't have sold too well anyway.

@Mortiel Ok am off the soap box now.
(An edit button would be nice twitter.)