The Business Side of Video (Space) Games EXCLUSIVELY ON IDLE THUMBS

[Gormongous]

This is a very provocative series of essays (this is the last one, and the other two are linked within) on the game industry as it stands today, ostensibly triggered by the game Problem Attic, but mostly not. Among the ideas in here is that Twitter has a vested interest in Anita Sarkeesian being attacked, that Apple and Steam benefit from their stores not being discoverable, and how The Design of Everyday Things is used to train players to avoid exploring a system.

 

It's unworthy, but my first impulse has been to post this on every single form of social media to which I have access. What a read, though. It's a rare manifesto that bites me like this.

[Merus]

I think one of the most heartening things, for me, is that this essay feels smart. There are big ideas here that need a run-up to tackle, but there's a lot to chew over. A lot of essays I read of this scope end up sounding a little incoherent, even including essays I like, like On Smarm, which meanders a lot and is trying too hard in places, but still has enough argument contained within that I can forgive it. I used to be much better at spotting dissembling bullshit, and I sometimes worry that I get too excited about the potential of new ideas that I've lost that sense entirely. I think that sense is still there.

[Bjorn]

I don't feel like there is any singular idea in there that I haven't bee previously exposed to, but the synthesis and connections are intriguing.  Of course it meshes with the current level of discontent I have with a lot of things online, so I'm probably less likely to be able to critically parse it since it's reinforcing how I already feel. 

 

Actually, scratch that, there was one totally new idea to me, and that was the Spelunky/newspaper comparison, with newspapers as the originator of procedurally generated content.  My brain is still a little melty with how accurate that is.

[osmosisch]

I don't feel like there is any singular idea in there that I haven't bee previously exposed to, but the synthesis and connections are intriguing.  Of course it meshes with the current level of discontent I have with a lot of things online, so I'm probably less likely to be able to critically parse it since it's reinforcing how I already feel. 

 

Actually, scratch that, there was one totally new idea to me, and that was the Spelunky/newspaper comparison, with newspapers as the originator of procedurally generated content.  My brain is still a little melty with how accurate that is.

This is a pretty accurate description of my reaction as well

[Henroid]

Anyone hear about the new service EA is launching on XBox Live? Subscription service mirroring the PS+ thing. For $5 a month (or $30 for a whole year) you get access to some games and a 10% discount on all EA DLC and micro-transactions.

 

Point the first: The beta of the project consists of FIFA 14, Madden 25, Peggle 2, and Battlefield 4 - all of those games people are most likely to have anyway (for the target audience; I doubt video game enthusiasts are gonna be on board).

 

Point the second: How much digital content would you have to buy for a 10% discount to be worth it, narrowed solely on one publisher's games for one console?

 

I don't like any of this. It cements something I pointed out when the XB1 was revealed - that EA and MS are strange bedfellows over the XB1. This is all a bad move for EA, because they're putting so many of their eggs in a basket that is losing momentum (to illustrate, last month sales of Watch_Dogs for the X360 outsold XB1 units).

[Ucantalas]

Anyone hear about the new service EA is launching on XBox Live? Subscription service mirroring the PS+ thing. For $5 a month (or $30 for a whole year) you get access to some games and a 10% discount on all EA DLC and micro-transactions.

 

...yuck.

[JonCole]

Publisher subscriptions are super weird because I basically never buy games based on who publishes them, unless they're an "indie" publisher like Devolver who wouldn't have the clout to pull off something like this. Anyways, I don't have an Xbox One so I don't really give a crap.

[Henroid]

It strikes me as especially weird because it's exclusive to the XB1. I guess EA couldn't push getting Origin integration in on Live. Maybe this was plan B.

 

For all the downsizing and such EA has been doing this seems like a weird thing to establish. I'm sure it'll get them some bucks initially, but in the long run I imagine this is gonna be a quickly canceled program.

[Gormongous]

Point the first: The beta of the project consists of FIFA 14, Madden 25, Peggle 2, and Battlefield 4 - all of those games people are most likely to have anyway (for the target audience; I doubt video game enthusiasts are gonna be on board).

 

EA really seems to love giving out "free" games that their numbers must tell them everyone already has. I wonder whom they think they're fooling, or if it's just to get a headline containing the words "EA" and "free games".

[Henroid]

EA really seems to love giving out "free" games that their numbers must tell them everyone already has. I wonder whom they think they're fooling, or if it's just to get a headline containing the words "EA" and "free games".

It's basically swindling.

[Ucantalas]

Hah! Jokes on them, I don't buy games! I'm glad I waited as long as I did to get my free copies of Peggle and Plants Vs Zombies from Origin.

[Bjorn]

The problem with any gaming subscription service tends to be that it is exceedingly difficult to make the numbers work, where both sides perceive the deal to have enough value to make it worth it.  It continues to amaze me that PS+ exists in its current incarnation, as it is a pretty incredible deal for consumers.  I can only speculate that Sony subsidizes PS+ in order to add value to their overall platform.  But I have no idea how the revenue sharing works with the non-Sony games that are free.

[Gormongous]

The problem with any gaming subscription service tends to be that it is exceedingly difficult to make the numbers work, where both sides perceive the deal to have enough value to make it worth it.  It continues to amaze me that PS+ exists in its current incarnation, as it is a pretty incredible deal for consumers.  I can only speculate that Sony subsidizes PS+ in order to add value to their overall platform.  But I have no idea how the revenue sharing works with the non-Sony games that are free.

 

I don't remember where, but I did read that these free games pick up a lot of DLC sales, more so than people who buy them at full price.

[Bjorn]

I don't remember where, but I did read that these free games pick up a lot of DLC sales, more so than people who buy them at full price.

 

That would make a lot of sense.  But then I think about the Usurpers essay just linked, and content, and that just kind of bums me out.  It's like the razor blade model of video games.  Here, have this free 'content', so that you buy more 'content' for it, even though you didn't value the original 'content' enough to buy it in the first place. 

[Dewar]

It's basically mutated "try before you buy." After I have played the free portion of the game, I'm more informed to decide if I want to pay money for more of it. I don't have a problem with that.

 

I believe that developers do get a little cash for the PS+ downloads as well, and Sony counts on the people who have the subscription and don't download anything to balance that out, same as Netflix DVDs count on people holding one disk for 8 months.

[elmuerte]

suits at publishers still don't get that people are loyal to developers, and then studios, and then platforms. nobody cares about publishers.

[Gormongous]

suits at publishers still don't get that people are loyal to developers, and then studios, and then platforms. nobody cares about publishers.

 

I think suits still hope (maybe rightly) that a lot of people don't know the difference between a publisher and a developer. Even these days, I still hear people talk about how excited they are for the next game from EA, as if that means anything.

[elmuerte]

those people will not subscribe

[Gormongous]

those people will not subscribe

 

Oh, I agree. EA is fooling itself something bad to think that the target market for game subscriptions, let alone publisher-specific game subscriptions, is anything other than core gamers who know when they're getting swindled, in the words of Henroid.

[JonCole]

Most devs that get put games for free on PS+ are super tight lipped, but I do recall reading something recently where the devs of Mercenary Kings said that they didn't regret putting their game for free (which was actually their day 1 release) because they did get some for-sure, up-front money for the deal and it got people invested in their brand/franchise in the event of future titles.

[elmuerte]

I think the concept of game subscription is bad to begin with.

[Henroid]

Ben Kuchera decided to write an opinion piece, in the wake of this EA subscription service news, about how "the days of owning games are going away."

 

I should point out that I make it no secret that I think Kuchera is kind of an idiot but more of a tool. But he's wrong about this. He takes to news of the end times for video games as we know it in the same fashion that random internet folk, who are also video game enthusiasts, do. Which is to say, WAY too eager to talk about it. It's like seeing Christians go on about the end times because waah gay people waaah. Only it's video games I guess.

 

To get less aggressively ranty about the whole thing, really, it's reactionary and just wrong. Digital distribution is not new, and EA starting this service isn't a sign that it's actually going to work. We have yet to see it going into practice. It's definitely more of that walled-garden thing that we saw spring up over the last few years (Steam, Origin, etc), but not every company jumped on that - in fact Origin was one of the last ones to come up and it's the only high-profile publisher platform of that sort to exist.

 

The other problem with this method of distribution, if it were to "replace" physical copies, is that you need to get every publisher and developer on board. EA does not own every publisher or developer (as much as they might like to). Not all of them are going to agree to it, especially if the profit share isn't set to be in favor of the developer.

 

tl;dr, this EA shit isn't some horn being sounded to mark the end of video games. Ben Kuchera is a dumb dumb.

[Denial]

Madden-as-a-service!

[Henroid]

Madden-as-a-service!

That would actually be one positive in this - convert the sports games into subscription model games.

[SiN]

Kuchera writes tabloid-esque reactionary clickbait articles, and guises them up as having some intellectual value. He knows his audience, I'll give him that.

 

I read an investigation piece he wrote for PAR (about ads on the Xbox dashboard) that I thought was really great. I don't think he's a bad writer, just that his clickbait opinion pieces are probably far more lucrative.