So, a shitton of game developers just got laid off from Microsoft, another in a string of “restructuring” nonsense that’s been rampant in the industry.
That’s a lot of people with gaming expertise who could be put to work helping companies transition their games to single player experiences or at least making them accessible to customers after support stops. If the EU ends up pushing this forward, there’s a decent business opportunity in there.
No, but there was the bit that you missed where I distracted him with the cuddly monkey then I said “play time’s over” and I hit him in the head with the peace lily.
One ripper says the electronic device are of course prone to EMPs and a giant solar flare.
I think the ripper across the road from where you get ping (could be wrong) says basically this (paraphrasing) yes you have sword arms, but when you replace the organic arm, the mechanical one doesn’t have as good wiring. The effect may not be noticeable with single “upgrades” but definitely can feel the difference over time
Game Pass is the same scam as Netflix was back then, and I’m not falling for it twice.
Netflix used to be too good yo be true as well. 10€ a month for literally everything ! Now they don’t even make blu-rays anymore and you spend more time looking up which service has the thing you want to watch than watching it, so people are pirating again.
I’ll stick to physical games and GOG as much as possible.
That may be true, but that wasn’t the point he tried to make. The problem is that netflix used to have everything at a good monthly price and once they dominated the market, enshittification and price hike started, plus all the other companies wanted in on the action, starting their own service.
Now MS is trying to do the same to the PC gaming market.
It’s also worth noting it came out in 2017. In the years leading up to that namely around 2014 everyone was questioning if Sony was going to have to declare bankruptcy. Throwing a large amount of money into a product that can draw users to your console/platforms for a cheap price that your main competitor couldn’t afford to do probably sounded like a good strategy at the time, knowing they could drive costs up if they got the user base built.
Not to defend Netflix, but it did seem to me like the degradation and price hikes were a result of the other companies cutting in. I have no particular love for Netflix, but I didn’t perceive it to be like that until after external threat. Maybe I’m wrong.
Justwatch reliably tells me “this isn’t available for streaming in your region”. Sonarr tells me it’s an AMZN Webrip and I can Just Watch™
Edit: But like, no shade on Justwatch, it works as intended. It’s the streaming services who get worldwide licensing rights and then don’t bother targeting my little region.
Sadly justwatch doesn’t work for me. It gives the choice between a part of the country that doesn’t offer services where I live, or another country - which doesn’t offer services where I live.
So was Moviepass, but while they were operating it was a great deal for the consumer. I wasn’t going to sit that out just because I could see that they were gonna run out of money eventually.
The proper consumer response to these types of models (get them hooked with a great value proposition and then try to squeeze them once they’re in) is just to leave when things get bad. Subscribing to Netflix in 2013 doesn’t mean that I had to keep subscribing through 2023. I could get the benefit of a 2014 subscription and reevaluate each year whether it was worth continuing.
I worked at BlockBuster back when Netflix came out. It was legit a great contender, and an awesome service. BB had their own mail service, but it was just seen as a copycat. Also the franchise had a LOT of bad blood, and sometimes rightfully so. Depended on local management how much leeway you could have. The most lax stores that were lenient did the best.
The reason it worked was because physical media is protected by the first sale doctrine. So if you could buy a disc, it could be under one roof as rentable inventory.
Streaming and licenses is what fragmented everything and greed gave the appropriate incentive.
It also somewhat killed direct competition. When everything was physical on a shelf in front of you, all for the same price, you had direct comparison and competition. You could have any show or movie from any studio all side by side. That $2-5 could get you anything, across the board.
I saw this all coming from miles away. I don’t blame anyone, every step sounded like a great deal. I see a lot of the same things with Gamepass. It’s a great deal, and I don’t blame anyone for using it… But I don’t see it as being a long term net positive for the industry.
Game Pass obviously and absolutely affects game sales. At the same time this conversation only happens because we’re comparing “the industry with Game Pass” to “games at face value”. That second one only lasted 10-15-ish years. Before that, there was “the industry with game rentals”. Blockbuster was also absolutely eating up some sales.
But game rentals were often seen as a “try before you buy” case to many, as you may want to play a game more than 3-5 days. So maybe the answer is don’t lease your game to Game Pass for a year at a time. Just offer it for a month or three. (Also make an easy way for the non-technical to export/import saves.) This also would let Microsoft make more deals for more games in their rotation. Seems like a shorter time helps everyone out.
Yeah, it used to be quite common for PC gaming magazines to include a demo disk, basically, here’s the game and the first level or two, often you could fit a couple game’s demo versions on one cd.
GamesPass could easily do something like uh… hey, this game here, you can play for 2 or 5 or 10 hours, and then if you want more, you can buy it with… I dunno, a 1/4 to 1/3 discount if you’re subbed to GamesPass, and you’ve got the playtime.
I have played Stardew Valley before but it was a pirated copy. I have it wish listed on steam but I only purchased two games on steam and I find the payment process to be a bit tedious. I may look into buying it someday but if I win this giveaway, then I don’t have to buy it. 🙂
Most likely, if they are forced to allow public servers after they shut down the official ones, they will pull some other bullshit. Like claim the game is still available, but the 300$ cosmetics you bought are not allowed on public servers because they are separate from the game.
They should be compelled to either make those cosmetics available for everyone or have some technical means to prove ownership (e.g. blockchain or cryptographically signed file). You can’t lose stuff you bought just because the publisher shut down the servers.
You can’t lose stuff you bought just because the publisher shut down the servers.
I mean that’s exactly how it works right now. And depending on the exact wording of any laws passed as a result of this petition only the game itself or some or all micro transactions will have to be made available after official support ends.
Public servers will either sell micro transactions themselves to finance servers or make all in game content available to everyone for free. I can see publishers having a problem with that.
Right, I’m explaining how Stop Killing Games would change things if adopted.
Public servers will either sell micro transactions themselves
That can certainly be restricted, since they’re profiting off someone else’s IP. Selling hosting is one thing, reselling assets in the game is another thing entirely and AFAIK would be a violation of copyright’s fair use provisions.
If they’re no longer profiting from a game, surely releasing access to gated content isn’t an issue any more? It’s not like they are losing anything. So I think unlocking cosmetics for everyone would be fine, but it’s up to them. If they want to preserve the restriction, they can find a way that doesn’t reauire ongoing costs, such as the ones I mentioned.
True. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attack predatory behavior when we see it. If they want to sell me something, I need to own it, and that means I get to use it after they’ve stopped supporting it.
When I pay to see a film in a theater, I don’t own the film. I don’t get to watch the film again after it leaves the theater.
While I pay to see a concert, a play, or a musical, I don’t own those performances. I don’t get to see them again. They generally aren’t recorded (Although that is changing in some limited cases.)
I do think a game dying is terrible and I do think games should be clearly labeled (so people can make an education decision if they want to rent the game).
This isn’t paying to see a concert, play, or musical. This is buying a book for amazon’s e-reader, and them not allowing you to read the book anymore when they put out the book’s sequel.
Fun fact a company did this with DVDs back in the day, once you broke the seal on it the air would react with a coating on the disk which would become increasingly dark until it became unreadable.
Sure, you’re paying for a performance when you watch a film or play at a theater. If I pay to watch a video game tournament, I’m likewise paying for a performance, not the game.
When you buy a film (DVD, Bluray, or Digital Copy) or a recording of a play performance, you own that copy and can watch it as often as you want for as many years into the future as you want. What we’re saying is that video games should work the same way, if I buy a game, I should be able to play it whenever I want at any point in the future. That’s it, it’s the same thing as with a film.
I don’t know how you could do that without staying exclusively on open source
I’m old enough that the games I’m nostalgic for are on floppy discs on my shelf, but now the games I play are downloaded and rely on whatever company keeping a server up to authenticate me
Who knows what Microsoft will do with Minecraft in 30 years
Who knows what Steam will do with the licences it’s sold me
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