And what you're gonna do when you want to replay something that isn't anymore on Game Pass? GP is another thing that I hope to fail.
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Stadia, Subscriptions, And The Death Of Game Ownership (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter Saucycarpdog
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Just like if you throw away(delete) a physical game you can never play it again. A game being taken down from a digital store is the same as being taken out of a physical store.
Are other gaming systems and PC's not hundreds of dollars?
No meme, you are kinda only seeing this push to throw away ownership by 2 groups and they really arent really nintendo and sony fans.
Convenience wins, every fing time.
Even if I had the internet to stream a game, I would avoid it as long as possible.
What happens if you can't afford your monthly subs, which will get more and more expensive in the future, then you'll loose access to all your games.
If I can't afford new games for whatever reason I'll just go to my gaming shelf and pick one out and play it.
Even if I had the internet to stream a game, I would avoid it as long as possible.
What happens if you can't afford your monthly subs, which will get more and more expensive in the future, then you'll loose access to all your games.
If I can't afford new games for whatever reason I'll just go to my gaming shelf and pick one out and play it.
Actually not true, as I mentioned in an earlier post. You can usually re-download a game on PS or Xbox if you dig through your download history, I did that with TMNT: Out of the Shadows. But Konami in a special kind of dick-move released a patch that made it so you could NEVER re-download the game, like there was no reason to that other then to spite Hideo Kojima.
If a game is taken out of a physical store, you can still find copies on Ebay(like with the original version of Judgement in Japan that got pulled after one of the VAs got caught doing drugs) but with digital copies you can't do that.
You are very naive if you think this is a "win-win" especially knowing how shitty the game industry. They only care if something is a "win" for them, not the consumers.
People aren't "assuming" anything, we KNOW for a fact these companies are going to nickle and dime us to death because that's what they've BEEN doing already for over a decade now, so why would they suddenly get a change of heart? Corporations are not your friends, i'm amazed at how many people are still ignorant and naive enough to believe that guff.
I have no problem with digital in theory, problem is digital-only means you can't trade or sell a game when you are done with it and you can't usually get a refund if the game sucks.
I think you vastly overestimate how many people actually are interested in streaming games, most don't have the internet to support it and there's still net neutrality to worry about.
Game of Thrones was the most pirated piece of media ever, not sure where the hell you got the laughable notion that piracy has "fallen off a cliff"
If anyone is making assumptions here it's you, assumptions that Google won't totally fuck us over and given how shitty they are with Youtube(I.E. not banning that bigoted piece of shit Steven Crowder) I have ZERO reason to trust them to not fuck up big time with Stadia.
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Yeah, and owning one console or PC significantly lowers the value of getting another console. Making those hundreds even more of a luxurious throwaway. I can't justify spending hundreds of bucks for the 3 PS4 exclusives I'm interested in. 1 of those 3 is on PSNow, so knock it down to 2.
I'm okay with this. This is no different than what I have been doing for the last few years on Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo anyway. I've been buying digital. It's more or less the same risk that I have with those companies like subscription services. I haven't owned a physical copy of games in years because of convenience. I know other's still need their physical copies - but hey just buy and Xbox or PlayStation since those companies have already made it clear that they will keep supporting it. Also - I really like the possibility/idea that Devs won't need to rely on big publishers at some point to put the game out which in turn could handcuff their will and desire.
I'm not really that bothered. If I was, I'd just buy my games like you do, but I would want it to fail though as that's a bit weird. I've been buying games for about 25 years now and spent £1000's on 1000's of games over pretty much all the platform to 'own' them. Yet 99% of the game I've ever bought I've played though ONCE!
That sounds like a you problem. If the value propitiation isnt there for you then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I personally dont want to see games devalued and turned into mediocre MT's, GAAS, loot box fests (more than they already are) because a certain subset of gamers dont want to pay for something that was value.
But even the games that we "own" now aren't actually ours. We just have a license to play them. We pay for that license. The way things are progressing, it's about convenience. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV etc movies have moved into this stage. There was backlash for that. We got over it. Games are moving into this stage, there's backlash now but we'll get over that too eventually. Streaming will become the norm once ISPs realize this is the norm for all media across the board and we'll have the infrastructure for better speeds and no data caps too, eventually.
A lot of people aren't comfortable with streaming games and not "owning" them and that's fine but we'll get over that too once it becomes the norm on top of being able to purchase games physically.
Personally, I don't have a problem with Stadia, Xcloud and whatever other streaming services come. Streaming is an alternative, it's not the standard and more people need to understand that.
A lot of people aren't comfortable with streaming games and not "owning" them and that's fine but we'll get over that too once it becomes the norm on top of being able to purchase games physically.
Personally, I don't have a problem with Stadia, Xcloud and whatever other streaming services come. Streaming is an alternative, it's not the standard and more people need to understand that.
We don't own the games but they leave behind artifacts, whether digital or physical, that are inevitably (and often illegally) copied and/or distributed, making their preservation for future generations infinitely more likely. In the case of physical media, illegal copies aren't even needed. A crapload of copies were already made by the publisher and they exist physically outside of the publisher's control. But even digitally, a similar principle applies. See Jim's own example, Scott Pilgrim. Legally pretty much completely lost outside of the systems that already have it installed. But outside of that legal distribution, the game is unlikely to ever completely disappear. Were the legal situation to change in the future, bringing it back from the dead for actual legal distribution will be possible.
None of this will be a thing in the streaming future.
100 Percent agree. Also physical games sales pale in comparison to digital sales. We are more than ever consuming so much media whether its music, tv, movies, gaming, books that physical ownership has taken a backseat to things versus convenience. But a better question is whether physical ownership is better than digital ownership/licensing. One could argue that the mere fact that you could stream anything anywhere at anytime is a better "feeling" of ownership than the drawbacks of physical ownership.
Dude you are literally making stuff up. EA, Sony and Xbox are all lying about their numbers? This isn't the Stadia streaming...it doesn't take much more bandwidth than Netflix movies. And no one said that Game of Thrones was not pirated...the finale was still one of the watched HBO programs of all time mainly due to HBO subscriptions. Overall piracy has fallen, and has actually proven that piracy doesn't affect entertainment income.
You are trying to bully people into your opinion with nothing but blind hatred to support it. Every major media company is lying about the growth in revenue that they receive from streaming? I'm sorry but this is just an entertainment product that people will consume and "throw away"...people aren't making a $15 purchase with the same seriousness as they choose health insurance.
People have a different value for what $15 means to them.
You can choose to not use any of these services, but don't make up that they aren't growing, aren't already successful and that people don't want them. You are using alot of "corporations are evil" speak to say that literally anything they do will always be the worst thing for everyone, just because you think so.
And again, you have zero evidence that companies are saying "hey let's make a subscription service and not make that game available as a one-off purchase".
Maybe we can actually get these services first. Getting a Nintendo Game Pass is my personal dream.
It's incredible how people just buy the line that corporate feeds them, isn't it?
He's right. Starting with the film industry maybe a decade ago, the entertainment industry has been working hard to find more and more ways to reduce your ownership rights as a consumer. If the film industry had it their way, every movie experience would operate like Pay-Per-View and you would never own a physical copy. Technically you don't own them, after all. They do. If the gaming industry can get to a similar place, they will embrace that concept too.
GaaS, Subs within subs, Streaming, Cloud gaming, .... If it wasn't for VR i wouldn't even still be gaming so you can keep all that other bollox.
We even somehow survived the online pass shite from last gen and Xbox One's failed DRM this gen.
I do still have that PT demo though.
We even somehow survived the online pass shite from last gen and Xbox One's failed DRM this gen.
I do still have that PT demo though.
Physical music is literally vanishing from stores as we speak. Then we have film and TV, where plenty of content is absent from modern physical media. It's literally been happening for over a decade.
I have almost no concerns about all these new services. Don't feel the need to own games anyway, which we actually never did to begin with. Games preservation might be a problem in the future which companies should find a solution to but apart from that I am good to go.
It's weird when people tell me that I somehow don't own my gaming collection although I can pretty much do whatever the fuck I want with it. I can take my PS4/Switch/3DS offline tomorrow and can play the games i own until they literally rot away. I can sell them, i can lend them to a friend, i can trade them i can set them on fire if I want to. Try that with Stadia.
The industry is expanding. It's not fueled by hatred for a particular company.
Google is upfront that you are paying for total streaming. Microsoft asked you to pay $400 to own hardware that did less than what Stadia is offering. Both target completely different markets (just like people who buy physical are a different market from people who buy only digital).
You play something else. It's consumable entertainment that is $15 a month. It's WAY cheaper than the $60 for the same game and at a price point that makes it a throwaway purchase. It's just not that serious at that price.
It's not vanishing, it just doesn't the same importance as it once had. The value, and the size of digital files, is competing against the price of physical media, which hasn't improved and requires space and large equipment to use.
Hey, before the vinyl record...people were dependent solely on local bands and corner musicians for music. And that was better than alot of ways than physical vinyl! But vinyl (and then cassette, and then CD) made it cheaper and easier for people to enjoy stuff.
The delivery vehicle of entertainment is not the sole factor in how that entertainment is valued. I used to buy CDs for everything and burn them to FLAC, now I don't because I have so many CDs that my CD carrying case weighs more than me.
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I just don't get this at all.
A $60 one-time purchase is not the same as a recurring $15 subscription fee.
For those of us who want to sink in 100s of hours into individual games rather than fleetingly throw them away after an afternoon to move onto the next shiny object right away, or who want to be able to revisit them in a decade, this logic is pure insanity.
And this is in reference to xyz games that you'd like to come back to after playing it and it'd be out for a while (years)? Considering games get delisted even nowadays due to licenses running out and not getting renewed. Your talking about common practice with how we consume that media now (digital download or physical copy) with streaming, as you pointed out, that may or may not be the case because it depends on licensing just as it does now BUT you also have to understand that with convenience also comes with a cost. For instance, if you want to go all digital, that's a convenience at the cost of you having to have the physical space to store all of your games and no longer being able to trade/resell.
With physical you have the options of being able to trade/resell at the cost of convenience (accessing all of your games without having to disc swap etc) with streaming? You give up reselling just as you did with digital but you also don't need to provide all of the physical space you required for an all digital download initiative. The cost of streaming is just that, not being able to do what you already can't do with your digital downloads. As I stated before, streaming is an alternative, it's not the standard. People will still be playing their games on a physical box with a digital downloaded game or physical copy. Streaming will just provide you with an alternative and it's convenient. Also, an important thing to note, as more publishers aim for cross-save, the less concerns there will be about xyz game being delisted from a streaming platform.
For us knowledgeable folks that game, of course we all won't go 100% in on a streaming platform, we'll give it time to prove itself as we did Microsoft with the Xbox and every other console before it. We game on PC and or console right? and WE know the pros and cons of a streaming, all digital, physical copy decisions. For the casuals or mom and pop that pick up and decide to go for a streaming platform as their choice, they won't be worried like us folks here comparing/complaining about different platforms. As long as they're able to play games on it that's all that matters. Casuals don't worry about being able to access a delisted game years after release, they look forward to the next Call of Duty, Madden Final Fantasy etc
What we're doing here is bringing up argumentive points that we know won't affect our decisions nor how we play our games because at the end of the day, streaming is just an alternative.
For a used physical game to exist someone had to take steps to preserve it.
Same as with a digital game. If you want to have it in the future you have to make steps to preserve it.
It's not, though. For decades your game purchases always granted you a license to use the software, as-is, in the manner they choose, and on the mediums and devices covered in the license agreement. You purchase a game, that's one license agreement. You purchase a month of gamepass, that's a different license agreement. You sign up for stadia, different license agreement. No real ownership of software has ever occurred, despite someone physically owning an playable object.
So sure, you can do all the things with the durable media that you mentioned - privately collect, trade, sell, etc. But playing the game itself means you have agreed to the terms of the legal license agreement. People using streaming services aren't seeking the additional enjoyment of owning, collecting, trading, or using physical media.
It will most likely not happen for games anytime soon. For these services to survive they need to be at a certain price point which is not able to sustain the production of mutiple games. I guess if every company had their own service with 10 million subscribers it might happen but that seems unlikely looking at the movie and TV landscape.
Some bullshit license agreement is not above the law though. And by law I own these games.
I don't expect it to happen overnight, but looking at the movie and TV landscape, we see the gradual expansion towards dozens of different subscription services. It's actually gradually becoming a major issue, where the entire point of these services initially was to reduce overall costs, now it costs an arm and seven legs to keep up with them and get all of your content.
I don't get why people don't see the full picture of services like Game Pass. Publishers are already doing as much as they can to make more profit from a $60 game, how they're gonna make games for $15 sustainable? Have you ever thought about how this impact indie games? Why people are going to buy a new indie game if the game will eventually be on services like GP? Not even talking about games that are going to have monthly updates to keep the player base (like AC Odyssey is doing), more crunch among devs to release these updates, less creative freedom because the idea doesn't fit Game Pass, more soft-launches like Anthem and Fallout 76. Honestly, everything is all good when you can play a lot of games for $1, but I want to see when this becomes the norm. All publishers will make everything they can to bring you to their service. When you see, you're paying more than $60 and playing one game a month.
User banned (permanent): Trolling, system warring, history of similar behavior.
well there's way more then 4 PS exclusives i'm interested in so I have zero regrets for buying my PS4.
I think we know the real truth behind that-those people weren't REALLY concerned, they were just Sony fanboys looking for any excuse to hate on MS. If Sony had done a similar service(which they were in fact planning on doing before they saw the backlash to MS's announcement)you bet your ass fanboys would've been licking Sony's feet as opposed to criticizing them.
Not anti-Sony BTW before anyone accuses me of that, Days Gone is easily in my top 10 games of this year, but I do get oh so tired of Sony ponies that just look for excuses to hate on MS no matter what.
Wrong we did in fact used to own games, not sure how you can argue otherwise.
I never got into VR myself, too high-priced for me to justify it and none of the games look very interesting. Say what you will about the Kinect, but games like Heavy Armor and Rise of Nightmares are full fledged games and feel like it, crap like The Inpatient looks barely any better then the dime-a-dozen horror games released on Steam every single day.
Plus with VR if you are playing on PC you also do need a top-of-the-line gaming rig to run it properly, and only the 1% can really afford it, so VR is never going to become a mainstream success, at least not in terms of gaming.
Publishers WANT streaming to be the standard though and they'll do everything they can to force people into using them(wouldn't be surprised if they started putting content behind the paywall of their streaming service, we already saw games like Kingdoms of Amalur put single-player content behind online-passes, so it's not at all stretch to assume we'll see something like that again). It's not "convenience" at all if you can't play a game because of bad internet, it's the opposite actually.
Yes a game I own a physical copy of is 100% mine, it's not just me saying that, it's countries like the UK with laws like the "Sale of Physical Goods Act" which says you own thing you pay for.
You sure sound like you work for Google.
I doubt people will "get over" it when they literally can't use the service because of poor internet(which isn't going to change anytime soon in the U.S. thanks to companies having virtual monopolies across certain areas in the U.S.)
You actually think ISPs give a shit about you? LOL they really don't.
Nah you're the one making crap up here, you have zero evidence that companies actually give a shit about pleasing consumers. You sure sound an awful lot like a PR rep for these companies the way you are shilling them.
Uh companies lie all the time, are you seriously not grasping that? Ubisoft lies all the time, about their games not being political about their DRM for PC games actually working and stopping piracy, etc.
You really do just blindly believe everything corporations tell you don't you? I'm guessing you also believe Amazon treats their workers well right?
You're the one trying to "bully" people here into swallowing this nonsense about how streaming services are a better deal, no they aren't, that's not an opinion that's a fact. You want to bully anyone who does not blindly agree with every single thing you say.
You're the one with "blind hatred" here towards anyone that does not blindly asskiss corporations. Like Jim i'm highly skeptical for this for very good reasons, the games industry is so shitty it's a safe bet to assume this will be shit.
This seems like a dubious statement to me that requires a lot of proof. You don't think that there's anybody writing music, writing literature, creating art, etc., doing so for creativity's sake or cultural exploration -- or that there's less of that today than ~120 years ago?
Personally, I think the exact opposite is true, that there is far more artistic expression for the sake of expression today than there was in centuries past. But, in either case, I don't think that videogame streaming is really relevant to that rise or fall of creative expression.
But you are doing it again.
You aren't a god. What I spend my money on doesn't make me evil if you disagree. Like I said, subscription services are for:
1. One time, high consumption activities (i.e, I just bought a month of GamePass to play about beat Gears 4 in a few days rather than paying $60) OR
2. Longer term, wide consumption activities (i.e, I just bought 3 months of EA Access to play FIFA, Madden, The Sims and to play all the Battlefield content.
Those are literally the only reasons anyone consumes subscription content of any kind. Literally no one is saying "man I could by Madden at $60 but let me pay $15 twelve times in a row". And both of those are much cheaper than the alternative.
You obviously don't understand this because you don't know anyone that uses these services! Or are interested in them, besides people you hear from here. You are literally ignoring what consumers of these services in this thread are saying because you think of us as some source of evil.
I know so many people that have Hulu AND Netflix AND Crunchyroll AND Pandora AND GamePass....because what they consume monthly would be many times more in real physical media. If people want to spend $15 for one month of a service, just to play 100 of a game that they won't have access to...so what? That's what they value that entertainment product at.
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And those will always be there for you. As long as there is a market for physical games, developers and publishers will keep selling them to you. But you have to realize you're in a place of privilege to be able to afford all those high upfront costs. There's a reason why nearly every AAA single player game is a white male power fantasy, while other mainstream art forms see better diversity, and it's because AAA console games right now are only available to those with privileged wallets.
And just because some of those audiences (women and minorities) may finally have gaming be an accessible medium to them will not remove anything from you.
EDIT: Physical music did not kill concerts. Radio did not kill physical music or concerts. TV did not kill film. VHS/DVDs/BluRays didn't kill the movie theatre. Movie rental stores did not kill movies. iTunes didn't kill CDs (they are still being made for those that want it). Vinyl records are still being made for rich white hipsters. Netflix and Spotify haven't killed anything. And Stadia won't kill your AAA single player games.
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I sound like I work for Google? Lol nah man, I'm just speaking logic that's all.
I stated my points and that's it. No need to go back and forth.
You were only allowed to play and use the software on their terms. So you didn't really own the game but the license to play the game.
The whole point of my post that you quoted is that I tend to put a lot of time into a single game and stick with it for a very long time, which makes it cheaper and more practical to buy up front. Being forced to pay a subscription cost for a game that stays in my rotation for literally years makes no sense in that case.
The tangent about AAA singleplayer games and white male power fantasies is... weird. And not even true when the used market keeps prices in check for low-retention single player games anyway.
If we look at the majority of TV releases released on streaming services most are probably on only like 3-4 services. I don't see the gaming industry getting more than that either. Xbox gamepass, PS now, Stadia, EA's stuff and maybe one or two other services that might try to penetrate the market. The rest will settle for individual game sales or shopping their games to one of the above. At least that's my prediction.
And like I said your preference will always be there as long as there's a market for it. My point is that just because new audiences may finally afford games doesn't take anything away from you. Also one $60 game vs a whole library for $15/month is pretty steep. If you buy more than a measly 3 games per year subs have you beat.
EDIT: My other point is that it's a very privileged position to be in, not the other way around. The ability to afford and keep around physical media "forever" is something that people who are disenfranchised can only imagine.
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Reads like a 2016 argument about VR, VR is groundbreaking tech, Cloud gaming is nothing new and you own nothing, I know which one i support out of the two. I like how you cherry picked Inpatient but didn't mention RE7 or The Persistence. And the Oculus Quest is selling really well, That's the future of VR, Not tethered to a PC. Like i said, A 2016 argument.
We're starting with a base number of four (five if Nintendo joins in), and I think it's crazy to think the likes of Ubisoft, Square-Enix, and Capcom won't try to get in on the action.
"threatens" ? People have been using Netflix, Spotify etc for years now, they know they don't own it. Time has moved on, move with it.
Why are you assuming than $15/month services are some financial risk. It's the opposite. Phil Spencer has repeated this over and over...GamePass helps to buffer revenue for these games, not replace it.
$15/month IS sustainable, because it is an add-on...similar to movie theater revenue vs DVD/Bluray sales. The renting of movies doesn't "hurt" movie sales. I don't think you understand the economics of subscriptions.
Dude this is one of the weirdest posts of all time. What does any of that have to do with buying subscription services? When did I say or imply that these companies are above criticism, and when did I speak to anything regarding how they treat workers, or their consumers outside of this?
These companies were just as evil before this, before GaaS, before DRM or any of this stuff. And, I'm not currently subbed to any of these services. But these companies were never any more or less "trustworthy" than they are now.
Are you seriously saying you don't buy any gaming product from any corporation? Like what am I shilling? Are you really against every entertainment product ever made by any corporation? If not, then all of this is nonsense, as I haven't shilled or protect for any sole corporation in here...and guess what...you buying a game for $60, doesn't make you better than someone that plays their fill of the same game for $15! You calling people every socio-political name in the book isn't going to change anyone's opinion.
All of this because I asked you to find a service that is removing games for full purchase, in favor of sub-exclusive access...and you can't do it, because no one is doing it, because no consumers want that. When that changes, then that opinion of that service will change. And honestly, you don't seem like you would be interested in any games these companies make anyway, so why do you care what people do with their money?
IMO game ownership has always been a mirage. There's never been a time when criminality (copyright infringement, dmca violation, reverse engineering) wasn't crucial to game preservation. This trend has been accelerated with the popularity of free to play and always online games. For many of the most popular games, owning a disc by no means guarantees the longevity of your purchase. Some day, there will be millions of Destiny discs in the trash because there's literally nothing to play without access to the servers.
Anyone looking at the current climate and thinking these publishers arent going to bend ya over, is crazy.
Not entirely true, though Microsoft obviously had mixed messaging they were planning on allowing you to share games. You also did not have to be connected to the internet all the time, just once every 24 hours.
Both the original Xbox One plans andvwhat google is doing with Stadia sucks though.
I strongly disagree with the idea that the proliferation of subscription costs lessens the overall financial burden on the consumer.
IMO, it's another line item to add onto the pile of DLC, paid online, season passes, and GaaS. Death by a thousand cuts, and engineered in such a way to reduce the effectiveness of the used market to counterbalance any of it.
When I was broke I made it a point to stay one generation behind and just scoop up everyone else's used stuff for cheap. All this talk about "the disenfranchised" is so weird.