>It is market capture, and you don’t get to just hand wave it away with how it’s only philosophical.
I don't get to declare it one way just because I think it's true either.
If people truly want all their eggs in one basket, is it market capture if you are 100% upfront (which these companies aren't, but lets suppose), and people come into it anyway? I suppose my philosophy here comes down to "you can only protect people from themselves for so long before exploitation simply becomes business". Why try and spout freedom to those who actively seek someone or something to be controlled by? Why spout principles of ownership to those who will relinquish it every time for a "cheap" subscription?
Now the real answer is another scary word to this community: regulation. It's been beyond time we had proper digital ownership laws. But we're a very long road away from that in the US.
Like many joys in life, I simply had less time to enjoy it as I instead spend hours a day reading news, job apps, and technical documents. I read plenty, but not any fiction for recreation.
>That's why I'm scrapbooking every article about the trump administration right now. This time period is so wild people will doubt it really existed.
On one hand, I think there will be entire subgenres of literature and media dedicated to this time, the way we spend entire units in the US on WWII.
On the other hand, I also know there will be a lot of "not-MAGA" people who will say they didn't vote for Trump (they did) but defend to death how these times weren't that bad with all the same soundbites you hear today. We're way too connected (and Trump way too loud) to reasonably do Trump denialism, so the next best path will be Trump sympathizing
>many of these "Sony bad" type of conversations appear close to something unfavorable being discussed about Xbox.
Both console makers released some devastating news this week. Perhaps by design (But probably not. It's a new financial quarter, the usual time for big news anouncements, good and bad). And this is coming all the backs of rising memory prices driving speculations of 4 figure next gen consoles, GTA 6 costing $80 for part of the game for a case which does not contain a disc, and alleged reports of digital dynamic pricing.
It hasn't been a good few months for anyone in the games industry. Even Nintendo is begrudgingly increasing prices by end of summer.
The true answer here is that people went where the games went. And those AAA distributors preferred a middleman doing everything for them in exchange for getting a cut. From there, AA and indies went to the middleman because they more or less had to to compete. Whether or not you consider market capture the whims of the consumer or a natural consequence of capitalism is a more philosophical question to ask.
On a more fundamental level, it seems like people will pick convenience over security and freedom every time the choice pops up. In the land of media, this comes down to choosing to put all your eggs in one basket in exchange for having less control over the products you bought. We've seen this across Netflix, Steam, and Spotify as the largest modern examples.
Double Fine has been an indie studio for longer than Xbox has been invested in games. And as far as I know they've been situated on San Francisco for that entire time. They didn't just bumble into a trillionaire company and lounge on the job security.
Those kinds of statements show a misunderstanding of both the studio and how the games industry works. Any one of those engineers could have gotten into a FAANG the traditional way and doubled, if not tripled, their salary on arguably less involved problems than what they go through creating a real time game.
Its also likely why Schafer chose to take the studio back rather than go the route of finding a new publisher to work under. He still wants to work on games for a little longer rather than get a last paycheck and retire early.
Ehh, Microsoft still got to reap the profits of it.
And yes, no one expects a brand new IP to have the same odds of success as a old IP that's become a cult classic. DF's strategy and directions were not to make the most profitable, safe release because that's not why you buy a studio like DF.
Yes. And an environment like Microsoft wouldn't think a dormant, niche franchise like that would be able to achieve an overwhelming success after 2 generation.
But sure, if you want the last new IP, Nintendo has played it safe with Arms and focused more on bolstering dormant IP's on the switch. With Animal Crossing and Zelda in particular finding new winds. Splatoon was their last huge success as a new IP in 2015.
Labo came in 2018, but I have no idea how to evaluate the success of that.
>Why is "lets have more people who do things" a move away from multidisplinary teams?
It's not even because all management is bad (I'm skeptical of management, but not necessarily a "flat hierarchy" guy). But this move here sounds like homogenization of development. Having managers that need to manage a dozen projects at once will mean that development will fall into one style. Having all your IC's potentially needing to be shuffled around in projects both ruins team cohesion (because you're not focused on one project) and drives the design to be towards specific types of games. Ditto for directors on projects.
I won't say it's an unprofitable means of management, but it sure is a way to suck all the creative juices out of the room. Because you're spending more time appeasing a committee who wants to feel like they are "doing something" than finding the fun. And then kicked out when the project is done, because a revolving door is more profitable than fostering a team who's proven they can ship a success.
This can be an uncharitable interpretation of that statement. But that's simply a foregone conclusion when you have a 13 year long track record of decisions that end up harming creatives at the end of the day.
Now, I'm sure some disciplined software lobbyist have spent a very long time and can answer such questions in legslese that protects the customers. Let's find them.
a) no one said it was easy. I'd just like some progress on it instead of another 30 years of slowly losing rights to things I buy.
b) yes, there are more important regulations to take into account. But governments also deal with hundreds of proposals. I can want proper digital ownership and still care about building more housing, creating stronger labor protections, and overhaulijg urban development.
>’s not like this is some special case. People make the exact same arguments against John Deere, Tesla, Apple etc
I think the apple sympathizers are a great case on some of the hypocrisy, actually. Seeing people condemn the DMA definitely shows some people will play favorites when push comes to shove.
Damn, not ID. Some of the best engineers in the industry and they are all nearly gone?
Not to mention the legacy. Some of those people may have been there for over 25 years, in times where the idea of programming for a dedicated GPU was cutting edge. Absolutely crazy how little respect the industry has for these golden geese.
I don't know how you can say that when some of their most recent well received games include Tomodachi life and Rhythm Heaven. Those aren't the kinds of games made from those maximizing bean counters.
I'm glad Nintendo does a bit of everything. Taking the time to try out new IPs, give older ones a chance to rise, and go truly off in the weeds with series no one else can really do (the Fit series and Labo being some of the biggest examples). It really feels like there's something for you there, no matter what kind of games you like (unless you only play the GTAs/CODs/Maddens of the industry). Even if you're not actually someone who games. My mom loves the Fit games.
They have. Which makes this hard skew towards live service all the more baffling. Having your premier studio basically miss the generation trying to make a multiplayer version of one of these games then cancelling it really shows how much they overextended.
And it's not like it had to be Naughty Dog: They had some dozen titles published or in house being prepared (including one that sunk what could have been an amazing remaster/remake studio). And in the end they really had one come out as the dark horse, with one megaflop, and 2-3 stragglers that don't seem long for this world (one of which seems to be taken down the existing, safe life service Sony spent billions on).
Gen 9 will be a huge blemish carried by their very smart acquisitions of Insomniac and Housemarque, with some decent support coming from Santa Monica and Guerilla. But at what cost?
Yes, apologies for the misspelling. Very likely another game that wouldn't "succeed" in a traditional release, but would potentially get people into a subscription service.
Despite that loss leading strategy, Obsidian has had quite a few other releases that did to make up for that side project. So the studio would overall be in the green despite that.
I don't get to declare it one way just because I think it's true either.
If people truly want all their eggs in one basket, is it market capture if you are 100% upfront (which these companies aren't, but lets suppose), and people come into it anyway? I suppose my philosophy here comes down to "you can only protect people from themselves for so long before exploitation simply becomes business". Why try and spout freedom to those who actively seek someone or something to be controlled by? Why spout principles of ownership to those who will relinquish it every time for a "cheap" subscription?
Now the real answer is another scary word to this community: regulation. It's been beyond time we had proper digital ownership laws. But we're a very long road away from that in the US.