I wish more people would create worker owned cooperatives. They might be more resilient and might even be more productive. Of cause the downside is that they don’t make one person very rich.
I really hope these developers create new independent studios and if they ever get offered a big bag of money, they will remember what happened last time. Maybe they will be smart enough to create worker owned studios and not waste huge salaries on useless CEOs.
You are right, that there are no games now bound to the cloud right now. But look at Microsoft business model in other areas. It’s all software as a service, web apps in the cloud, that businesses pay a subscription to use. It’s great way to extract value from customers, because it gets harder and harder to move away from these platforms. Your data, save games, your friend list, your ability to play multiplayer and so on, get increasingly locked to one platform, which makes it harder to move. And then Microsoft can just collect rent, they don’t have to innovate or compete on a free market. This trend is sometimes called techno-feudalism.
Sure that’s how it is now. As soon as the technology is mature enough, they will slowly begin to make a push for cloud only games. In that way they have total control. They can’t do it now because the technology is not quite there yet, and people is not ready. But you can see where they are heading. All business software such as Office and other cloud services is already there.
If cloud gaming ever becomes the norm, the consumer will have no power left. That’s their end game, to lock us into platforms and extract subscription and when they can’t get more subscribers they will demand higher prices and add more advertising. People who are paying for game pass, are investing in this future for gaming.
I would not call Deep Rock Galactic predatory… They release one! cosmetic pack for each season, and that’s it? There is no whales to catch, because in that case it’s very limited how much you can even spend. Like 10 euro every 4-5 months and that’s it. Is that predatory to you?
I think there need to be a balance. If it’s a service game, they need money to keep servicing the game. There is a fine line between a reasonable voluntary option to support a game in exchange for some symbolic cosmetic and gross predatory practices.
It’s an early access game. If you buy it now you are buying promises and the chance to be a beta tester. And that’s okay, if you don’t get emotional if things don’t turn out as expected.
These companies are using dark design patterns to manipulate kids and young people into a pattern of behaviour. You can blame consumers, but it’s not exactly a fair fight. These big companies have behaviour specialists employed and tons of data, used specifically to get people to act dumb in a way that benefits these companies. Heroin pushers are more honest.