Thursday, September 12, 2013

Okay, I understand exclusives now

Lately I've been playing my 3DS a lot with Animal Crossing, and in that weird everything-must-be-useful way, I felt sorry for my Vita. So I bought the visual novel Sweet Fuse: At Your Side on it, which has some elements of an otome dating sim (your character is a woman and you get to choose which guys to hang out with). The setup is just as artificial as Zero Escape, and the puzzles aren't interactive, but it hits the visual novel spot, and it's a game that's not on Steam.

Wait, I think a game not being on Steam is a good thing? What weird world am I in?

I think I'm finally understanding the psychology behind exclusives and why many of the commenters here refuse to buy Sweet Fuse because it's a PSP, not a Vita game. As a gamer with a lot of consoles, I have more than one console because there are specific games you can only play on each console. The PS3 has a lot of JRPGs like Ni No Kuni and the Wii has the Mario and Zelda games. I don't have an Xbox 360 because I don't care about Halo, and every other Xbox game I wanted to play has been available for PC (eventually). So when I see a new game available on the Vita that I can buy on Steam or Gog for half the price (or sometimes even 80% off on a good sale, I'm looking at you, Puddle), I'm not all that excited about it. I am, however, excited about PSP games because I've never owned a PSP.

I do want exclusive games to justify my Vita purchase (as if the 40+ hours I spent on P4 Golden weren't enough justification?). But the way I see the Vita going, it's turning into a more expensive vehicle for indie games, with a only a few cool exclusives. I'm trying to understand why everyone doesn't buy the same indie games on Steam when they're cheap. It's probably because a good gaming PC is a lot more expensive and complicated than a console, and maybe people don't know about nice, cheap PC games? Or maybe my question should be: Why aren't PSN sales as awesome as Steam sales?

I think Sony's fans are just willing to pay more for games, and maybe they aren't as cutthroat about prices as I am on Steam. There's also less expectation of huge sales on the PSN, so people probably buy games when they want them and don't wait for them to go on sale. I think people spend more money overall on huge sales though, but that depends on having a huge library. So hopefully with Sony going micro-console on the Vita (though not in the US yet), the library will get much bigger and I can feel more justified in waiting around for a good sale. Or maybe PSN prices will always be higher... thoughts?