Xbox Reportedly Spent $100 Million for Rise of the Tomb Raider Timed Exclusivity - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2021 / 2,712 Views
Rise of the Tomb Raider, the second entry in a trio of games, originally launched in November 2015 as an Xbox One and Xbox 360 timed exclusive with it coming to PC in January 2016 and PlayStation 4 in Ocotober 2016.
Some new information has come out from a LinkedIn profile of the former Square Enix corporate development director Fabien Rossin who said he negotiated the deal. The part of his LinkedIn profile has been removed, however, an image of it was posted by Twitter use Timur222.
Microsoft reportedly spent $100 million to have Rise of the Tomb Raider as an Xbox console exclusive for one year. It is possible the figure includes marketing and other elements.
Rise of the Tomb Raider exclusivity deal with Microsoft was worth $100 million.
— Timur222 (@bogorad222) August 30, 2021
Other stuff. pic.twitter.com/BH6TkhI9eL
We do know Epic Games spent $115 million to have the PC version of Borderlands 3 launch exclusively on the Epic Games Store. That deal was for six months, while Rise of the Tomb Raider was for one year.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
Just to put this into perspective, Shadow of the Tomb Raider cost under $100M to make. Basically, MS paid for the development of the game at that point (though of course there would still be other costs like advertisement, distribution, etc).
While I appreciate the fact that MS basically funded the game and still agreed to let other platforms have it just a year later, I feel like it was a bit of a waste. I mean, Sony purchased the entirety of Insomniac for just over twice that amount and received both IP ownership and talent that came with that. I'm not saying MS should buy more studios now, but back in 2015 they definitely could have used extra internal studios. Better purchases could have been made IMO.
Buying studios are very different. They have to continue to support and fund a studio they buy and also hope they turn in profits where as a Timed Exclusive, When its done, its done. Also Crystal Dynamics isnt for sale so to get the Tomb Raider deal, this was there only option. Its still a fair chunk of money to spend on something they dont own.
I understand it's not the exact same thing, but I do believe that this move, in retrospect at least, was not a good one. The money could have been better used elsewhere.
In what exactly? They went off to buy Bethesda, money to them is where they see the profits and marketing. Insomanic was a clever purchase for Sony however they dont own any IP even close to the value of Tomb Raider. MS brought the rights to one of the biggest gaming icons, thats how they saw the purchase.
In what? Idk, a developer that had proven their salt? A completely new exclusive game?
Also, yeah obviously they saw the value. That isn't the argument. The argument is payout. This game didn't payout nearly as well as other more powerful plays could have.
Also, personally I'd argue Tomb Raiders ability to be a gaming icon in this day and age. Most "regular gamers" (i.e. not the forum type) don't have any clue who she is from my experience.
Tomb Raider was a planned exclusive to fill that year for Xbox. They did exactly what you said in following years which again was strategic planning which can take years.
I mean, Halo 5 came out that holiday season too, didn't it? They didn't have to have this as an exclusive then.
Also, they could have invested in developers earlier so we could have seen the fruits of their purchases before this new generation started. I know that they did this later, but later didn't help the Xbox One.
You keep going around in circles. You also contradict yourself. They wanted Tomb Raider because it was a big name at the time, buying studios to fill the void would be basically impluse buying. It takes many months if not years to acquire a studio. Hence why the buyouts happen years later.
So buying a studio because you see a need for first party content is impulsive but buying times exclusivity because you want a big holiday game isn't?
You know, I don't think we are making any headway in this conversation, so I'm going to stop. But I appreciate the discourse regardless.
Maybe no studios MS wanted were for sale and saw the opportunity to fund the sequel to a game that was a hit among fans. But please do tell us who was for sale that MS should have brought outright?
I am more than happen to end the conservation if you cant name what MS should have done with that $100m
How are you judging the value of the IP? On its legacy sales? Sony have multiple IP that easily outsell any (multiplatform) instalment of a Tomb Raider. It's a B tier IP.
Tomb Raider is obviously a house hold name. Its a franchise.
Right, MS bought some studios as well. Many of which came with IPs and talent.
Right, three years later. Not back in 2015. Thats why I said they don't need to buy studios now, but back then they could have used them
You dont impulse buy studios. It can take years to decide and depending who is up for sale at the time. They wont throw $100m at studios just because they need them, they buy studio's when they see the benefits and protential plus value.
You're taking my statement out of context. I never suggested they should impulse buy anything. Also, to be fair, you also don't impulse buy timed exclusivity either.
As for the rest of your comment...maybe MS didn't see the potential value at the time, but clearly they saw the benefits and potential value of purchasing studies later on (hence why they bought, what, 16 in the last three years if you add up all of Bethesda's too?)
Again, retrospectively speaking, MS could have made moves that were more beneficial for them in the long run instead of this.
They didnt just inpulse buy Tomb Raider, that would have been a planned purchase, the same with all the studio acquisitions. MS spent $100 on a Timed IP, they have also spent billions in the other side. They restructured the entire gaming devision. To us it feels like inpulse, to them its years of planning.
Dude, I literally NEVER said it was an impulse buy. By saying "you don't impulse buy timed exclusivity" I'm saying they contemplated their purchase of timed exclusivity for Rise of the Tomb Raider. I mean, companies in general don't do things impulsively to begin with. In my opinion, they should have contemplated other purchases instead since, in hindsight, this didn't do much to further the Xbox brand and, in fact, this game sold significantly better on PS4 a year later.
At the time, the decision made alot of sense, Tomb Raider Reboot was a hit and the deal was meant to get people to turn heads. Doesnt always work out that way.
Which is why I said, in hindsight, better purchases could have been made...
Tell us, what? Who was up for sale that would have been bigger than Tomb Raider?
Just so you know, the valuable IPs made by Insomniac were already owned by Sony. That is a very likely reason for the purchase to be "so cheap".
Seems like a very bad investment all things considered.
I remember the huge backlash they got from the public upon hearing about that exclusivity deal!
It was warranted tho since Tomb Raider was synonymous with PlayStation and i feel that deal did some considerable damage to the potential sales of the sequel and the 3rd entry as a result.
Thats like saying Final Fantasy belongs to Sony yet it was Nintendo who put FF on the map. Backlash was warrented only by fanboys. Street Fighter was huge on the 360 yet when 5 was exclusive.. not a sound. Fanboys are always the most vocal.
Yeah but Tomb Raider is only synonymous with PlayStation because Sony paid for an exclusive deal that kept multiple games off other consoles for years.
So of course the franchise will be known most as a PlayStation franchise, it wasn’t allowed to be anywhere else thanks to moneyhats. That made all the people upset about the “PlayStation franchise”‘aspect pretty much just hypocrites.
Not surprised at the downvotes, console warriors gonna do what they do. At least they aren’t trying to convince me that Eidos made that exclusive deal with Sony for free just for the privilege of having the game on PlayStation, as other Chartz members have tried in the past
It was a desperation move just to have a big holiday exclusive. MS has spent many billions acquiring studios since then. However, Epic spending $115 million to keep Borderlands 3 off Steam seems even crazier in comparison.
Difference being Epic just launched their games store the year before this release and was going against a hugely well established platform - Steam (the biggest platform on PC by a country mile). Complete waste of money for BL3 mind.
Though, Tencent owns the majority of Epic and they can use their money much like MS does in cases like this to get their foot in the door.
Damn they could have bought another studio for people to complain about with that money.
Not of the caliber that MS has been buying.
Yeah, you're right. There are significant studios with values like that.
Microsoft probably made more than $100M in profit in the time it took me to read this article.
Definitely wasn't worth it, with the game selling 7M in the end.
For $100M I feel like MS could've picked a better game.
Possibly they didn't want to make a last gen version, but MS contract asked for it? If I`m not wrong it was a different company that made the port.
