Its exactly what we saw with the rise of Spotify and the like… but worse because it is so dependent on in-house productions (so Netflix?)
For the AAA games? it doesn’t matter. They can get special deals (see Rockstar and Activision on Steam) or they just don’t have to care because people will play hundreds of hours of their game regardless. And for the A/B games? It is actually still a great deal because it drastically increases discoverability, early on, where “Well, I always fucking hated Shenmue but apparently people like these Yakuzas? Might as well give it a go for free”.
But it fundamentally changes the medium. It is incredibly rare to see an Album anymore because people don’t listen to music as albums. They listen to them as singles in a playlist. Its why there is no real point in deciding whether something should be a film or a tv series because you can just release it as a four part miniseries or stretch things out for a full eight and so forth.
And we are rapidly seeing that come out of MS. They bought so many dream team studios that were known for making AMAZING crafted SP games (Obsidian et al) and a variety of technically excellent games (iD) or money makers (Bethesda). But none of those map well to a system where there is little point in sticking to a single game and… monetary incentives towards short and sweet games.
I forget if it came before or after Sony made PS+ another one, but the biggest mistake was day and date for all major MS releases on gamepass. Provide discounts and get the “patient gamers” but don’t put Indiana Jones on the subscription service the day it releases. It is just killing Q1 sales. And… once you do it, you can never undo it.
I don't really have my finger on the pulse of most of this, so I don't have anything to add to everything you said. But I am curious about your statement regarding albums:
It is incredibly rare to see an Album anymore because people don't listen to music as albums. They listen to them as singles in a playlist.
What genre are you listening to, where artists used to come out with albums but aren't anymore? As a listener of all kinds of music, like rock, metal, blues, kpop, reggaeton, EDM, country and many other genres, that has not been my experience at all.
Music is released in album format in the sense of being a playlist that might get sold as a vinyl at a show. It is incredibly rare to be released as a curated listening experience. The idea that you listen to the music, in album order, and have a story told to you. One of love and loss or of making it past an infidelity or of murdering your brother in the hopes of waking up a subjugated populace and so forth.
Plenty of musicians have talked about it and it is a very common talking point on the music side of things. I think Hayley Williams’s shadow dropped album (that was part of a hair product line or something?) is being widely praised as an Album? I dunno, I love her but I’ve been too busy to sit down and listen. Which… is also a big part of the problem.
I really can't see where you're coming from. I'm discovering and listening to loads of new albums every couple of months. Spotify is even pushing albums with their "pre-save" feature, where artists start a countdown for their album that's about to drop, and you 'pre-save' it to your library, so you get a notification and have instant access, once the album drops.
Your specific point about Hayley Williams also doesn't make sense to me. I haven't listened to much of her music, since it wasn't really my cup of tea, but I have family members who love her music, and look forward to every album of hers.
I agree that singles are more important than ever in a marketing sense, and that there are probably some artists that focus more on putting those out, than creating albums. But to say that albums are incredible rare is just straight up untrue in my experience. Plenty of artists are still making thematic albums and/or albums that tell a story.
I think you still very much don’t understand the distinction between a music set (an “album”) and a curated set of songs to tell a story (an “Album”).
There are a LOT of things to complain about but frigging Beyonce talked about this… a decade or so ago. And plenty of other musicians and “music industry” people have made the same sentiments.
Are there still some Albums? Of course. But they are a tiny fraction of what is actually created for reasons very much tied towards streaming music services, attention spans, and so forth.
So you can either continue to not be able to see how this is a statement and continue arguing against it. Or you can actually do some googling and look at this as a greater discussion point. Up to you.
And to people wondering why online discourse is dead and it is increasingly hard to distinguish AI slop from actual human beings: A single supporting argument/reference to an industry that has gone through the exact same mess we are triggered a massive derail as people insist that, because they themselves haven’t experienced a pretty major talking point, it can’t possibly exist.
Me not agreeing with you is not arguing against you. I'm only talking from my own experience, and not insisting that what I'm experiencing is the absolute objective truth. At no point did I say you were wrong or that what you're saying doesn't exist. Just that I can't make sense of your viewpoint. Anyway, this is it for me. Have a good one.
It is incredibly rare to see an Album anymore because people don’t listen to music as albums.
…what? This claim is so incredibly wrong, it slants your entire comment. Artists as small as you can get to those as big as Swift are still releasing albums. Just because you don’t interact with them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Agreed. From reading OPs replies to my questions, it seems they have different definitions for "albums" and "Albums". But as their claim slanted their entire comment for you, I would also say that our whole exchange sets the rest of their comment in a different light for me.
Its why there is no real point in deciding whether something should be a film or a tv series because you can just release it as a four part miniseries or stretch things out for a full eight and so forth.
There absolutely is. A movie is still expected to be watched in one go in its entirety and so is an episode of a mini series. It has a huge effects on the pacing of the media and how you segment episodes of one.
Pete Hines didn’t fucking properly value developers. I don’t buy this shit at fucking all. Mandatory crunch, shitty benefits, and terrible consumer practices were par for the course during his whole tenure. Since I don’t see him out on the union front donating all his fucking blood money this is just a different way of saying “Pete Hines and other executives aren’t making enough money off residuals from a subscription model.” Bethesda (and ZeniMax) was a shitty place to work that conned devs into getting fucked because Bethesda. He can fuck right off with this shit.
Devs haven’t been properly valued in decades and subscription models are nothing new.
It sounds plausible Sony and Microsoft don’t have very fair algorithms to decide what a dev earns for their subscription. That’s an internal element, and we don’t get to see that calculation.
Imagine a guy hears about Game Pass, and sees he can play Spiritfarer on it. “Spiritfarer!? That awesome emotional experience that everyone says they cried at? I’m definitely playing that!” 5-ish hours later, they’ve finished the game, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but the subscription is still going.
At this point, the subscriber decides they may as well play State of Decay 2 mindlessly the rest of the month, often without much interest, but trusts another excellent singleplayer indie darling will arrive next month.
I’d bet the algorithm may pay the SOD2 devs far more in that case because numbers show that’s what “kept them engaged”, not to mention live service games like SOD2 have DLC to entice people into.
Theres absolutely a danger in that thinking, since most people bought a PS5 after seeing Sony’s incredible singleplayer games, and I believe that’s primarily what gets people into Game Pass too.
Through lawsuits, we did get to see what those payouts were in the past, and they’re all individually negotiated in lump sums, not determined by algorithm. And those payouts were from the good days. Reporting indicates those payouts have dropped off dramatically, which was followed by a drop-off of Xbox ports, since that seems to be the primary way Xbox players play games at all.
At least for video streaming services, they care more about new subscribers than retaining subscribers. That State of Decay may be a retention game, but the indie darling was the first thing they played upon subscribing. That’s likely going to hold more weight.
Wait, you are telling me 20 dollars a month isn't enough to sustain a gaming service that releases all of xboxs unreal engine 5 slop day 1??!?? Could have never guessed
I’ve seen Mat Piscatella talking about this, and it seems like his take is, paraphrasing, “it values different games”. Some games see far more success with the broad access they get to subscriptions, and some see less, which seems to be corroborated by the author of this article.
Subscriptions have become the new four letter word, right? You can’t buy a product anymore.
I mean…you can for anything in Game Pass, but that’s not the case for Nintendo.
Without wishing to portray myself as a comprehensive researcher … I have come across one study of Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus that appears to bear elements … showing that in contrast to the music or movie and TV industry, these subscription services have not “substantially cannibalized existing revenue streams”.
And I think a lot of that has to do with how much longer we spend with a given game than any song or movie. And even in television, every current show is on some streaming service, and you really can’t buy those, but in games, it’s the opposite. With few exceptions, you can just about always buy the game, and they’re often not present on a subscription service. When games are sold, they tend to command a higher price, too.
Then, not mentioned in the article, are weird cases like Indiana Jones or Doom, where they’re quality games that don’t sell many copies despite impressive pedigrees, presumably because everyone knows they can get them on Game Pass. But then games like STALKER 2 or Clair Obscur, with low-ish review scores and basically no pedigree, respectively, sell plenty of copies despite being available for far cheaper on Game Pass. Some of this might be the association with Game Pass being for Microsoft-owned studios or something, and Microsoft is aiding that association by making fewer lucrative deals for third party studios.
I don’t buy civ games until they release all the DLC. Since CIV 5 it seems like they have released unfinished games that lack major game mechanics on launch and the game only gets finished through DLC.
Poor adoption and sales with CIV 7 is their own fault. They have conditioned the market to wait for the DLC.
You can play Unciv I guess, I don't see why you would want a strategic view only though? Nothing stopping you just using that mode exclusively yourself.
Honestly that’s just how Civ has been for the past few releases, most people don’t get it until the typical set of 2 major expansion packs come out and eventually go on sale. The base price of the full package has always been crazy high.
I played through exactly one full game, and it just felt… pointless, I guess? Like I was just clicking through turns to get to the end and none of it mattered. Then it told me I’d lost and was like “K” and then played Civ VI for a bit.
I mean why play an unfinished game? The radical changes sound interesting to me but it needs at least two add-ons to flourish, the same old story as with 5 and 6. I can wait and pick up the complete experience for half the price if that ever sees the light of day after the layoffs.
Yeah, I like it. It's definitely an unfinished product and lacking a lot of content and polish atm, but it's got the bones of a good game. Absolutely not worth the current asking price tho
I listened. I bought Civ6, hated it, didn’t get any of the predatory DLC and went back to Civ4. Didn’t give Civ7 so much as a glance. Sad to hear it went downhill from 6 though.
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