Anthem and the peculiarities of modern monetization.

[Radu]

 

[Radu]

"Nvidia’s GeForce Now took yet another hit this weekend with a new publisher pulling its software from the cloud gaming service. That’s because GeForce Now, unlike competing services like Google Stadia, lets anyone who purchases a digital game on Valve’s Steam marketplace reinstall it on a virtual machine and play it using its cloud platform.

That doesn’t sit well with some game publishers and developers, including Raphael van Lierop, the game director and writer of indie hit The Long Dark from his company Hinterland Studio. Lierop pulled his game over the weekend, displeased that it was included in the paid version of GeForce Now without his explicit permission.

We’ve seen this before; Activision Blizzard and Bethesda have pulled their games from GeForce Now, presumably for similar reasons.

The publishers have given vague statements, leading many to surmise that it may be due to the lack of a revenue split or the fact that big game publishers would rather charge customers a second time for a separate license to play a game on a cloud gaming service, regardless of how it’s structured. Stadia, for instance, charges customers for games even if you own them on Steam already, and a lot of big publishers have signed up under those terms."

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161469/nvidia-geforce-now-cloud-gaming-service-developers-controversy-licensing

[Radu]

"Ever since it officially launched last month, game publishers have been abandoning Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming platform in droves. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, meanwhile, has defended the service, arguing it’s the most developer-friendly option out there right now.

“Epic is wholeheartedly supporting NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW service with Fortnite and with Epic Games Store titles that choose to participate (including exclusives), and we’ll be improving the integration over time,” Sweeney wrote in a tweet last Friday. He praised the fact that Nvidia doesn’t take a cut of sales from the games that support GeForce Now and said companies should support it if they want to move the “game industry towards a healthier state.” "

https://kotaku.com/what-s-going-on-with-geforce-now-1842221576

Edited March 11, 2020 by Radu

[blackdog]

There’s a new monetisation on the block: pay-per-match! (+base entry fee) in a battle royals game!

 

[Radu]

aaaaand it's dead

[-HP-]

Nope.gif

[Beck]

Isn't this like the 4th time they've released this game? Doomed to fail just let it die. What a ridiculous payment model.

[blackdog]

7 hours ago, Beck said:

Isn't this like the 4th time they've released this game? Doomed to fail just let it die. What a ridiculous payment model.

Yeah I know the name of this, it goes way back more than I thought --thanks Yong for the recap-- apparently they released a sequel that bombed, so they went back to the original... now this sounds like a spin-off from the title.

Whatevs, it's interesting see what people can come up with sometimes, this is basically slot-machine mechanic. Although to be fair, I think they probably created such an outrageous scheme to incentivise people to subscribe... and if someone does indeed buy token, they profit.

[Radu]

"Valve has quietly dipped its toes into the waters of cloud gaming with the beta rollout of Steam Cloud Play, which introduces GeForce Now streaming integration, but may include other services in the future. For now, it allows publishers to opt into GeForce Now streaming for their games through the Steam backend."

https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-cloud-play-enters-beta-testing-with-geforce-now-support

 

Some of the comments are raising some valid concerns like:

 

But with both Epic and Valve now supporting GeForce Now, it will be interesting to see how this evolves.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Radu

[blackdog]

Yeah but you do choose where to play the game, nobody forces you to stream it. What does it mean to you end user if the servers you are streaming from are nVidia or something else? Also Valve's solution seems open to whomever comes forward with a compelling solution.

I think it's more interesting to understand if you can simply stream games you own on Steam, it does seem like it...

[-HP-]

6 hours ago, Radu said:

Some of the comments are raising some valid concerns like:

 

Oh my lord... the entitlement!

Back in the day, when you bought Street Fighter II (or any other game) for the Genesis, it wouldn't run on the SNES or any other console.
It's hard enough to make a game for one platform, it's an extra pain in the ass to make it multi-platform, now there's this extra stuff to worry about? Yeah... no.

When you go out for a concert the ticket is valid for that one venue. 
When you go to a sports event, ticket is valid on that stadium
When you go to a restaurant, you can't order the food in a place, then claim you wanna eat it in another.

Creating the expectation that a video game (or any other software) needs to run on your kitchen toaster because you "bought the game" is so unrealistic it's almost comical.

[Radu]

 

[Radu]

On 2/28/2019 at 10:32 AM, FrieChamp said:

Nitpicking here, but I remember a 10 EUR spike in prices for games (in Germany) with the beginning of the PS3 generation. What used to cost 60 EUR now costs 70 EUR. And I find that to be a lot of money to shell out on a game*. 

Well, well, well

"LastLast week, 2K Sports announced that it would raise the price of NBA 2K21 by $10 — from $59.99 to $69.99 — for next-generation video game consoles. To see all the bells and whistles on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, consumers will need to pay a little more than they did the year before. The announcement caused famously opinionated game consumers to erupt on social media and online forums. Many wondered out loud if the cost of AAA console video games, after remaining constant for the last 15 years, could be going up across the board."

https://www.polygon.com/2020/7/7/21314545/console-video-game-price-increase-70-video-game-ps5-xbox-series-x

[-HP-]

10 hours ago, Radu said:

The announcement caused famously opinionated game consumers to erupt

*says someone posting their opinions on the internet!*

[Radu]

"The United States of America's video games trade body The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) claims that almost two-thirds of the population play games. That's according to its 2020 Essential Facts report for the industry, in which it says that over 214m US citizens play games out of a total population of around 328.2m.

49 per cent of US gamers play on PC, coming in behind games consoles and phones, which take 52 per cent and 61 per cent respectively. Casual games are the most popular genre, racking up 71 per cent support, ahead of action games – 53 per cent – and shooters, which were played by 48 per cent."

https://www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/71369/esa-two-thirds-of-usa-population-plays-games/