I’ve seen this article 15 fucken times today. They’re children who have never known a world without microtransactions. They also get these games for free, its not like they’re choosing subs over a game. They are choosing a sub for a game. Much like I did with WoW when it was the thing back in the day.
And where was this shit with flash games? “Kids would rather load a webpage than buy games”
I wouldn’t really use this as an indicator. Read your terms of agreements in most games. You do not own any of those virtual items. My D Scimmy is property of Jagex, not Sanctus. Subscription games have existed for as long as there has been dial-up. Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2 made you buy a “Hunter’s License” to play online. Neopets has a term in the TAS that states you do not own anything belonging to your Neopets account.
The minute it gets alarming is when the normal goes from “buying your first home/car” to renting, which we already have one foot through the door on that front. Physical commodities are a much better indicator of our dystopian qualities. Once people stop expecting to own a home, and are just excited to return to their corner of the habblock then we have a problem.
Games as a Service on the other hand, are mostly symptoms of our unregulated technology markets. Its much more profitable to release the license to play your game for free and pack it with predatory microtransactions than it is to release an actual piece work for a game. So we will continue to see more of the shitpacked experiences as they continue to be profitable.
If you want to own digital things, consider finding games on Itch.io whwre you can buy them directly from the creator.
Honestly, all this might show is that there's enough hype behind a big marquis Bethesda release that it can power through Game Pass availability. Most games would love to sell in a lifetime what Skyrim sold in a single month 10 years after its initial release.
They can always charge 999999999999999999999999,- € for games. Keep the following rules in mind:
Demand always exceeds supply to an absurd degree.
Price elasticity doesn’t exist.
The average willingness to pay for games is way above the 8,40 €, approaching infinity, contrary to the European displacement study on page 170 paragraph 4.
100 % of game pirates will buy games if they can’t pirate games, therefore DRM good.
Here’s the thing: I’ve been an iPhone user since the 3GS (over 14 years) and I’m highly skeptical that this price will sell. KotOR retails at $10 on the App Store as does San Andreas, and both go on sale down to $5 and lower very often. I believe the whole bundle for Final Fantasy 1-6 is like $65 and then FF7 is $15 or $16. Who is the audience for a $60 iOS game??
I recall when BioShock was originally available on the App Store. For one, it cost like maybe $15 at the most, but then it got pulled from the store and then the App Store made the change to 64-bit apps, meaning that even if you’d bought BioShock previously, it would no longer run on newer devices.
Over this last decade, I’ve watched fun, old school games get released for iOS and then pulled and then re-released as crappier MTX versions, if they got re-released at all, countless times. How is RE4 going to be any different?
Not sure if it’s an Apple issue or a developer issue, but for a $60 price tag, there’s got to be at least some sort of guarantee that an iOS update or App Store change won’t render the game suddenly unplayable on my device. iPhone 15 might be ready for AAA games but the App Store and iOS in general are not.
Indeed, when I spot an apparently good mobile port I’m often hesitant to purchase it because an OS update may break compatibility at any point, and most developers don’t give a damn about updating their games so they stay compatible.
Until they fix this major structural issue, I don’t see premium smartphone gaming taking off. People will only invest their money if they have the confidence they’ll be able to play their game for the foreseeable future.
If iOS/MacOS becomes a legitimate gaming platform then that problem solves itself. But the challenge is getting users and retaining them and having them make enough purchases to keep the platform viable meanwhile users want to wait for the platform to be proven to make investments in it, thereby the whole process is a vicious circle of fail.
It would probably take a killer app, and short of buying Nintendo I don’t see how Apple ever breaks that barrier
Yeah, we will see how it goes. Apparently one purchase gives you access on all devices running iOS/TVOS/iPadOS/MacOS but even Mac had a bunch of games that used to be available on the Mac App Store that were delisted when MacBooks transitioned to Apple silicon and are no longer available for purchase
The game being available on both iOS and iPadOS should be a given. TVOS also feels like it should be a standard because of the way Apple’s ecosystem works. A MacOS addition is a nice change, but I’m still left wondering about the target audience for this.
If you’re a gamer, your “main” device isn’t usually within Apple’s ecosystem. Most of the Mac people I know who are gamers use consoles, so for them, it would make more sense to buy this for Xbox or PS5 and use either’s virtual play option to play on iPhone if desired. If you’re a PC gamer, the PC Xbox GamePass option is even better. Gaming on MacOS has always been something that you can do if you really want to make it work, but there have usually been better options available.
I’d like to see true mobile gaming take off, but until there is a sense of stability within the mobile space, I just can’t see it. Phones and tablets are different from consoles. I’m not going to carry around my old iPad 2 just to play my 32-bit mobile games, but I still have my original PS1, PS2, and Xbox 360 hooked up to TVs and can jump onto them anytime I’m home. I still play PC games I bought in 2002 on the PC I purchased in 2022. There’s usually some options available to make games designed for Windows XP run well on Windows 10 or 11.
With Apple in particular, there’s never going to be an option to jury-rig an iPhone to play mobile BioShock again, not without jailbreaking which sort of defeats the purpose of having an iPhone in the first place. That sort of thing is acceptable for maybe $10-15, but for the price of a full game, it feels like throwing a bundle of cash back and forth over an open fire and wondering when it will all get singed.
The mobile market has to make a different approach to “proper” gaming because the space itself is far different from console or PC gaming, and the first place to start is the price point.
Oh lord what a bunch of cringe. Who fucking cares? About any of this? There’s so much awful shit in the world and so many people spending their time worrying about the absolute nothing issues of the world.
I mean honestly, I wouldn’t give my kid a switch, not unless it was hacked. Have you SEEN how pushy Nintendo is for users to spend money on subscriptions and new eshop games?
Or you could just… disable the eshop on a regular, unmodded switch through parental controls? I mean, nothing against modding but you hardly need a modded switch to block “pushy” sales and subscriptions.
Honestly, I have not. That might be because I haven’t clicked on that notifications button since I bought the thing. I’d be way more worried about a smartphone.
They could press a button and make the Steam versions available again, but they obviously also want to port it to the new consoles, and there lies the issue.
They left it small so that it wouldn’t be worth it to fight in court and they’d either just settle for a license fee or pay the fine. But sounds like the best way would be to get the patents revoked, but that’s probably more expensive than just paying the fine due to the legal fees.
kotaku.com
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