Ongoing General Gaming Discussion

[east1226]

I checked out one of those rental machines recently. The selection stunk. A shame, but it happens.

 

[DeadLazy]

I must have always been in a really good internet zone because I was thinking this all happened 12 years ago. Redbox?

No shit. But I guess I went digital a lot earlier than most people. By 2012 I was already buying console games digital. I’ve purchased less than 10 physical since and mostly Switch. And it’s annoying having carts. And it was for the nostalgia of buying physical games that got me to do it. It’s never practical. Except for DD 2 which I got for 30$ off. And it’s annoying having it on disc but it’s my only series X disc. I do use the disc drive for classic Xbox games I still owned.

 

[IgglooV2]

I think I last rented the Doom disc for like PS4 in like 2016. Literally my last Redbox rental.

There is also a report that Sony is pulling back on blu ray. It’s over.

 

[east1226]

I am PC/Nintendo. PC has been discless for ages. I am mostly carts for Nintendo. I like to own discs for my movies. I have two Blu Ray players. However, even that is coming to an end, and I know it.

 

[IgglooV2]

I can definitely see a difference in image quality running a blu-ray versus streaming supposed 4k content. But it's not enough for me to stick to discs. And it's not enough for 99% of people.

I think we saw a subtle shift in recent decades toward convenience instead of audio and visual quality. People would rather access a vast library immediately, even if it is lower quality, and that's won the day over formats that promise greater audiovisual fidelity but more limited accessibility.

Neil Young and other artists bemoaned it because it meant lesser sound quality than they had grown to love, but most people can hardly hear a difference.

 

[east1226]

To me, it is about being a slave to a subscription which may cycle out content I reuse. I rarely replay games. Movies... They get rewatched. Same for music. That is why I own all of my music.

 

[IgglooV2]

It does suck when a game you wanted to play suddenly disappears from digital libraries. I have had that happen with some of the phone games I bought like X-com: they seemingly got deplatformed for newer iphone editions, and if I want to play X-com now, it seems to want me to re-purchase it.

But honestly, it doesn't happen to me very often. I do replay some games, but most of the games I want to replay like Bethesda or Souls titles, I own.

 

[docSpock]

Neil Young and other artists bemoaned it because it meant lesser sound quality than they had grown to love, but most people can hardly hear a difference.

Or if they hear a difference, they prefer lower quality.

To me, it is about being a slave to a subscription which may cycle out content I reuse. I rarely replay games. Movies... They get rewatched. Same for music. That is why I own all of my music.

At least 25% if not more of my music collection is not available on any streaming service. Physical is definitely the way to go for music.

 

[Bonemeal2pointOh]

I bought Link's Awakening for Switch. I like overall, but I do admit the framerate drops do take away from the otherwise shiny graphics. I'm planning on buying one more full-priced game. I'm going between Luigi's Mansion 2 - which I really enjoyed on the 3DS (as Dark Moon), and Metroid Dread. I know Metroid Dread has a high difficulty level, but it would be a nice deviation from what I’ve been playing. I think I might go with Metroid Dread...

 

[BOP_G_A_Pster]

@Bonemeal2pointOh I saw in a review you can't invert the Y axis in Luigi's Mansion 2.
If I remember right you're an inverted Y player, I don't know if they patched it.

 

[Bonemeal2pointOh]

@Bonemeal2pointOh I saw in a review you can't invert the Y axis in Luigi's Mansion 2.
If I remember right you're an inverted Y player, I don't know if they patched it.

Yeah, that's been a problem for me with Luigi's Mansion 3. Well, I've been leaning towards Metroid Dread, so I'm going to go with that one, then.

 

[Bonemeal2pointOh]

I bought Metroid Dread. Those instant deaths are definitely frustrating AF, but it fills the void from the 3DS game that came out in 2017. I liked that game. (Can't remember the exact title.)

Thinking about buying Grandia Collection. I had thought about buying the GTA Trilogy for Switch for handheld gameplay, but I'm turned away by the bugs. I know they patched some of them, but I don't know if they were good enough. Plus, I would like something I don't already have. I can't quite get my thought out, as I think I need a nap.

 

[DevilDancer]

I bought Metroid Dread. Those instant deaths are definitely frustrating AF, but it fills the void from the 3DS game that came out in 2017. I liked that game. (Can't remember the exact title.)

Thinking about buying Grandia Collection. I had thought about buying the GTA Trilogy for Switch for handheld gameplay, but I'm turned away by the bugs. I know they patched some of them, but I don't know if they were good enough. Plus, I would like something I don't already have. I can't quite get my thought out, as I think I need a nap.

I really hated those EMMI sequences.

 

[DevilDancer]

Colossal Order is doing a great job iterating on Cities Skylines 2. They dropped a 57gb patch yesterday that added a ton of new content.

It's on GP so I still haven't spent any money on it, but I'll buy it on Steam eventually. Probably some inevitable dlc too.

 

[DevilDancer]

Damn, Octo 2 going hard on me and @east1226

 

[east1226]

Damn, Octo 2 going hard on me and @east1226

View attachment 1202794

Sadly, that is a common position.

 

[amtran]

The OG Playstation Resident Evil trilogy is making its way to GOG, with the original RE already up. That was a nice little surprise to see on the GOG launcher

 

[DeadLazy]

I hope none of you are secretly Paul Tassi of Forbes game coverage. His opinions on games always suck.

 

[DevilDancer]

Speaking of game coverage, I'm not on Twitter much anymore but I started following Gene Park recently and now half my feed is Gene Park posts. When does he actually work?

 

[IgglooV2]

I follow Gene Park on Twitter and he's an amusing follow, and a pretty good games critic, but yes he doesn't seem to do much work. The WaPo is a huge mess right now as you have probably heard.

 

[IgglooV2]

OK, I am also not this guy from Forbes if you wondered....

Why You Should Spend $2 To Go Trucking On A Steam Deck

Driving a huge rig down the highways in Euro Truck Simulator 2 or American Truck Simulator is a chilled-out delight. And it will only cost you $2 too.

www.forbes.com

 

[-Troopa-]

Xbox game pass price going up again. Also removing day-one releases from lower-priced tiers.

Xbox Game Pass Standard Tier Won't Include Day One Titles as Microsoft Hikes Prices Again - IGN

Microsoft has quietly revealed it will not include day one releases like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in the standard Xbox Game Pass tier amid price hikes to the service.

www.ign.com

 

[IgglooV2]

Yes, they are raising prices and also capping how much game pass months you can build up. So time to buy as much GP ultimate as you can before this kicks in.

Many people are interpreting this as a sign that GP is not succeeding financially. That is premature IMO, but I think Microsoft is still trying to balance how to make this financially viable.

Given the Microsoft partnership with Amazon that is bringing Xbox cloud gaming to all Fire Sticks, I think it's clear that Microsoft is envisioning a future that is based on the cloud and not about selling gaming hardware. GP is part of that plan.

In other words, you may not need to buy a console or gaming PC pretty soon, but you may need a subscription service to play games without them.

Edit: I am looking at a lot of the online codes on CDkeys and they are already selling out. The current price for a month of ultimate is still around $10, roughly half of the expected new price though, so worth finding.

 

[IgglooV2]

Stupidly, and unintentionally, I recently re-upped for a year of PS5's version of GP, so I am paying for that even though my kid is the only one really using the PS5 now.

So, for at least another year, I will be a customer of both Xbox and Sony's subscription services. In my opinion GP has been far better thus far.

 

[-Troopa-]

Since getting my new laptop I barely use the Xbox so I don't plan to renew my game pass subscription, but I might re-up it occasionally when it's worth it for something.

I'm using it this week though. My wife and I want to start playing Diablo IV local co-op (finally) and I want to start on Hellblade II.

 

[east1226]

I added six months earlier this year. I knew this was coming. I need to double check where I am through to. I may add another six months. We shall see.

 

[IgglooV2]

I have it though the end of this year I think. I need to double check what the current limit is on how much you can add.

 

[DeadLazy]

I’ll be canceled and using core to game online. But they are trying to make me buy a PC asap. I wonder why.

 

[DevilDancer]

I just extended to April of next year. $32 for 3 months on CDKeys.

If it was just me I'd let it expire and then buy the PC only version, but my wife and kid use it a lot.

 

[Andyster]

I had this amazing experience with Game Pass when I first got on the service. It was the height of the pandemic and I was playing more video games than I have in many years. Like I had a run of games on the platform that was truly divine, Witcher 3, RDR2, Mass Effect 1-3 Ori in a summer.

Since then it's been kind of thoroughly milquetoast. Those games cycled out. I replay games a lot and despite actually loving the idea of a streaming service of games I envision that like Apple Music where I overpay and just don't have to worry about if I'm going to buy Chappell Roan's record and just go and get It because everything I want is on there and finding something not on there is looking for pretty niche specific things.

 

[rastaban75]

Never tried GP, I kept postponing it. With such price increases, it's unlikely I ever will.

The way I purchase games I don't believe it would ever become cheaper to me to have a GP subscription. I know there isn't really any real ownership in this digital era, but it's nice having a library of games.

 

[Andyster]

Never tried GP, I kept postponing it. With such price increases, it's unlikely I ever will.

The way I purchase games I don't believe it would ever become cheaper to me to have a GP subscription. I know there isn't really any real ownership in this digital era, but it's nice having a library of games.

I feel like there must be some kind of fundamental difference between music and other media where for the suits it works really well to pay them like ~121 dollars a year or a bit less per capita for a household and they just serve you all the music. Like surely like Taylor Swift is taking a modest haircut compared to buying her albums but gets some boost in discoverability but this doesn't seem to work for movies and games. I know some artists fundamentally don't like the deal too but it's really unusual to see someone opting out of streaming.

 

[-Troopa-]

I feel like there must be some kind of fundamental difference between music and other media where for the suits it works really well to pay them like ~121 dollars a year or a bit less per capita for a household and they just serve you all the music. Like surely like Taylor Swift is taking a modest haircut compared to buying her albums but gets some boost in discoverability but this doesn't seem to work for movies and games. I know some artists fundamentally don't like the deal too but it's really unusual to see someone opting out of streaming.

Oh yeah, I think there are some fundamental differences, for sure.

Lower production costs. Music is generally cheaper to produce than films or games.

Music has been very easy to steal/download for decades. Going back to the Napster days, or even just recording songs off the radio. I assume this fact made the music industry more open to the idea of streaming, though I know it wasn't easy and Steve Jobs had to do some work to convince the industry to support iTunes.

Musicians also have multiple revenue streams. They earn from tours, merch, and brand deals alongside streaming.

 

[east1226]

If you replay games, GP isn't for you.

 

[Andyster]

If you replay games, GP isn't for you.

I fear you're right on this point. I feel like go to the store and buy something isn't a great model for the attention economy we have where like there's always a zillion things screaming for my attention and there's not really a great infrastructure anymore to like put the exclamation point down when something's worth dropping everything else for.

 

[IgglooV2]

Games do cycle in and out of the GP library. But most of the ones I’d want to replay typically stick around, like Skyrim, Fallout, the Mass Effect games, etc. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is part of the EA library and is permanent now it seems.

Similarly Sony PlayStation Plus Extra has games that come and go but a core library that seems pretty static and of course includes its big exclusives, God of War and Horizons and Ghost of Tsushima etc.

 

[IgglooV2]

Musicians have been reduced to serfdom by the streaming economy in most cases.

 

[Andyster]

Musicians have been reduced to serfdom by the streaming economy in most cases.

I feel like this really borders on misinformation. It wasn't streaming that made recorded music worthless it was digitization and the advent of the internet meaning the effective supply of music was infinite. When the supply goes to infinite the equilibrium price is going to crater whether we distribute it via streaming, iTunes whatever especially with piracy lurking in the background where the demand for legitimate recordings can collapse to zero as well.

The total basket of money being spent on music, mostly through streaming is more than it has ever been. So to the extent that musicians aren't getting what they think is fair, it's largely a product of their deals with the record labels being poor combined with the fact that all but a terribly few artists aren't really popular not streaming being available. Not only that if you put live music revenues on a graph It keeps going up, merch sales keep going up.

To the extent that individual musicians are struggling it's mostly a fact of supply and demand not some sort of deus ex machina of a bad time introduced in the 10s by Spotify and Apple Music supplanting iTunes Music Store.

It's worth noting that every form of entertainment has this same problem because we just have literally infinite entertainment at our fingers 24/7 and actually finding the diamond in the rough that is exactly what you're looking for is really hard.

 

[IgglooV2]

The internet and digitization introduced mass piracy of all digital media. That's what made the music supply infinite, that people were sharing music without honoring the intellectual property rights of the artists and companies.

The only difference with music was that the files were smaller and thus much easier to pirate. That's why music was first in this devaluation of all digital media.

The seeming hopelessness of this situation is why a lot of artists and record companies decided that accepting pennies on the dollar for their music was better than nothing at all. But make no mistake, it is a bad deal for the industry, which is in serious decline.

A lot of indie developers are similarly worried that GP represents a devil's bargain for them by offering a clear revenue stream for their products, but one that seemingly caps their upside and reduces them to digital serfdom. I think the developer of Baldur's Gate 3, Larian, has spoken about this and explained that it is why they will never be on GP or other streaming services for game launches.

 

[DevilDancer]

My theory is that the death of the monoculture contributed strongly to the perceived decline of music. We don't see universal hits the way we used to and stars aren't as omnipresent as they used to be, with a few exceptions.

Is music actually declining as a medium though? Doesn't seem like it. Barriers to entry are lower than ever, even if the profit ceiling is lower, and we've got plenty of new musical acts.

It's just a lot more disbursed than it used to be. Subgenres of subgenres are popping up and supporting their own smaller cultural renaissances.

Maybe DL will tell me I'm way off base.

 

[IgglooV2]

I think those are good points, the digitization of media made recording and releasing music pretty much something anyone could do. But my understanding is that actually making a living doing that is extremely hard now, and that touring and live performance, along with tik tok videos etc, to promote yourself online, is critical for any musician trying to make it. Streaming revenue is peanuts for most musicians.

Your point about the monoculture also applies directly to gaming, in the sense that a similar thing has happened with digitization of games. There are now more games available than ever but fewer experiences every gamer shares compared with the 1990s and 2000s.

 

[Andyster]

The internet and digitization introduced mass piracy of all digital media. That's what made the music supply infinite, that people were sharing music without honoring the intellectual property rights of the artists and companies.

The only difference with music was that the files were smaller and thus much easier to pirate. That's why music was first in this devaluation of all digital media.

The seeming hopelessness of this situation is why a lot of artists and record companies decided that accepting pennies on the dollar for their music was better than nothing at all. But make no mistake, it is a bad deal for the industry, which is in serious decline.

For the industry like we're in a 20 year bull market.

For the performer like that's a huge it depends. But the decline in value was inevitable and unlike the print industry they pivoted so that they could bundle it into 120 dollars a year. As someone with a journalism degree who teaches elementary school I kind of wish other legacy media had responded as well.

 

[Andyster]

Your point about the monoculture also applies directly to gaming, in the sense that a similar thing has happened with digitization of games. There are now more games available than ever but fewer experiences every gamer shares compared with the 1990s and 2000s.

I think this is why I think it’s weird that they don’t seem to be moving very fast to make big changes. Like most nights games lose to social media and music in the battle for my attention.

Like they don’t really seem to have any tools that have power on the demand side. They’re behaving like they have a captive audience when the supply of entertainment is infinite

 

[IgglooV2]

For the industry like we're in a 20 year bull market.

For the performer like that's a huge it depends. But the decline in value was inevitable and unlike the print industry they pivoted so that they could bundle it into 120 dollars a year. As someone with a journalism degree who teaches elementary school I kind of wish other legacy media had responded as well.

I think the print media story is still playing out, but sadly, the only legacy media who have really survived in America in any robust way are the big national publications, especially those that pivoted to subscription and paywall models early. Think NYT, WSJ, WaPo, etc.

The regional newspapers like the Dallas Morning News, Philadelphia Inquirer etc, all of which were once quite good, have fallen because the truth is that people will not pay the subscription prices they need to be viable. They are happy with free but often bad local news information online.

Apple News and others have tried versions of the bundling you describe for more news, and Apple News is a pretty decent product. But those efforts have not really caught on with consumers thus far, and publishers have griped that they get pennies on the dollar from Apple, which also gets the real lucrative part of the deal--customers' data.

Hopefully another way to monetize the news happens because the current situation is quite depressing. We have seen some positive stories lately, like the rise of the Baltimore Banner, a nonprofit newsroom in Baltimore that's producing pretty good local news coverage, certainly better than the current Baltimore Sun. But that's still basically a subscription-model business.

 

[IgglooV2]

Ugh, harsh comparison

Game Pass just got Microsoft 365'd

Microsoft has never been great at branding. The latest changes to Xbox Game Pass prove it.

www.pcworld.com

 

[-Troopa-]

Ugh, harsh comparison

Game Pass just got Microsoft 365'd

Microsoft has never been great at branding. The latest changes to Xbox Game Pass prove it.

www.pcworld.com

I almost laughed while reading the article. It’s kinda funny how bad the naming is.

 

[Andyster]

Games do cycle in and out of the GP library. But most of the ones I’d want to replay typically stick around, like Skyrim, Fallout, the Mass Effect games, etc. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is part of the EA library and is permanent now it seems.

Similarly Sony PlayStation Plus Extra has games that come and go but a core library that seems pretty static and of course includes its big exclusives, God of War and Horizons and Ghost of Tsushima etc.

I mean this is true but those games also cost a wooden nickel on sale. Like there was a sale to buy all the dragon age Franchise for 4 dollars.

Oddly as a matter of psychology 20 a month is the price where I pay for it and don’t use it starts to offend. I’ve had game pass and not used it much for months, since my wife got done with starfall and I finally logged in and cancelled. I probably would have kept it if they hadn’t raised the price irregardless of use.

 

[IgglooV2]

Long term, I will probably switch to PC Game Pass. I have not turned on my Xbox in several months, but I use the PC to game pretty much every day.

 

[IgglooV2]

I can imagine Steve Jobs laughing at Microsoft for its complicated pricing plans. To me, they are evidence that everyone is straining to do the streaming model in a way that is not a money loser, just like in video.

Besides Netflix, it sounds like the movie and TV streaming business is a steaming pile of crap for every other major media company. In that case it's because it is extremely fragmented.

 

[DeadLazy]

It works for music because it’s a lot like being an author I guess. I don’t need anybody; I don’t have 20 employees or something; don’t need a production team. At least for me.

Used to be you need production and what was a 100k studio 20 years ago is a laptop now. And yeah, tape and all has slightly better fidelity but all people care about is music they enjoy. And I think a lot of people prefer an independent take or at least appreciate it.

I don’t know about rockstars but it’s sort of neither here nor there when you’re pulling numbers like that. If they’re upset about streaming, it’s about not making all the money, but I don’t know.

For games it sucks. No way I’m paying 20$ for GP I barely use it. I don’t pay for any music either. I don’t actually listen to music a lot. Haven’t used the radio in my car in half a decade. It’s a nice stereo too. If I’m listening I have what I need or I’m finding new stuff and that’s on YT.

But I find stuff like the “there I ruined it” guy and I think it’s hilarious. You guys don’t think it’s funny at all.