General Games News - The Bear and Badger

Moot_Geeza

You'd recognise his face.

LivDiv

He has been playing Sabacc with the ghost of Sio Bibble and Elan Sleazebaganno.

RamSteelwood

my prediction is that he marries yoda and is mother to han solo. yoda gets the 'holiday cottage' in the divorce, hence him living on dagobah.

have to tie into the original trilogy somehow

Yossarian

He went to war with a race of pizza creatures known as the Zonees and force pushed them all so hard that they folded over on themselves and stayed that way. From then on, they were known as Cal’s Zonees.

hunk

Not as impressive as previous trailers but I really love the art direction.
Nice jump in detail too going from UE4 to 5.

Yossarian

There’s a piece on the making of Goldeneye in the G:

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/aug/19/nintendo-64-n64-goldeneye-007-rare-james-bond-making-of

Rare sounds like it was a fucking awful place to work back then.

digi

'Geoff Keighley has shared 11 out of the 30 games that will be at Gamescom Opening Night Live' https://www.resetera.com/threads/geoff-keighley-has-shared-11-out-of-the-30-games-that-will-be-at-gamescom-opening-night-live.621936/

Bollockoff

BLOODBORNE 2!?

tigersgogrrr

God. The people on ResetEra are such fucking tools.

digi

The expanse: a tell tale game was what caught my interest.

acemuzzy

I'm intrigued by Lies of P

Blue Swirl

Quake Champions leaves early access after half a decade.

In other news, Seven Days to Die still in alpha.

Bollockoff

So when's Chris Roberts announcing the Star Citizen 2 kickstarter?

acemuzzy

Sony being sued cos they're a rip-off lol https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62631533

acemuzzy

Hang on though, I could be well in the money here!

Yossarian

If that case were to succeed, the current business model for the console industry would be in tatters.

Diluted Dante

I don't understand what the case even is here, and their FAQ doesn't clear anything up

Companies making a profit isn’t wrong, but unlawful behaviour at the expense of their customers is. We believe Sony’s conduct in relation to PlayStation amounts to an abuse of a dominant position which is in breach of UK/EU competition law, for the following reasons:

a. Sony has a near monopoly on the sale of digital games and add-on content through its control of the PlayStation Store.
b. Sony uses this dominance to enforce strict terms and conditions on game developers and publishers.
c. These terms allow Sony to set the price of digital games and in-game content and charge a 30% commission on every purchase of digital games and in-game content from the PlayStation Store.
d. This results in excessive and unfair prices to consumers for their digital games and in-game content.
e. These prices are out of all proportion to the costs of Sony providing these services to its customers.

Moot_Geeza

I wonder how quickly Muzzy would re-spend his £562 on the store.

Yossarian

Diluted Dante wrote:

I don't understand what the case even is here, and their FAQ doesn't clear anything up

Companies making a profit isn’t wrong, but unlawful behaviour at the expense of their customers is. We believe Sony’s conduct in relation to PlayStation amounts to an abuse of a dominant position which is in breach of UK/EU competition law, for the following reasons:

a. Sony has a near monopoly on the sale of digital games and add-on content through its control of the PlayStation Store.
b. Sony uses this dominance to enforce strict terms and conditions on game developers and publishers.
c. These terms allow Sony to set the price of digital games and in-game content and charge a 30% commission on every purchase of digital games and in-game content from the PlayStation Store.
d. This results in excessive and unfair prices to consumers for their digital games and in-game content.
e. These prices are out of all proportion to the costs of Sony providing these services to its customers.

Their argument seems pretty clear to me: consumers are paying an excessive price for games due to Sony taking a 30% cut of game sales.

Cupatay

I find the on sale prices on psn to be pretty good to be honest. I'll pick up a vr game there way cheaper than on oculus and normal games way cheaper on psn than switch. The line 'consumers are paying excessive prices' feels quite the opposite to my experiences buying from psn. I do pick nearly all my games up when they're on sale at a discounted price though.

Diluted Dante

Yossarian wrote:

I don't understand what the case even is here, and their FAQ doesn't clear anything up

Companies making a profit isn’t wrong, but unlawful behaviour at the expense of their customers is. We believe Sony’s conduct in relation to PlayStation amounts to an abuse of a dominant position which is in breach of UK/EU competition law, for the following reasons:
a. Sony has a near monopoly on the sale of digital games and add-on content through its control of the PlayStation Store.
b. Sony uses this dominance to enforce strict terms and conditions on game developers and publishers.
c. These terms allow Sony to set the price of digital games and in-game content and charge a 30% commission on every purchase of digital games and in-game content from the PlayStation Store.
d. This results in excessive and unfair prices to consumers for their digital games and in-game content.
e. These prices are out of all proportion to the costs of Sony providing these services to its customers.

Their argument seems pretty clear to me: consumers are paying an excessive price for games due to Sony taking a 30% cut of game sales.

That's not the same as having a case. Why is that breaking the law, and why are other digital storefronts (IE everyone except Epic) not also being sued?

monkey

Apple have had this stuff going on for over a decade.

Yossarian

Diluted Dante wrote:

That's not the same as having a case. Why is that breaking the law, and why are other digital storefronts (IE everyone except Epic) not also being sued?

Because their argument rests, in part, on Sony having a monopoly (highly debatable in itself, TBH), and abusing its monopoly position to impose terms on others.

And my reply doesn’t mean they have a case, I’m just saying what they’re arguing.

Yossarian

monkey wrote:

Apple have had this stuff going on for over a decade.

It’s been the business model for consoles since the start.

Minnesänger

monkey wrote:

Apple have had this stuff going on for over a decade.

Aye - a lot of that is similar to the case against Apple. There's differences of course - and I think the argument against Apple is far stronger than this one against Sony, but the basics are kinda similar.

LivDiv

Minnesänger wrote:

monkey wrote:

Apple have had this stuff going on for over a decade.

Aye - a lot of that is similar to the case against Apple. There's differences of course - and I think the argument against Apple is far stronger than this one against Sony, but the basics are kinda similar.

Yeah iirc some of the argument against Apple was that people could be locked into Apple devices particularly phones because of other functions or features and contracts.

The reason they aren't suing others is somewhat irrelevant though. There is no obligation to do so.

b0r1s

This will go nowhere.

Diluted Dante

From Eurogamers article on this:

"It's a tough case to bring," Richard Hoeg, host of video games industry legal podcast Virtual Legality, told Eurogamer. "First, you have the issue that each individual transaction was voluntarily made at the price(s) offered. Second, that the prices largely mirrored those across the industry at the time. Third, that the intermediary pricing (the 30 percent cut), was also mirrored by other market participants at the time.

"Fourth, that although the 30 percent argument mirrors Epic's in Epic v Apple, you have a lot of language in that case attempting to distinguish the console markets. (Though such language is not controlling, and may not even be persuasive.) Fifth, that there's no indication that a change to the 30 percent cut actually would affect the bottom line consumer-facing pricing. (And there's some indication that it wouldn't, see [the] Epic Games Store.) Sixth, that because the 30 percent was established before any market controlling position, you have an issue establishing that it was an anti-competitive price.

Assuming that Sony actually lost this case (they won't) what would that actually mean in practice?

Sony taking 30% bad. Do they have to take 0%? Somewhere inbetween?

acemuzzy

Shut the fuck up and give me my moneh

Wookienopants

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories