The Next Next Gen Thread o/\o
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Yep, Spotify is great, and for me it's changed how I listen to music for the better. How people listen to music has been changing continually anyway. I couldn't possibly count how many albums I bought on the strength of 1 or 2 songs only to find the rest of the album was filler. Or an album I only listened to twice and got bored with it. There wasn't any artist going to reimburse me for that, I took my chances and tough luck. If they're only getting paid per play now and I can choose exactly what I want on my playlists then all the better. -
Kows above statement is exactly what i was getting at. Once its apparent what games people like and will spend their oh so important time on, and once games streaming service number 1 is so ubiquitous that it seems like the most viable option, and once we all have the attitude of fuck the dev for not making what i like, then surely devs are going to cluster round small kernels of genres and ideas. Under financial and contractual imperatives game streaming service number 1 is now imposing on non first party studios they’re gonna choose the game model that means they keep the studio lights on and their kids in school shoes.
If they don’t do that, and instead try making something a little different, but I Mr or Miss Very Important Consumer try and don’t like i can fuck them right in the ear for not making something that i liked within 30 seconds. My time is important, idiots, and my streaming service knows this too. They’ve got my back on this and will be paying out fuck all to anyone who doesn’t make it to the top of the metrics pile. -
All this chat and no one has posted the article about the PS5...
https://www.wired.com/story/exclusive-playstation-5/ -
Ah, too many pages ago.
*Sneaks out and hopes no one saw me enter* -
yourfavouriteuncle wrote:Kows above statement is exactly what i was getting at. Once its apparent what games people like and will spend their oh so important time on, and once games streaming service number 1 is so ubiquitous that it seems like the most viable option, and once we all have the attitude of fuck the dev for not making what i like, then surely devs are going to cluster round small kernels of genres and ideas. Under financial and contractual imperatives game streaming service number 1 is now imposing on non first party studios they’re gonna choose the game model that means they keep the studio lights on and their kids in school shoes.
If they don’t do that, and instead try making something a little different, but I Mr or Miss Very Important Consumer try and don’t like i can fuck them right in the ear for not making something that i liked within 30 seconds. My time is important, idiots, and my streaming service knows this too. They’ve got my back on this and will be paying out fuck all to anyone who doesn’t make it to the top of the metrics pile.
One major difference here is that the arse had fallen out of the music industry due to piracy and the labels’ inability to embrace technology making the money to be made from streaming services more important to survival. This hasn’t happened with games, people do still buy them, and as long as they do, then streaming services aren’t going to dictate what types of games are made, they may just offer some additional revenue to devs above and beyond what they currently have access to. -
yourfavouriteuncle wrote:Kows above statement is exactly what i was getting at. Once its apparent what games people like and will spend their oh so important time on, and once games streaming service number 1 is so ubiquitous that it seems like the most viable option, and once we all have the attitude of fuck the dev for not making what i like, then surely devs are going to cluster round small kernels of genres and ideas. Under financial and contractual imperatives game streaming service number 1 is now imposing on non first party studios they’re gonna choose the game model that means they keep the studio lights on and their kids in school shoes. If they don’t do that, and instead try making something a little different, but I Mr or Miss Very Important Consumer try and don’t like i can fuck them right in the ear for not making something that i liked within 30 seconds. My time is important, idiots, and my streaming service knows this too. They’ve got my back on this and will be paying out fuck all to anyone who doesn’t make it to the top of the metrics pile.
But Games/ Music/ film will follow the money regardless. Spotify hasn't really changed things that much in terms of public opinion. Since music became really commercialised the length of songs and the 'hook' to get people to keep listening is there. Maybe Games need to learn a little about this.
The other thing with a streaming service is that you need variety to keep the most people using it. I listen to a hell of a lot of Jazz and Country on spotify and I don't see the trends affecting this things. There will always be a market for the non-mainstream. But also look at the TV shows being made by Netflix, amazon and HBO etc. - all effectively streaming services and all willing to gamble on varied and better content to make them standout.
I just don't thing your argument holds up that much to be honest. Yeah, streaming wont suit all game types but those games can still be released and purchased. You can still support your favourite developer. But if devs have survived the second hand market where they got nothing off a lot of game sales, I'm pretty certain getting money from a system like gamepass will work fine (and with the exception of MS titles, most of the games on gamepass are a little older so they will have had a 3-6 month period where those who really want them can pay)SFV - reddave360 -
Music has been made and directed at a wide audience of people who don't care about music for decades. For the majority of people music is just something to fill the silence or to sing along to. The millions who put shit like Yellow Polka Dot Bikini or Barbie Girl or whatever at number 1 are testament to that. The vast majority of popular music has always been drivel aimed at a lower common denominator market and Spotify hasn't changed that. Artists who make music because they want to make music are still there and fans who want to listen are still there too. It's far far far easier to find and listen to stuff you like now than when your only option was to buy a cd and the people who turn off after 30 seconds with no chorus are the same who would have done it 30 years ago.
If, like me, you have a passion for music, you probably have a tendency to think that most people do too. But they don't. -
I realise this is meant to be related to streaming games, but fuckit.
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Read/shared this a while back regarding Stadia - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47634263
On YouTube, one of the stats that determines how much ad revenue creators get is "minutes watched”. In gaming, "minutes played” could lead to some developers introducing gameplay mechanics that are counter-intuitive to a good time, but vital if they are to gain income.
Or, developers might have to make up the loss of funds by encouraging players to pay for additional items to progress more quickly, in a far more aggressive manner than console gamers are used to today.
The ad-laden, endorphin-pumping, lootbox-peddling mobile gaming industry might be considered the canary in a very miserable coal-mine, here. Paying for a games console, and its games, may not be such a bad thing after all.
Lots of coulds and mights of course, but this kind of stuff does concern me. Basically I just want a Bandcamp for all things, games, films, ebooks etc. A no-bullshit, DRM free place where I can conveniently buy/download/own/stream media and give most of the money to the people actually creating it. I think tbf there is stuff like itch.io for games on PC, and GOG too ofc. I think streaming has its place, but I'm wary of it being the primary source.
I'm not saying down with this sort of thing, but.. careful now. -
I think when streaming becomes the established distribution method for games it will cater for a wider market of tastes, business models and developer size etc.
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My concern is that if the devs get royalties by engagement time, it'll just mean more live service grindfests with paid xp/ progress boosters.PSN : time_on_my_hands
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a) That’s become a standard business model regardless of streaming.
b) It strikes me that if you want to make money by increasing engagement time, that’s entirely the wrong way to go about it. You’re looking for as many people as possible to play your game for as long as possible, progress boosters are about finding a relatively small proportion of your player base who want to keep playing and are willing to chuck more money your way to do so. I’d expect that games like that would do very badly on streaming services as they turn off all those not willing to pay for progression. -
Bluepoint Games working on a big game right now (for PS5)... DEMONS SOULS REMAKE MAKE IT HAPPEN AND HOOK IT TO MY VEINSI am a FREE. I am not MAN. A NUMBER. -
Maximising engagement is the model now though. I appreciate it might get worse with streaming but modern triple As are designed to maximise engagement time to get money out of you. So now everything is a progression system with unlockables and add ons and thirty hours of gameplay too many. The one and done, in and out, triple A has almost disappeared. No more games like Vanquish. The times had already changed when that came out.
My main worry about streaming is it makes the small indie game less viable. The big boys will ensure the model suits them, they can spam hours of content in a way indie devs can’t. So the reward tiers will be weighted towards getting 40+ hours per month, 100 lifetime hours on your product etc. The 4 hour indie game will get fucked. -
I could be wrong but the Gamepass model is that devs or publishers are paid an upfront fee. Microsoft have to juggle the content so that it attracts enough people in. As the games that show up are usually older, the betting is probably that the game has made as much as it will in retail so this is a way of getting more money out of it, plus maybe a sale to someone who really likes the game or maybe some dlc sold. The better your game has done in the reviews the more you can probably ask from Microsoft to put it up.
I'd also point out Gamepass has better variety than most games shops or tescos.SFV - reddave360 -
Was trying to find some info about how MS pays for games on GamePass and stumbled across this from one of the Oxenfree devs saying how being on GP actually boosted their sales:
https://twinfinite.net/2019/03/xbox-game-pass-developer/
Edit: some quotes from the dev;
When we brought Oxenfree to Game Pass it was really interesting because we initially thought it could cannibalize our other sales or what’s that gonna do, and actually it was just the opposite. It was something that lifted sort of all of our sales because we found that we found a lot of new audiences.
We found people who tried the game who wouldn’t have otherwise tried it, they might not have understood the genre… It has really become a super-important part of our ecosystem because it’s just really discoverable [...]
It’s an exciting time for developers certainly of our size, because looking at something like Game Pass, it’s a new way to get games out there, right? I think if you look a few years ago, a team of our size, even taking a swing at Oxenfree — a single-player fairly short experience — was semi-risky, and fortunately, the game paid off.
Yet, now working with you on Game Pass, we get to find a much larger audience in a way that isn’t “how do we jam this game full of free to play mechanics” which is something that really doesn’t jive with the creatives for it. -
Google’s history of launching successful products is a bit mixed and tbh I hope stadia dies on its arse. I don’t want six or seven platforms hoovering up ‘content’ under exclusivity deals. I can’t see Apple going away because of how much weight they can throw behind it. Amazon can do one. Facebook can double do one. This is an old man yelling at cloud post and I stand by it.
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Sega on the other hand are needed more now than ever.
Streets of Rage 5 exclusive launch title for Dreamcast 2 with Seaman, VF6, Sega Rally 3, Afterburner and Gunstar Legends."Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness." ― Terry Pratchett -
The single player AAA games are dying argument seems a bit silly to me when you have Nintendo and Sony cranking them out.
The Last of Us 2 doesnt even have multiplayer. -
I didn't quite explain what I meant properly and this is an old last gen argument I'm making anyway. The 'one and done, in and out, triple A' meant a short, self-contained game with high production standards and very little in the way of padding to keep you hooked in, repeating things over and over. You're right about Sony and Nintendo still making these. But these guys are platform holders. A game isn't just a game to them, they don't need to just shift units. They can bump up the graphics as an advert for the console, round out their library, the economics are different for them. Third party devs aren't really doing this. Although Platinum are still fighting the good fight.
Who's making these games for Stadia? Google? They'll just buy other games as exclusives. -
There's loads of indie games to fill this niche btw. I was just saying they weren't there anymore. Not in the same way.
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hylian_elf wrote:Bluepoint Games working on a big game right now (for PS5)... DEMONS SOULS REMAKE MAKE IT HAPPEN AND HOOK IT TO MY VEINS
I’m saying Ico.
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yourfavouriteuncle wrote:hylian_elf wrote:Bluepoint Games working on a big game right now (for PS5)... DEMONS SOULS REMAKE MAKE IT HAPPEN AND HOOK IT TO MY VEINS
I’m saying Ico.
Ico again? I'm hoping Demon's souls, but it could by a combined remake of Ico SotC and the Last Guardian.
PSN : time_on_my_hands -
Ico has been up rezzed but not actually remade like they did with SotC. I really hope it’s not demons souls. That can go in the bin for me.
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