https://imgbox.com/M3ZobmiI#

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 19 Jan 2024 15:22:38 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

https://imgbox.com/M3ZobmiI#

If he wasn't the type of exec that sat on his chair with a butt-plug
in his ass watching midget porn, he might realize that software as a
service can work as long as the service provider is finding ways to
continually add value.

That can probably only happen in the multiplayer space. Nobody is
going to "subscribe for the right" to keep playing a single player
game, ever. A subscription could only work in a multiplayer game
where someone has found a way to keep the online world ever evolving
and interesting.

Electricity, water, garbage guy, etc are public utilities, they are requirements/needs and not wants.

Gaming is a want and not a need. In economic terms, this means that
games have price elasticity that's through the motherfucking roof.
Piss off the wrong group of people and you're done, when trying to
peddle highly elastic services (games or otherwise).

What I mean by "through the roof" is that the service they hope to
provide (by software as a service) is exponentially elastic. When you
give water to someone so they can take a shower, they know what
they're getting and the provider can be relatively assured the
consumer needs it for their arse to not smell bad, so the economic
elasticity is low. Constratingly, gaming is a massively subjective
art form with price elasticity that has a curve that cannot be
illustrated, and nobody really needs it for their arse to smell, as is
evident by the increasing numbers of tents popping up in the streets
of major US cities by the "woke" who feel that accepting help would
violate their person freedom by requiring them to give up hard drug
use.

Thus the only way this strategy can work is if they stick to designing multiplayer games that hook people and keep them coming back, and the
idea of that based on what gaming has become in the last 10 years
seems like slim chances.

Fortnite and some of those crap games have had short-term success with
that, good for them. But I'm not sure it's sustainable in the long
term as a business strategy. Probably not based on all the layoffs
from Epic, etc.. eventually people get tired of loot boxes I guess.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 1/20/2024 6:55 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Fri, 19 Jan 2024 15:22:38 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

https://imgbox.com/M3ZobmiI#

Yeah, that story has been covered in multiple articles.

I considered writing about it here, except a) I'd probably be
preaching to the crowd, and b) he's - sadly - correct. We are going to
have to get used to it, because that's the way the industry is moving.
And we've nobody to blame but ourselves for letting it happen. The
industry has been making moves in this direction for years, and we as
gamers have always just rolled over and accepted it. Every time we
bought a game requiring online activation, or allowed them to ship a
product where huge chunks of the content were store entirely online,
or paid for a subscription service or used cloud streaming, we
reinforced the message that we're fine with paying to 'buy' games
where they could revoke our ability to play at any time. So, having
gotten a very clear message from us that this was okay, of course the corporations went out and did just that.

It's a bit late for us to whine about it now.

Except for many of the games garnering a lot of critical and mass praise
and buyers of at least the last year even if multiplayer enabled are
perfectly fine to play solo without an internet connection, no sub, and
no micro-transactions.

BG3 and ER, and even games making a resurgence like Cyberpunk 2077.

I've just read a couple stories the young gamers seem to be leaving the sub/microtransaction games.

--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 1/19/24 17:52, kyonshi wrote:

On 1/20/2024 12:22 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

https://imgbox.com/M3ZobmiI#

one of the best comments about that headline I read was "Ubisoft needs
to get comfortable with having their games pirated"

But of course, they wont.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 1/20/2024 6:55 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Fri, 19 Jan 2024 15:22:38 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

https://imgbox.com/M3ZobmiI#

Yeah, that story has been covered in multiple articles.

I considered writing about it here, except a) I'd probably be
preaching to the crowd, and b) he's - sadly - correct. We are going to
have to get used to it, because that's the way the industry is moving.
And we've nobody to blame but ourselves for letting it happen. The
industry has been making moves in this direction for years, and we as
gamers have always just rolled over and accepted it. Every time we
bought a game requiring online activation, or allowed them to ship a
product where huge chunks of the content were store entirely online,
or paid for a subscription service or used cloud streaming, we
reinforced the message that we're fine with paying to 'buy' games
where they could revoke our ability to play at any time. So, having
gotten a very clear message from us that this was okay, of course the corporations went out and did just that.

It's a bit late for us to whine about it now.

Like that's going to stop us.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Oh, what fun!

Ubisoft Exec says gamers need to get comfortable with "His wet dream
fantasy world that he hopes will happen." Also says, "Get comfortable
with fellating me monthly. Here. Have some kneepads." FTFY.

Whatever. We'll see. I've seen game company execs predict a lot of
things. I've seen game execs crash and burn with bad-will profiteering.
I've seen other game execs win absolute coups. C-suite's gonna C-suite,
but the jury's is out. That's us.

Point of fact here: It is ludicrous that XBox PC GamePass includes both
EAPlay and Ubisoft, in addition to Microsoft games, at only $9.99/mo. I
got three free months with my new Nvidia card. The catalog is insane and
the price is unsustainable. Big tax write-offs are coming to all
involved, which is how they get away with it.

This is primarily a power play against Steam (and thus game ownership in general), but _it's mostly to do with Steam_, in addition to being anti-consumer. It's abject product dumping. The FTC should step in.

But I underscore that it's unsustainable. They're clearly selling at a
big loss to drive adoption of subscription play, and Valve* isn't going
to sit there and take it. We're just the afterthought here. He's openly
mocking us, because he is untouchable and he can. This is red letter bad
will from Ubisoft. Don't you feel special? Loved even?

With the help of Valve's countermeasures, this then depends entirely on
us. Consumers must have the intelligence to know that a) the subscription prices _must_ eventually rise drastically, b) the library sizes will
shrink, and surcharges for premium content, or 0-day access, will happen,
and c) the Microsoft XBox app _will become the only way to get Windows PC games_.

Item "c" is totally intolerable. Windows as a locked down Microsoft
gaming platform, a PC in name only, will cause serious harm to customers.

So to summarize: Customers saying "yes" to Steam wasn't an awful move and
came with many, many benefits.** The egregious file encryption system
that came with Half Life 2 was phased out. The egregious ring 0,
installed as part of the OS, archival nightmare, security risk protection systems (like SafeDisc) were mostly abolished by Steam.*** God knows,
some companies (*cough, Denuvo*) still try though.

But you DO own your games rn. Really, you do. If it's single player, you
can back up the files to install whenever and take the experience
off-line, also whenever. It's actually better than a physical copy,
because you can't play those any more without a No-CD crack or original hardware, because of all the fly-by-night DRM schemes of the naughty
aughties. It's definitely better than what Microsoft has in store for us: subscription rentals. The horse has definitely not left the barn here.

Saying "yes" to this bullshit will lock gamers into Microsoft and
severely limit our experiences. God knows what happens to modding under
such a regime. That EA and Ubi are willing to bend the knee to f^%$king _Microsoft_ for this opportunity shows how much they hate Valve.

...and they really HATE Valve and Steam.*

I hope gamers have enough intelligence to reject this. Older gamers will,
but perhaps younger gamers won't have the economic sense to recognize a honeypot, bait-and-switch scheme when they see one.

Despite all the above, it's a fun game to watch. I've broken out the
popcorn. It's like they (EA, Ubi, Microsoft) are a self-satisfied 3,000
lb gorilla playing at an unlimited stakes table. They're trying to raise
Steam into folding. Lol. That's cute.

Problem is, Steam is a 30,000 lb gorilla. A King Kong with unbelievable
amounts of cash on hand, who is developing an entire alternative
operating system for gaming as well as a successful portable, which XBox
does not have. They can keep up. They can provide an alternative. They
have Microsoft defecating their trousers. The fecal storm is so bad that they're coalitioning with EA and Ubisoft.

Boy howdy these guys want Steam dead. Just can't take it that Valve won.
EA and Ubi tried on their own, with their crappy store launches, and
failed. Maybe if Microsoft joins in as part of an indefatigable
triumvirate they'll succeed? Is it the "Rise of the Triad?"

Nah.

I hope gaming customers see right through this fairy tale. It _is_ too
good to be true. To quote Admiral Ackbar, "It's a trap." My dear young
gamers, who are not here and likely will not read this, do not fall for
this loss leading bs. This is rope-a-dope crap.

Thank god Mr. cocky, dumbass Ubi exec said the quiet part out loud. Now
we know what's up here. He thinks he's untouchable, because he is. He's
gonna make big compensation no matter the enormous losses this brilliant strategy incurs. He might even get fired when it fails, but he'll still
be rich.

Fuck that. Fuck him. Fuck the fucking C-suite "heads I win, tails you
lose" disruptivish strategical geniusery. We have the power to reject him
and everything he stands for. Do it.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten


* And to a lesser extent, Epic, and to a tiny extent GoG/CDPR

** Spalls, IMO this is the horse that you think we all let out of the
barn. Be a better cynic. This is far, far worse.

*** And Steam can be emulated at least, push comes to shove. A piracy
group already did it when they cracked Half Life 2. Yup. Emulated the
whole Steam platform and the game files decrypted on-the-fly properly. I
don't remember if the Steam emulator then dumped the decrypted files so
the thing actually ran _better_ than Valve's version. It probably did.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 20/01/2024 14:55, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Fri, 19 Jan 2024 15:22:38 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

https://imgbox.com/M3ZobmiI#

Yeah, that story has been covered in multiple articles.

I considered writing about it here, except a) I'd probably be
preaching to the crowd, and b) he's - sadly - correct. We are going to
have to get used to it, because that's the way the industry is moving.
And we've nobody to blame but ourselves for letting it happen. The
industry has been making moves in this direction for years, and we as
gamers have always just rolled over and accepted it. Every time we
bought a game requiring online activation, or allowed them to ship a
product where huge chunks of the content were store entirely online,
or paid for a subscription service or used cloud streaming, we
reinforced the message that we're fine with paying to 'buy' games
where they could revoke our ability to play at any time. So, having
gotten a very clear message from us that this was okay, of course the corporations went out and did just that.

It's a bit late for us to whine about it now.

I have a slightly different take on it as in the context it was said it
was talking about subscription based services which I think is a
different issue to digital store fronts. An interesting opinion piece I
watched about this (sorry no link) was looking at whether the
subscription model is a good thing. I think they made some valid points although I'm not sure I agree with the overall conclusion. So their
train of thought was if subscription based services are just another
option that's a good thing as it provides another value proposition for
people to choose if they wish. Where they saw the problem was if it
became the dominate one leading to big devs. becoming even less risked
adverse just to get content out there and also gatekeepers of what games
are available. Then you have the problem that as more people enter the
market it becomes more fractured so you need more subscriptions.

I should add a caveat that they seemed to come very much a console
focused mindset which I feel is different from the PC one. Personally I
really don't see the type of games I enjoying playing suddenly
disappearing from the market.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)