Shank dev claims platform exclusivity hurts digital sales

Shank dev claims platform exclusivity hurts digital sales

Jamie Cheng, the CEO of Shank developer Klei Entertainment, has been talking at GDC about the creation process behind his action side-scrolling beat-em-up. Among his comments,metin2 goldhe's been keen to big up Steam and it's understanding of the development scene specifically platform exclusivity.

"Steam understands that if the game is out on more platforms, it will sell more on Steam," explained Cheng at his talk. He went on to say that having a title platform exclusive does not help to increase the sale of digital codes. Read on for more details.

It's a controversial topic: developers approaching publishers who will only deal if they sign an exclusivity contract. It's a story that has never been mirrored at Valve though, as a huge proportion of it's library comprises of multi-platform titles. Shank available on PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and Steam continues to sell well, and Cheng cites Steam as having a "really long tail, [that] just keeps on going." He argues that Valve know that the wider reach the game has by being featured on multiple platforms, the more it is likely to sell, and the more potential consumers will choose to play it on PC.

Wider availability is part of the equation, yes. But Valve also understand the key to retail sales: price point. Volume trumps high margins every time in retail. When titles move out of the "hot" column after a few months, Steam incrementally drops prices to keep the volume up, then throws down monster fire sales every few months.

If you sell one copy at 10% markup, your revenue is lower, your gross profit higher. If you sell 10 copies at 1% markup, your revenue is higher, your gross profit is the same, and you have nine more chances that a buyer will like the product enough to recommend it to his friends. Rinse, repeat, and you've got geometric sales growth. That's called exponential margin accumulation, and it works. True,metin2 yangyour apparent overhead is higher initially at a lower margin, but that gets reduced to insignificance after a few sales growth cycles. Thus: Step 3) Profit!

It's hardly rocket science, but some digital distributors (like Matrix Games) are still struggling with this very basic business principle. Eventually the market will teach them or kill them.

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