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

Blind_Evil wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

So PlayStation owners may very well not get future Bethesda titles.

There exist people with both :P

IMAGE(https://media4.giphy.com/media/gFccuw5vFkc9trBiQ1/giphy.gif?cid=5e2148867uw57rdhbb3doquloo3w9q0ulh3u45h2269uj88r&rid=giphy.gif)

So PlayStation owners that don’t also own a Game Pass capable machine may very well not get future Bethesda titles.

OR

So future Bethesda titles may very well not come to PlayStation, once the exclusivity deal for Deathloop is over.

As someone who has not had a Microsoft platform since I bought an Xbox as Microsoft was killing it to make room for the 360, I have never had access to a working Bethesda game.

It's interesting that I read that last statement completely different from everyone else. By emphasizing "platforms where Game Pass exists", it sounds to me like he's basically saying "We want more games on Game Pass to ensure your monthly subscription", but that doesn't concretely rule out the games being on PlayStation, or Steam (I mean, you can buy Master Chief Collection and more on Steam), or what-have-you. While I think thus far Microsoft has only been willing to put out their indie titles like Cuphead on other platforms, or Minecraft because it's effectively their Pokemon (sort of (imperfect comparison)), I could see them continuing to release some games on alternate platforms in order to avoid bad PR.

The point is more "Sure, you can buy it for $60 on PlayStation... but look at everything we offer on Game Pass for a comparatively small monthly fee!"

Not to say that they aren't trying to phrase platform exclusivity in a manner that begs ambiguity so it doesn't sound bad, but it doesn't immediately sound like everything following near-future releases like Deathloop will be MS platform only.

edit: eh, not as funny as I thought first thing in the morning

ccesarano wrote:

It's interesting that I read that last statement completely different from everyone else. By emphasizing "platforms where Game Pass exists", it sounds to me like he's basically saying "We want more games on Game Pass to ensure your monthly subscription", but that doesn't concretely rule out the games being on PlayStation, or Steam (I mean, you can buy Master Chief Collection and more on Steam), or what-have-you

For Steam, sure. For PlayStation? I want to agree with you, it’s just Microsoft gave 7.5 billion reasons not to.

In the end, only time will tell, but I will be surprised if Bethesda on PlayStation doesn’t dry up.

ccesarano wrote:

It's interesting that I read that last statement completely different from everyone else.

I'm with you on this one. Microsoft really isn't interested in using Game Pass content to drive hardware sales; they're interested in using Game Pass content to drive Game Pass subscriptions. In the last couple years, they've actively worked to broaden Game Pass access from Xbox consoles to PCs and now to mobile devices. They've said that they would bring Game Pass to Nintendo and Sony platforms if they were allowed to.

The plan could of course change---in much the same way that leadership passing from Dan Mattrick to Phil Spencer pretty clearly fundamentally shifted the direction of the Xbox brand and platform---but at this point, I don't think Microsoft has much interest in making their games exclusive to their hardware.

The mental model of exclusives as a lever for hardware sales isn't a good one anyway, though. Nintendo uses exclusivity to drive sales of their hardware, but they're the only one. Sony uses exclusives to raise the prestige value of their brand; PlayStation makes most of their money (by a significant margin) from digital content sales for third-party games. They use exclusives to increase the perception of providing value for money rather than using hardware as a gate to increase profit margins, as Nintendo does. Microsoft using exclusives to drive hardware agnostic subscriptions is a new idea, but it's not completely out of left field.

Carlbear95, back in February wrote:

The other thing that comes out of [Stadia's studios shutting down]... has Jade Raymond entered the pantheon of John Romero, Peter Molyneux, Scott Miller, who have somehow convinced themselves and/or publishers that their name itself is good enough to make a successful game?

She seems to have landed on her feet just fine. She's the head of a new studio, Haven Entertainment Studios, developing new IP for Sony.


I can't find the post I wrote about it a while back, but my expectation that Sony would can their movie and TV store is finally coming to fruition. The writing has been on the wall for awhile—they were basically making zero money from it, and it only existed because of a drive for corporate synergy.

Now Disney just has to convince them to sell Sony Pictures Entertainment, netting them Columbia, Screen Gems, TriStar, Imageworks, Affirm Films, Stage 6, and 3000. And Sony Pictures Animation so they can dismantle it.

Then all they have to do is buy Comcast, MGM and Lionsgate, and they win.

Comcast Universal already has a stake in Amblin Partners, so it's just a hop skip and jump until they own Amblin, too. Alibaba might put up a fight, though.

So Disney Hollywood Studios could finally be a true celebration of all cinema, but still mostly Star Wars and Pixar

On the heels of the seemingly counterintuitive move of reporting 50 employees would be laid off while actually laying off 190, apparently even more layoffs are in the chamber at Activision, a corporation that has apparently done so well during the pandemic, multi-billionaire CEO Bobby Kotick is getting a bonus of $200 million. That's enough to give all the people already laid off more than one million dollars, not sure what the calculation would be if we included the people who may be laid off next. I'm regularly told we're cruelly mean and unfair to this corporation, which I somehow ended up giving money, despite not buying any of their products in more than a decade.

This analysis of Epic Game Store revenues is pretty interesting.

Main takeaway seems to be that throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem was insufficient to overcome Steam's network effects. Also, it doesn't look like EGS has a viable pathway to profitability in the current business environment.

polq37 wrote:

This analysis of Epic Game Store revenues is pretty interesting.

Main takeaway seems to be that throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem was insufficient to overcome Steam's network effects. Also, it doesn't look like EGS has a viable pathway to profitability in the current business environment.

Going up against Steam is a hard one. What’s more interesting to me is the idea that Epics plan for Fortnite eventually losing popularity is to bring in third parties to build on Fortnite and that they wanted to keep Epics revenue cut the same while paying these third parties out of the app store’s cut. Makes it feel like it’s just rent seekers all the way down.

I'd love to take advantage of the free games, but I strongly do not trust Epic and don't want their launcher monitoring my system. When I last read their terms of use, they could extract pretty much any data from you that they were interested in.

From what I could tell, it was free games in exchange for spyware, and I wasn't interested in that deal.

Malor wrote:

I'd love to take advantage of the free games, but I strongly do not trust Epic and don't want their launcher monitoring my system. When I last read their terms of use, they could extract pretty much any data from you that they were interested in.

From what I could tell, it was free games in exchange for spyware, and I wasn't interested in that deal.

FWIW you can claim the games without installing the launcher.

Good news: video games are on the front page of CNN...

Bad News:

Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

Oooh, maybe we'll get a fixed Madden game now! Thanks, hackers!

Anthem belongs to the people now. Maybe we'll get that update after all...

I’m interested in seeing how Fortnite v. Apple plays out in court. Even though I tend to feel that Apple is just another massively evil corporation, I think Epic/Fortnite is in the wrong here. We shall see…

iOS has like 25% market share. The idea that Apple is a monopoly is ludicrous.

LeapingGnome wrote:

iOS has like 25% market share. The idea that Apple is a monopoly is ludicrous.

Besides which, Apple’s contract with Epic is completely transparent. I feel like this is some sort of smoke screen. Maybe it’s what you just said. If Apple proves in this slam dunk court case that they’re not a monopoly, it will enable them to act more like a monopoly and face zero consequences.

Is the tail wagging the dog here?

Apple's going to win this case, but Epic is throwing so much non-relevant sh*t into this case because they know they can’t introduce any new evidence during their inevitable appeal.

Their play is to keep this monopoly stuff in the minds of congress who seem agreeable to regulating Apple.

We'll be talking about this for years.

LeapingGnome wrote:

iOS has like 25% market share. The idea that Apple is a monopoly is ludicrous.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true doesn't allow apps in their store that essentially compete with their own functionality? I know that used to be the case. Within their own ecosystem, they have an absolute monopoly.

I don’t think that is true. There are plenty of competitor apps in the iOS App Store for built in functions like podcasts, email, browsers, alarms, weather, etc.

Also companies are allowed to have a “monopoly” like that anyway as long as it is not a market monopoly. This is not like Microsoft having 95% of the OS market and only allowing Internet Explorer as an example.

Nevin73 wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

iOS has like 25% market share. The idea that Apple is a monopoly is ludicrous.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true doesn't allow apps in their store that essentially compete with their own functionality? I know that used to be the case. Within their own ecosystem, they have an absolute monopoly.

Not at all. They allow audio, email, browser, streaming video, etc, apps that directly compete with theirs.

There may be an argument to be made though by how fair they are to those apps in the ecosystem with regard to app store fees. For instance, Spotify has accused them of shady tactics tactics that the EU is investigating.

RawkGWJ wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

iOS has like 25% market share. The idea that Apple is a monopoly is ludicrous.

Besides which, Apple’s contract with Epic is completely transparent. I feel like this is some sort of smoke screen. Maybe it’s what you just said. If Apple proves in this slam dunk court case that they’re not a monopoly, it will enable them to act more like a monopoly and face zero consequences.

Is the tail wagging the dog here?

I think Epic doesn’t expect to win, they are just using the cost and the PR as leverage to get a higher cut of revenue.

Uh, I think it's rather more complicated than is being discussed.

For one, Apple's app ecosystem is obviously a monopoly - if it contains apps that compete with Apple, that's strictly because Apple wants it to. (And it definitely doesn't include competing browsers - all third-party iOS browsers are required to be reskinned and slightly crippled copies of safari.)

BUT - whether Apple is "a monopoly" in whatever sense has very little bearing on anything; having a monopoly isn't illegal. The legal issues mostly revolve around whether/how Apple has engaged in anticompetitive practices, and at a bare minimum it's hard to argue that there's a slam-dunk case that they haven't.

I mean, it's been widely reported that Apple makes more money from the iOS version of Spotify than Spotify does. It's hard to imagine that being purely the result of market forces

Apple, I feel, has always been clear that they are a “closed” platform. That’s a huge part of why Apple is as successful as they are today. Many years ago, Apple’s closed platform offered a high quality experience to its customers which the windows pc platform was lacking. Nowadays, the windows user experience is at or above the Apple experience. Yet Apple still has a closed platform.

As much as I hate to side with Apple, I feel that Apple has the right to do what they want with their ecosystem. If Apple makes it impossible for Epic to make a profit on Apple’s platform, then Epic is free to abandon Apple’s platform. Nobody is forcing Epic to utilize Apple’s platform. Heck! There are lots of game developers who choose to not use Apple’s platform.

But Epic chose option 3. They chose to violate the agreement that they have with Apple and then take Apple to court. That’s what makes me think that this trial is Apple’s way of setting a legal precedent which will allow them to behave much more like a monopoly without having to suffer the consequences of that.

Naturally Apple gets control over what apps can be in their closed system, that's not at issue*. iOS being a closed platform is not hugely different from Sony controlling what's in the playstation store and so on.

But Apple's stance is, essentially, that it's fine for them to exert complete control over how companies do business on their platform, regardless of whether the business takes place in the app or whether it uses any Apple services or whatever. Which is, to me, massively sketchy, obviously anti-competitive, and also a clearly awful way for tech companies to operate (in the sense of "if the other tech giants behaved similarly then Things would Generally Suck").

That said, I have no idea whether Epic's lawsuit is a good way to challenge all that. I hope so, but I wouldn't bet any money on it. But I'd steer clear of any facile "Epic is in the wrong because they violated their contract" kind of take. Everything being done by both sides here is lawyer-wizards performing magic legal incantations that they hope will win a lawsuit, not business actions that make any sense outside of that context.

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(* Personally I do have big issues with this - basically I suspect that it leads us inexorably towards a future where the internet is drastically less open and free. But I don't think the walled garden itself is a big part of the Epic lawsuit.)

I feel like there is a far simpler way to look at this.

Is it a monopoly for Apple's app store to be the only way to make a transaction on their Apple devices? In other words, the prevention of storefronts that circumvent Apple's cut.

If it is a monopoly, does that mean the PSN Store or Nintendo eShop or Xbox storefronts on those respective consoles also monopolies?

I think the difference in consoles right now is that you can purchase a physical copy of a game or a game code from other retailers, but those respective stores still get a cut. Also, pretty sure app store sells codes at retailers as well. The only place that would be unaffected by Apple's ecosystem being called a monopoly would be PC, where multiple digital storefronts compete with one another.

Wasn’t this the argument the EA made for the SEGA Megadrive. They were capable of making the cartridges without SEGA so they did and to avoid legal action paid a fee for SEGA to “validate” their work which was much less than other third parties paid.