The Great Video Game Business and Financial (In)Stability Thread

I, for one, am shocked that backing up money trucks in the front lawns of a couple of the most popular Twitch streamers to entice them to jump ship to Mixer while doing absolutely nothing else to promote the service or develop "home-grown" talent and communities didn't work.

If I wanted to start a basketball league to compete head to head with the NBA, it would take more than paying LeBron James a billion dollars to come play in it for it to be a success.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Long live Mixer!

They were this close to lasting longer than the Confederacy. Almost there.

Oh, someone finally picked the story up? Saw this on Era and the Tweets about it the other day. Shocked this didn't make news sooner......but maybe everyone already knew. Everyone certainly knew he was a drunk.

I have to admit, I didn't remember what Mixer was or that it even existed.

If it wasn't for video game news places covering Mixer I would have forgotten about it.

I'm not sure why it's gotten so much coverage. Mixer was great software, but when the XB1 launched flopped, it also took any chance that it could compete with Twitch. It was better for watching cons and was generally just a better consistent feed and better resolution, but there was just not enough people using it.

I had both it and Twitch, and used to check Mixer first, but I stopped that a long time ago. But I also don't watch a ton of streaming. I will watch feeds for particular games I'm interested in, but that's about it. It would have been nice if Mixer got more use, but I didn't see a path for it to become more popular. There was zero reason for Sony or Nintendo to include it. And I never noticed anyone trying to find an alternate to Twitch on PC.

Maybe if Microsoft had the success with the XB1 they planned on, it could have worked, but that is not even certain. My guess is that they can use the tech within the Xbox for stuff like special events and maybe some future features, like video chat for H2H games on XBL. Who knows? But they don't need a livestream platform to support and grow.

When I read reporting on Mixer it was usually regarding how the community was less toxic than Twitch so some minority streamers preferred it for that reason. But they never got the numbers they needed apparently.

This last year it was hard to find a decent stream of someone playing Madden.

Honestly, Microsoft would have had a better chance had they had just pushed Mixer as part of Windows and PC gaming, with Xbox as almost an afterthought. Tying it into Xbox so hard really narrowed its audience, for an app that requires viewers.

But they were convinced that the Kinect 2.0 was going to make the XB1 a dominant force in gaming, and since every Xbox One owner would have a Kinect, it would make Mixer a destination. And that turned out to be very, very wrong.

But it was an easy cut for what Xbox is doing now. Since Twitch is the dominant app, and its on Xbox like it is everywhere else, gamers aren't really losing anything. It's just a lot of saved money now.

It was good software though. Sucks that it is going to Facebook. I'll never see it again.

I think they did blow it with TV, though. If they had not given up, their TV app would probably be as good or better than the Apple TV I bought to do exactly what I thought Xbox One Guide was destined to become. And that did cost Microsoft.

With Apple TV, I rent and buy via that instead of Xbox. I might use a video app or my cable TV app to watch live TV if I'm on the Xbox, and it's just quicker. But now that we have spent time with the new Apple tvOS, it will always be where we go to watch TV. With an Xbox-like menu for what you've been watching, you are one click from the next episode in every show you are watching (except Netflix, who won't play nice with apple, so you have to use their app), plus easy access to apps, and good menus for TV shows and movies based on the qpps you own and services you subscribe to.

And just like that, I'm renting from Apple instead of Microsoft. The annoying part is that I have to switch inputs, and that is the only thing I do that forces me to reach way up to get the TV to catch the signal because of the sound bar. Everything else just works.

With TV, they were just competing against themselves. Make that a destination on the Xbox, and people will use it. And if they use it, you can sell a lot more subs and rentals. Just attract the customers you have. They don't even need the HDMI in anymore. I watch my cable via an internet connection on both the Apple TV and Xbox. Everything is in apps in one way or another.

I don't think Microsoft didn't make mistakes with Mixer, but man, when you're going up against the entrenched monolith that basically invented video game streaming, you're gonna have a hard time unless you have something real to offer, and not just a better software experience. That, more than anything, is what made Mixer a loser for Microsoft.

NSMike wrote:

I don't think Microsoft didn't make mistakes with Mixer, but man, when you're going up against the entrenched monolith that basically invented video game streaming, you're gonna have a hard time unless you have something real to offer, and not just a better software experience. That, more than anything, is what made Mixer a loser for Microsoft.

If any company should know that a better software experience doesn't help much when fighting an uphill battle against entrenched solutions, it should be Microsoft. Then again, they've had plenty of success with bundling good-enough solutions together with their more successful products (see: Windows Server, SQL Server, InTune, etc.). I would disagree with Jayhawker that Xbox One was a flop, but it wasn't a huge success either.

Mixer had above-average tech diversity issues though, to put it mildly. ArsTechnica did a piece on it.

article wrote:

The third peculiar thing about today's announcement is that it comes from Spencer, who less than 24 hours earlier acknowledged a glaring and embarrassing allegation about racist management practices at Mixer.

Milan Lee, a former business-development manager for Mixer, posted his allegations about his time with the company on Sunday as part of a rising tide of stories about racism and sexism in the tech industry. He described a troubling incident in which a female manager (not yet identified) called herself a "slave master" and all of Mixer's partner streamers her "slaves." Lee then described his attempt to formally complain about this incident—including an email he'd sent to Spencer himself—which was full of resistance from the reported manager, departments not communicating with each other, and time dragging on.

The internal investigation eventually concluded, Lee says, with the following determination from Microsoft's legal team:

The reason my manager was not penalized and the reason she still has her job today is because she CANNOT be racist. The reason she CANNOT be racist is because she hired a black person.

[...]

This event followed months of reports about budget cuts, shrinking morale, and departing founders within Microsoft's Mixer division. In February of this year, employees began leaking their frustrations to the press alongside a recorded video from a Mixer "town hall" meeting, in which newly hired general manager Shilpa Yadla began openly and loudly dismissing the negative feedback she'd received from employees she'd spoken to during one-on-one meetings. OnMSFT published this video, which includes Yadla describing this feedback as "blah blah blah" and telling staffers she was not responsible for "sympathiz[ing] with anybody."

Last I remember hearing of/from him, was in the public row he had with his former company Obsidian. I now wonder whether these two are related.

Tons of streamers and Youtubers are being called out for rape, harassment, etc., including AngryJoe. Reddit catch all here.

If you value your sanity, stay the hell away from that Reddit thread. The default position on Reddit is that all accusations of sexual misconduct, be it psychological or physical, are made by lying liars who just want attention. (Also, whatabout sexual assault on men? — those people make me physically ill)

Yeah, sorry, I didn't even wade into the comments, but it's the best collection I've come across.

Who’s AngryJoe and why did you mention him specifically? I don’t watch youtubers or streamers so forgive my ignorance.

My twitter feed has been full of this stuff, it’s genuinely a shame that people get away with things like this for as long as they do.

Shocking that people making a living off of juvenile antics in a juvenile industry don't know how to have adult relationships and blame it internally or externally on women.

Don't make dumb generalizations about people.

AngryJoe was specifically called out because he's a very big name.

Yeah, Joe's big enough and been around long enough to have a Wiki page.

There's also been a lot of talk about IGN and how female employees were treated there.

Edit: Not just women.

Sounds like someone took a page from the National Inquirer. There is an amazing documentary on the founding of the National Enquirer and its work environment over the years.

Press F for Kongregate.

They're closing off submissions for new games, and shutting down most forums. It looks like the existing site will keep going as it is, but they're putting their resources behind their own games and can't deal with all the spam associated with outside submissions and forums.

The fighting game community is having their #metoo moment along with the rest of the industry, which has resulted in allegations against EVO's CEO, who has been relieved of duty, and he EVO Online tournament has been scrapped.

Bringing from other threads:

vypre wrote:

Sony has reportedly bought a $250 million stake in Epic Games.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/ps5-e...

Certainly explains all the "we love Sony!" comments from Epic folks.

Also talk about Sony considering a bid for Digital Extremes owner Leyou.

DE is the developers of Warframe.

ranalin wrote:

Also talk about Sony considering a bid for Digital Extremes owner Leyou.

DE is the developers of Warframe.

Shares of Leyou have been halted. Sounds like this is happening. Makes sense, Sony needs 1st party MP.

Tencent has also been mentioned. Guess once Sony was interested they couldn't let that hapoen

Curious about that one. Arguably what makes Warframe great is that it's not run by MBAs. That's a company that pulled a mechanic from their game because it was causing addictive behavior in some of its players.

After basically un-releasing Crucible, ostensibly for further work and refinement, Amazon has announced their MMO The New World is delayed to spring 2021.

garion333 wrote:
ranalin wrote:

Also talk about Sony considering a bid for Digital Extremes owner Leyou.

DE is the developers of Warframe.

Shares of Leyou have been halted. Sounds like this is happening. Makes sense, Sony needs 1st party MP.

Tencent has also been mentioned. Guess once Sony was interested they couldn't let that hapoen

kazooka wrote:

Curious about that one. Arguably what makes Warframe great is that it's not run by MBAs. That's a company that pulled a mechanic from their game because it was causing addictive behavior in some of its players.

Latest info is that its Tencent has the lead with exclusive talks.

Keep in mind they acquired the folks behind Path of Exile and they didn't change their game......except in China where Tencent gets to add what they want to the game. There's an auction house and some other QoL changes to make it more palatable to the locale.

(Side note, did you know games were cheaper in China? Like $40 for new titles instead of $60.)