I think you’re confusing the advantages and strategies of having a subscription and the advantages and strategies of having a loss leader.
Not all subscriptions are designed to be loss leaders, and most of the benefits you see in GamePass (lower or even negative revenue in exchange for increased market share) is seen over and over with loss leaders that aren’t subscriptions.
Yes, I agree that Microsoft has adjusted strategy from a focus on winning console wars to increasing software gatekeeping across PC and now apparently even competitor consoles. And that GamePass plays a large part in that.
But it would be a mistake to assume that subscriptions in games are all going to have the same goals and focus as Microsoft with GamePass.
Video on demand works because the content is short and you need a large variety in a pay period as a consumer.
I don’t just watch one show or movie in a month, it’s several. So bundling makes sense.
It’s also fairly commoditized. I will watch what movies are available on Netflix, not like I’m extremely committed to watch a single given movie as long as the general selection is good. Maybe there’s one or two films a year I care about seeing that specific film before it rotates into a subscription service I subscribe to (and if not, meh).
For video games, it’s maybe one title a month that I really care about playing and then I only have time for that one game. But I only really care about setting aside time for that game and a lot of the other options out there you couldn’t pay me to play.
They are very different markets and a subscription model isn’t necessarily the future or even what’s most profitable for a company to offer (as Sony was recently acknowledging).
It’s within literal months that leaps are occurring that defy most expert expectations and predictions.
While yes, creative writing is not part of the target of where models are improving right now (and there are IMO clear mistakes being made with foundational models contributing to that poor performance), we’re probably less than one dev cycle from the best AI outperforming an above average video game writer with institutional integration of the models.
And really, people thinking this is going to put writers out of business are missing the true value add for publishers.
You’ll see the same amount of writers as before. What will change is the amount of writing.
Being able to have a core writing team do the normal work they do of writing out main and side quests and then feeding all that writing into a model spitting out side NPC dialogue fitting in with the events taking place allows developers to make their world come alive in ways previously only accessible to the largest budgets in the industry like RDR2.
This also allows games that are successful to transition into more of a live service product without needing to have a massive audience.
For most live service games, you need as many people as possible playing to justify dedicating resources to continued development, or you need a subscription fee. But niche products with a dedicated fan base which aren’t overly popular are too small to justify continuous content development.
With AI that equation changes. More games have the opportunity to keep players engaged longer for continuing adventures when a smaller team can use generative systems to flesh out the product.
Everyone praises No Man’s Sky for their continued development with a team of about a dozen putting more and more content out, but the other side of the coin is that they can only successfully deliver updates that feel weighty because they are leveraging procgen to extend their efforts.
Imagine the next version of FF online where not only is there a core main story everyone experiences, but there are also individualized stories woven into it that are shaped around your interactions. Where every NPC can be spoken to and any one of them might lead to your next individualized adventure. A world that feels at once epic and shared with millions of other players while also personal and unique just for you.
Even if the individual writing wasn’t as planned out as world event scenario writing from lead writers, I’d sure as hell prefer to spend $16/mo on a world with little repetition and endless adventures than a world that only has a hundred hours of story every year and is mostly running the same things over and over in between waiting for small bursts of content updates.
AI makes perfect sense for any live service provider, and Square Enix has one of the most successful live service products to date. Of course they are going to be investing into it as it rapidly improves.
I’m surprised I don’t see Alan Wake 2 as its own entry in the list so far.
I don’t like horror games, and I didn’t care that much for the first game, or even necessarily Control, but Alan Wake 2 was really impressive. Showcased the power of the format of video games for cinematic narrative in a way that raised the bar even higher than it’d been before, similar to how BG3 and TotK raised the bar in player choice and open ended game design.
Two: Actually, per Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s supreme court decision, damages are limited to 3 years prior to the suit being filed with no recovery for earlier infringements.
Bethesda is owned by Zenimax, and an officially licensed mod scene is completely different.
If you want to run the mods for Bethesda’s games, you need the retail software to do so.
I guarantee that if a group was creating a Morrowind remake that didn’t require owning some Bethesda core game that was being modded to achieve that, Zenimax’s lawyers would be quick to be on top of the issue.
It’s not like there’s not examples where Bethesda’s lawyers caused mods to be shut down where it involved redistribution of Bethesda game assets without needing to buy the game.
which are not the norm across the industry for how IP issues are handled…
Go ahead and cite whatever you think the ‘norm’ is then.
Where else do you see publishers turning a blind eye to unlicensed remakes of their games?
The difference isn’t Nintendo being more legal trigger happy, it’s that their stuff is way more often being used in unlicensed ways so they come up more often in stuff like this.
But there’s a ton of examples of the same being the ‘norm’:
Edit: Also, it’s a bit more complicated in terms of IP, but it is relevant to future works.
For example, fictional characters.
Let’s take Mickey Mouse as an example. Steamboat Willie is entering public domain, so the protections on the character as defined in that work is entering the public domain. But characterization of the figure in works still under copyright that have added unique details are still protected.
But the test for infringement of a fictional character is twofold. (1) Can the figure be copyrighted? (2) Is there infringement of unique characteristics?
That second part becomes much more difficult to enforce if you’ve been allowing millions of variations of your protected character when you initial work defining the character is no longer enforceable.
So if LoZ on the NES enters the public domain making ‘Ganon’ as a pig usable by people, but since that game there’s been tons of spinoffs by others having Ganon as a human before Nintendo had Ganon as depicted in OoT, then they’d have a much harder time enforcing copyright on Ganon being depicted as a human even if Ganon as a pig was no longer under copyright.
No lawyer is going to say “yeah, let 3rd parties use your IP willy nilly, I’m sure it will be fine and not bite us in the ass later on.”
For example:
Copyright protection is effectively never lost, unless explicitly given away or the copyright has expired. However, if you do not actively defend your copyright, there may be broader unauthorized uses than you would like. It is a good idea to pursue enforcement actions as soon as you discover misuse of your copyright protected material.
If you have experienced copyright infringement, you have the right to pursue a lawsuit. However, you only have a limited time frame during which to file a claim. This legal principle is called the “statute of limitations.” Ensuring that you file a claim to enforce your copyright within the statute of limitations is crucial. If you wait too long, you will lose the right to enforce your copyright and obtain your deserved damages.
So a fan project that you don’t enforce against for three years which eventually monetizes as competition without infringement trademarks would be a potential concern.
It’s less Nintendo and more shitty trademark and IP laws.
If you don’t aggressively go after anyone that is transgressing your IP, you can lose it.
IP really needs major and comprehensive reform. It’s not going to happen anytime soon as too much is built up around the status quo, but it really should be done.
The Rock, Paper review in particular seemed to resonate a lot with what I suspect I’d end up feeling when it talked about how glad the reviewer was to not have to keep playing the game any longer.
I don’t mind the core elements of Ubi’s design, but they’ve recently been cranking the dial on the repetition to 11 to the point I find myself exhausted by continuing to play their games to the end.
FC3 was the perfect amount of Ubisoft.
I was really hoping for something more like FC3 meets Avatar and not FC6/AC:Valhalla meets Avatar, which looking at the reviews is what they delivered.
Pretty sure Rockstar didn’t intentionally jump the gun screwing up their media partners on announcing a $1-2 billion media product in order to release it initially in potato quality on Twitter with “Buy BTC” superimposed on it.
Do you really think their media team announced a global release for the trailer on official channels a week ago, had it slated for tomorrow at 9am EST, and then intentionally left leaked their own trailer on Twitter in crap format with “Buy BTC” superimposed on it the day before, suddenly scrambling to release the official trailer but leaving media partners high and dry jumping the official date by less than 24 hours?
At a certain point, skepticism of skepticism is also warranted.