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.
Dead. Well, they’ve did a rebrand on an internal team back to the name white wolf, but a rebrand doesn’t mean anything. Maybe paradox will change going forward, but they seem to genuinely hate the WoD franchise so I’m not holding my breath.
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