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Economists cannot predict the future, as much as some people might wish they could.
Whatever break even point the devs of Anno 1800 considered when making the decision between releasing only on Epic and releasing to all platforms may have seemed reasonable at the time the devs were gearing up to release the game, but performance of said game is never guaranteed. Sure you may have statistics to influence things one way or another, but it’s still a gamble.
We don’t know if Epic exclusive + late discounts > full game purchases on all platforms specifically for Anno 1800, and it appears that you’re claiming which way that equation points with no evidence. Do you work for Epic? For Ubisoft? For Blue Byte? Are there public sources pointing to game sales? What research are you pulling from that considers game futures?
I will respect that you’re right about predicting devs’ decisions based on which way that equation points. Everyone is downvoting you though because you’re making it seem like you know the answer when clearly there’s more to this game, and financial gaming decisions like this.
You’re not an expert. You’re a chatter. Unless you can prove otherwise.
The commenter above you said that it’s a gamble as to whether a developer making their game exclusive to a certain platform and the payout from doing so is more lucrative compared to releasing to all platforms. It may be, or it may not be.
I’m not sure if we have the statistics of how well Anno 1800 did in terms of sales when it first launched, but the parent commenter said they obtained the game on Steam when it was discounted. That said commenter didn’t pay full price for it at launch to me speaks to how maybe Anno 1800 lost revenue by not reaching more audiences.
Point is: we don’t know if it was a double win for Anno 1800, or any game by any developer that is restricted to a limited amount of platforms. Don’t claim it was so unless you have evidence one way or another.
Future prospect then, if Arrowhead get to that point.
My point: it is possible to do independent, dev-based account tracking. Sony could have invested in Arrowhead to do that, but instead are clamping down and introducing exclusivity which will eventually hurt Helldivers 2’s bottom line - something we might see starting with these community choices.
Profit matters on a quarterly basis.
If a company gets the full profit of their game as they predicted they might in 1 quarter, then that’s basically the best case scenario.
If instead that full profit is spread of multiple years, then quater-to-quarter the game might look like it is underperforming, or severely so.
The timing of profit matters just as much as how much profit there is. Time value of money is a pretty useful concept in the financial world.