19 ms·
Gaming worth more than video and music combined
- PaulHoule 8y agoFor one thing, DRM for games actually works.
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoTemporarily. Denuvo is incredibly effective, but it still gets cracked eventually. But, no piracy for 1-9 months in many cases is definitely an improvement.
- hombre_fatal 8y agoSeems like multiplayer + freemium model is the ultimate "DRM". I wonder if there are any popular private or reverse engineered League of Legends or Fortnite servers. These are also the most profitable games in the world. I have to wonder if a game like World of Warcraft, if it were released in 2019, would even consider a monthly subscription given what it has to compete against these days. I would assume private servers for WoW made sense because people wanted to dodge $15/mo.
- dehugger 8y agoMy experience with private servers for WoW is that they offer a very different gameplay experience than retail World of Warcraft, which is their primary draw. The lack of a subscription fee is a nice side bonus.
- PaulHoule 8y agoPeople do a lot of gaming on consoles. I know I do. There is piracy there but it is certainly not overwhelming. In the case of music and video it seems that DRM is 100% ineffective, and particularly once the content is cracked it can be moved entirely outside the DRM system. In the case of games you still need a runtime environment which is at least somewhat proprietary. Both music and movies have been devalued to a $10 month "all you can eat" scenario which has nowhere near the revenue potential of a $100 a month cable subscription or buying Blu-Ray at $20 a pop.
- EduardoBautista 8y ago4k content still has not been cracked so DRM seems to be working this generation.
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoNot true, you can rip 4K BluRays with the right drive.
- izzydata 8y agoAlmost all of it gets cracked. The key is to make buying it and providing the content so much more convenient compared to stealing it that people just don't bother. DRM only needs to work well enough that people can't copy and paste it to their friends. Most games have online multiplayer modes now that can endlessly check for a valid copy from a central server though.
- vernie 8y agoIsn't console game piracy effectively dead as of the current generation (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, etc.)?
- manfredo 8y agoMultiple root access hacks were created for the PS4, I assume some used it to pirate. Console piracy is general has effectively always been rarer than on PC, presumably due to the higher technical barrier. Dragging a cracked .exe into a directory is a lot harder than installing some sort of Homebrew on your console.
- cheeze 8y agoPS4 and Switch both have kernel level hacks which have allowed folks to boot pirated copies of games. But for the most part, I'd say that yeah priacy is effectively dead. The ease of hacking the consoles and running pirated games isn't there (IMO) and thus the percentage of users who are doing it is very small. Much more an enthusiast community moreso than a community of pirates who want to play games. This could all change, but I don't think that the piracy scene for the newest generation is anywhere close to the last two. Hell, I remember flashing the firmware on my xbox 360 disk drive within the first year. Or soldering a modchip into my OG Xbox. RIP that console, best console ever.
- mhh__ 8y agoFor some developers (iD /Bethesda for example) only need DRM to work for the first few of the games lifespan so if you come up with something agressive enough to keep its secrets for a while then it doesn't matter if it gets cracked.
- mrpotato 8y agoTo a certain extent, ars has an article about "issues" with DRM in video games. >One of the biggest arguments against anti-piracy checks built into video games (commonly known as "digital rights management," or DRM) is that they punish paying customers with stuttering, loading times, and other detractive gameplay issues. While leading DRM vendor Denuvo has long claimed that its tools don't hamper video games, the stats keep piling up to suggest otherwise. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/12/evidence-continues-to-mount-about-how-bad-denuvo-is-for-pc-gaming-performance/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/12/evidence-continues-to...
- zozbot123 8y agoDRM is anti-consumer in a huge amount of ways that have nothing to do with the mere prevention of unauthorized copying. To describe any form of DRM as 'working' is charitable to say the least, and sophisticated "gamers" are highly aware of this.
- Semaphor 8y agoIt does? I thought almost every game is available a few days after launch?
- Wohlf 8y agoI say this as an avid PC gamer myself, but PC gaming is a niche. The vast majority of games are bought and played on mobile and consoles, and those are DRM by nature. Even on PC, more games are going towards always online/multiplayer and lootbox/cosmetic/etc., which are also DRM by nature.
- Jach 8y agoMeasured by revenue, PC gaming is about a quarter of the market, same as all consoles. Mobile makes up the other half. None of these are niches.
- Nasrudith 8y agoOnly in that it doesn't fundamentally have an analog hole which makes attempting it certifiably insane. Since there is no other word for requesting that something be readable by the consumer and not readable by the consumer at the same time.
- gammateam 8y ago> He added: "Growth has been fuelled by the dominance of free content and in-game monetisation, which expands the adoption of games but also removes the cap on spending for those gamers that are really engaged in the experiences.” I always wonder if these experiences can be priced accordingly Flagship games have been priced at $60 for 25 years and should be priced higher to reflect a variety of other things, but their primary purchasers dont have the money for more. People really into games dont have money, and children’s parents dont respect the medium to want to pay more. (Fortunately there is the aging demographic of everyone else, who do have money and dont mind preordering) But with the price of a game being mentally fixed in the collective conscious I wodber what the average price per user is now with the in game transactions factored in
- jjoonathan 8y agoConsoles exclusives are the new way to charge >$60 for a AAA single-player game (some of the game's price is hidden in the hardware purchase). It's terribly inefficient in every possible way, but it appears to work.
- leddt 8y agoAren't many consoles sold at or near (or even below) cost, on the assumption that software sales will make up for it? Also, how would a console sold by Sony or Microsoft subsidize in any way a game sold by a third party publisher?
- Gaelan 8y agoPresumably Sony/MS pay the publishers to make the game exclusive to their console.
- jjoonathan 8y agoI don't think so. Evidence #1: The ever-present existence of potato masher PC configurations (cheaper and more powerful than a console in qty 1) makes me doubt that consoles are loss leaders. The crypto bubble played with that math but it seems to generally hold. Evidence #2: Sony keeps bragging about how many consoles their investments in first-party game studios have been able to move. Importantly: that's how they phrase it. Evidence #3: This particular narrative has held true for several people in my bubble, including myself. People will buy a console to play Bloodborne, Horizon Zero Dawn, or God of War. The center-of-mass for single-player narrative-driven AAAs seems to be moving away from the PC, and the ones that stay on the PC seem to be bogged down with "alternative" monetization models.
- arayh 8y agoSo this is mostly a confirmation that the "loot box" monetization model has been resoundingly successful? This controversial model exploits gamer psychology, is sometimes implemented along the veins of "pay to win", and is seen by some as a sort of in-game form of gambling.
- sushisource 8y agoI wouldn't say that's the reason. This statistic has already been true for some time in the US, I believe. I think this article is specifically talking about UK produced games. I could be wrong, though.
- hknd 8y agoThere is no real "loot box" system in Black Ops, and all stuff which can be bought is just for "cosmetics".
- jbob2000 8y agoCosmetics are a billion dollar industry, why do you write it off so quickly? People pay money to make their face look different from others, why wouldn't they pay money to make their digital self different?
- oarabbus_ 8y agoBecause reading the comment thread, it's utterly antithetical to loot boxes. One is cosmetic and the other is functional.
- leddt 8y agoI have not played the game, so this is only from what I've read [0], but it is my understanding that they designed a progression system that strongly pushes people to pay. Also, while not strictly "loot boxes", you are still able to indirectly pay for random items because the drops are linked to level progression, which can be sped up with micro-transactions. [0] https://kotaku.com/the-free-gear-in-black-ops-4-is-an-unforgiving-grind-1830229966 https://kotaku.com/the-free-gear-in-black-ops-4-is-an-unforg...
- leereeves 8y agoA good game provides hundreds of hours of entertainment for $60. That's much better entertainment value than a $20 movie.
- jmcunningham 8y agoA good album can also provide hundreds of hours of entertainment for $10. However, not all games, music, or video provide 100s of hours of entertainment so I'm not sure I understand your generalization.
- learc83 8y agoThey specifically compared games to movies. If we're talking about theaters, then no individual purchase will ever provide hundreds of hours of entertainment. Even if we are talking about blu-ray/dvd/digital download, very few people are going to ever get hundreds of hours of entertainment out of any single movie. > A good album can also provide hundreds of hours of entertainment for $10. Passive/supplemental entertainment maybe. Outside of a very small percentage of serious audiophiles, I don't know anyone listening to 1 album for hundreds of hours other than as background noise.
- lostgame 8y agoCrank it up to $25-30 (LP) and, if you're anything like me, you'll get those hundred hours for sure. :)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- folkrav 8y agoI'm a huge Mass Effect fan. I played Mass Effect: Andromeda for about 30h at launch. For a CAD$80 game, that wasn't a good investment. I also love System of a Down. Probably paid sub-$100 for their discography. Must have hundreds of hours of listening pleasure. Isn't this a better value than ME:A? I'm also a huge Star Wars fan. The $30 I paid for the movie ticket and the popcorn combo when I went to see Rogue One brought me much more pleasure than those 30h of ME:A, so was this a better value? I know, that's one game, one artist, one movie, but that's just to illustrate that it's not that clear-cut.
- sneakernets 8y agoGaming may be "worth more" but culturally it's still frowned upon. With smartphones, you can "hide" the fact that you're playing. Not so easy to do that with a Switch in public.
- tzakrajs 8y agoWhat culture are you in?
- sneakernets 8y agoMaybe it's not everywhere, but where I live, playing video games are still seen as a sign of immaturity and lack of social skills. Doesn't matter that there are mature rated games that require voice communication to play properly, doesn't matter that tons of gamers are in at least one gaming community. Somewhere in the mid 00s, society established a new gamer stereotype as some lazy man child who prefers to sit around reading comics and playing games to going out and "grabbing life by the horns" or some other nonsense.
- Pfhreak 8y agoWhat society are you in? Because gaming is pretty ubiquitous and accepted in American culture (at least in the coastal areas I've been to). Playing games and identifying as a 'gamer' are definitely different, however. I play a lot of core games (PUBG, Overwatch, etc.) but I definitely do not label myself a 'gamer'.
- techopoly 8y agoSo why would you say that is?
- sneakernets 8y agoYears of marketing video games to a way-too-narrow demographic with no disposable income - boys and early teens. It's not the only media that was stuck in the "kids only" camp - look how long it took cartoons to break free of that mould. Thank The Simpsons for that one.
- tokyodude 8y agoAnd yet AFAIK little of that money makes it back to the creators. In the movies hit products pay millions to the stars, millions to the director. In games devs might get a small bonus after lots of overtime. If I understand correctly it used to be the same in movies until the directors and stars started demanding more. IIRA United Artists was started because of these issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Artists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Artists Also few games have the budget of movies. There's a few exceptions like say GTA5 or RD2 but mostly title for title game budgets are at least an order of magnitude lower than movies.
- justicezyx 8y agoDevs in gaming industry are like the staff members of a moving shooting crews, they are not comparable to directors.
- vvanders 8y agoOff the top of my head: Carmack, Sweeny, Rami Ismail Could probably come up with many other examples. As someone who did dev in that industry I knew plenty technical people who had a outsized impact on gameplay, tone and style.
- Permit 8y agoHow many average people playing the games know of these people? How many average people watching movies recognize Tom Cruise?
- dfxm12 8y agoWell, I'd agree that John Carmack is more comparable to a film director than a crew member. On the other hand, John Carmack is better compensated for that, as he is worth $40 Million[0], the same as film director Spike Lee[1] (who has been active a bit longer). 0 - https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/business-executives/john-d-carmack-net-worth/ https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/busine... 1 - https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/directors/spike-lee-net-worth/ https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/direct...
- fareesh 8y agoIs it possible that a lot of the money is from microtransactions? and that there is a gambling addiction that is being taken advantage of by lootboxes and other such pay-to-gain-random-reward microtransaction mechanics? I remember reading a post about a Path of Exile gamer who successfully convinced Grinding Gear Games to put in special rules for his account because he was a gambling addict.
- jplayer01 8y ago> Is it possible that a lot of the money is from microtransactions? and that there is a gambling addiction that is being taken advantage of by lootboxes and other such pay-to-gain-random-reward microtransaction mechanics? Where've you been for the past five years? That's what microtransactions are all about. Hijacking our brain's reward system to extract maximum money.
- fareesh 8y agoFor me personally I have barely ever performed microtransactions so I can't relate. I've purchased DOTA2 compendiums mostly every year to fund the prize pool because I enjoy watching, but that's about it. My point there was that there is no such equivalent in video & music. I guess if you factor in "superchats" for video you could count those.
- magic_beans 8y agoSo where's the game developers' union?
- arayh 8y agoYou might be looking for this: https://www.gameworkersunite.org/ https://www.gameworkersunite.org/
- pm24601 8y agoBut is it worth more than porn?
- Raptor22 8y agoI wish Apple got this...
- swarnie_ 8y agoWhat exactly would you like Apple to do??