Rise of the Tomb Raider‘s one-year Xbox One exclusivity not only surprised players, it also surprised Sony’s own executives. In 2015, Square Enix said that it didn’t take the decision lightly, and knew it would disappoint a lot of fans. But was it all worth it?
The deal may have made financial sense to Square Enix at the time, if a former executive’s LinkedIn profile is anything to go by. According to Fabien Rossini, who served as Strategic Planning and Corporate Development Director at Square Enix at the time, the deal was worth $100 million. Rossini, a 10-year Square Enix veteran, negotiated the deal.
Screenshots of the profile were circulated by Twitter user Timur222, following which Rossini scrubbed the information entirely. Prior to the update, his LinkedIn summary read:
Fabien spent 10 years at global publisher Square Enix, advancing from Global Brand Director where he worked on brand strategy on some of the industry’s largest franchises like Deus Ex and Hitman, to Strategic Planning and Corporate Development Director working directly with the CEO in a senior leadership role responsible for the company’s game portfolio and corporate strategy, building strategic partnerships with first parties, including negotiating $100m Tomb Raider exclusivity deal with Microsoft.
It’s unusual for such information to be disclosed, but worth noting that although huge, the $100m figure isn’t anything out of the ordinary when it comes to exclusivity deals. Epic Games previously offered Sony $200m for exclusive releases of first-party PlayStation games on the Epic Games Store, and paid a similar amount for an exclusive EGS release of Borderlands 3.
[Source: Twitter]
