6 ms·

Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. Personally I think it's a decent move by Apple to change the perception of

by geddy 8y ago

Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. Personally I think it's a decent move by Apple to change the perception of the App Store in regards to gaming. I waited in line for the original iPhone and watched the App Store go from quality $2-10 games to the dumpster fire it is today. The F2P games are all clones of each other and no one will spend a dime on anything else. A premium service that collects the quality games, respects user privacy, doesn't run ads, or have IAP is a nice idea to be honest. I'm a handheld gamer through and through and always have one or two handheld consoles on me, so this is isn't a service that interests me. But I hope it can make those paid games more accessible. Also concerned that the (rumored?) $9.99/month price tag is even remotely close enough to get these developers paid. Nothing easier about releasing on a mobile device - the games they showed off look like massive titles.

endorphone 8y ago
Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. Microsoft has Game Pass. EA has Origin. Subscribe to both and they're both fantastic.
- geddy 8y ago
  I typed my response hastily - I'm not against them existing, what I meant was I hope they never replace consoles. I have no desire to pay a monthly fee to play hundreds of games. The game list could be virtually unlimited, but there's always a real, tough limit - my free time. I can still only play 1-2 games per month and I'd rather own a copy of it. Having access to hundreds, to me, means I'll essentially play a game for 5 minutes, then the next one, then the next one... until I've had an hour of no real experiences. In this backlog culture, it'll be a miracle if anyone ever finishes a game again.
  - Jyaif 8y ago
    Regarding your last paragraph, I wonder how you feel about Netflix.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >The game list could be virtually unlimited, but there's always a real, tough limit - my free time. I can still only play 1-2 games per month and I'd rather own a copy of it. Didn't say the same thing for music? And yet how many buy CDs or download music anymore, compared to Spotify/Apple Music/YouTube/etc? An irrelevant (and aging) minority. And at least for music it makes sense. One can and do listen to the same album 10 and 20 years on. And of course multiple times in the same year. Whereas, after someone has finished a game, how often will they come back? And for what percentage of games? And how would a game subscription would hurt their occasional "lemme play this again for a couple of hours" trip down the memory lane?
    - kgwxd 8y ago
      It's that last part that keeps me buying exclusively DRM-free, Linux-friendly PC games. You can't even rely on a console working in the future anymore, or Windows not updating automatically into incompatibility. If it doesn't work, best you get is a not-quite-right recreation on a new platform. Worst case, old YouTube play-throughs are all you have.
  - endorphone 8y ago
    The value proposition is that while there are many options, the average subscriber only partakes of a small number that best fits them, the options evolving and changing over time. Netflix has thousands of programs but I feel no obligation to watch them all, and just the tiny subset that I enjoy monthly makes it well worthwhile.
- __david__ 8y ago
  Don't forget Playstation Now.
  - steve_adams_86 8y ago
    Should google stadia be a part of this list too?
    - unsigner 8y ago
      Theoretically no - we don't know yet the business model of Stadia, only the technical delivery (video streaming). Probably yes, though - paying to "own" something which can't be separated from the service it arrived on would sound ridiculous in this day and age.
      - HenryBemis 8y ago
        From what I understood/imagined, is that they do all the heavy work in the back end and will just deliver the navigation and graphics to us. This is a cool idea if you got an average graphics card and a fast/unlimited internet connection (which most of us have) I am imagining this as a '€10 entry to a all-free-to-play-arcade. I hope that joysticks with 4-6-8 buttons will come out so I can binge-play Street Fighter again after 20+ years!!
bilbo0s 8y ago
USD9.99 is not nearly enough. That said, it sounds like they're just going to give the money to the guys who make the games that are played the most. It's not like every developer will get 50 cents a download or whatever. So the big guys will get the real money, and smaller guys will fight for scraps at that price. But at least it's a start.
nouveaux 8y ago
I suspect that gaming subscription services will payout more than your traditional model. The difference between this and music is that most people do not want to hear the same songs over and over again. The $10 is spread across so many artist. Video games will capture the attention of a person for hours in a month. I can see that a big chunk of the monthly fee going to a couple of titles. I was born in the late 70s. That generation of gamers despise free to play games. I like the $5-10 titles on mobile and the $20-30 titles on Steam (I haven't bought a AAA title in a long time.) I don't have a ton of time to game, so I am not spending $120 a year on games. If this is a $9.99 service, it is a sweet spot and I suspect this demographic is larger than we imagine. Since price hasn't been announced, we'll have to see how much it will be.
- r00fus 8y ago
  > The difference between this and music is that most people do not want to hear the same songs over and over again. Uh... my kids listen to the same damn song hundreds of times before they cycle to next. YMMV, and there's a large market out there that likes repetitiveness in their music. That said, I agree that "no purchase barrier" is a huge step forward to getting me to try out a number of games just like songs. It would make the old good games like "Sword & Poker" viable for developers. They would be incentivized to simply make more such games or add content so players keep playing.
  - jplayer01 8y ago
    > Uh... my kids listen to the same damn song hundreds of times before they cycle to next. YMMV, and there's a large market out there that likes repetitiveness in their music. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4301681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4301681 Eh, most people I know and in most discussions I've seen, people would prefer their shuffle not to play the same songs over and over. Otherwise why bother with shuffle? The thing is - people who want to listen to one song or watch one movie or play one game over and over and over are already served quite well. Just buy the damn thing and you have unlimited uses. Gradually, we've seen the growth of services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, etc. because people do want variety, and they don't want to pay for every single song or movie or game (see EA Access, Xbox Game Pass, Sony whatever). Apple's game sub service actually isn't all that novel in general, it's just novel for smartphones where the industry has, over the past 9 years, moved primarily towards f2p, which actually gives people variety if they want it without having to pay for it, while also being able to consume the same game as much as they want as well. It's also no accident that Steam has been so wildly successful through its sales, because that lets people try all kinds of different games without having to sell their kidney.
r00fus 8y ago
> Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. What do you call Steam? Sure it's a-la-carte pricing, but you get all the good & bad sides of subscriptions - you don't own anything, you can play on multiple devices, etc. Netflix for gaming is a big deal. I think it can work on the desktop but perhaps with a different pricing model. Also look to a v2 where "offline only" gets re-thought (possibly with DLC).
- geddy 8y ago
  Not the same thing, as you pay for a license to play each game individually. But, I see what you're saying.
bliblah 8y ago
>Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. I doubt it; stream boxes are probably 1-2 generations away meaning that online connections are going to be more integral to the experience. The largest publishers makes more than half of their revenue off one game thanks to recurring payments from DLC, multiplayer content, or the brand new concept of battle passes and see no reason to create new IPs when the old ones still move millions of copies. It won't be long until you need to pay some form of a subscription fee for most big budget / popular games (rebranded as a monthly battle pass or something so people don't get dissuaded / angry). The good news is that indies are still around and there are still big single player games that are being developed to placate the crowd. But mobile gaming has definitely been the extreme end of the most predatory business practices in video games and I see no reason that the rest of the industry won't follow suit.
mortenjorck 8y ago
> Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. I share your reservations about this becoming the new normal for the industry, but so long as games on the service are still available with perpetual licensing, I don’t see a problem. Really, the much bigger issue with iOS-based games has been with us for awhile, and that is OS compatibility. There are now games from the past decade that are effectively lost to time, no longer compatible with modern versions of iOS and not even available from the App Store on vintage hardware. Archival is a very hard problem on a managed platform.
blihp 8y ago
I don't think it will stay on mobile, but I do think it is and will remain targeted toward more casual gamers. Basically those who want something better than the river of adtech sewage that exists today but short of 'serious' gaming with a lot of depth. My prediction is that other than this initial flurry of titles, you'll see a small handful of more significant titles per year and a lot of shovel-ware... but free of tracking and ads. I don't see how a subscription model can support anything more for most game developers.
earenndil 8y ago
> Also concerned that the (rumored?) $9.99/month price tag is even remotely close enough to get these developers paid. Nothing easier about releasing on a mobile device - the games they showed off look like massive titles Apple is probably eating the costs to get the subscription mindshare.

by geddy 8y ago

endorphone 8y ago

Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. Microsoft has Game Pass. EA has Origin. Subscribe to both and they're both fantastic.

geddy 8y ago
I typed my response hastily - I'm not against them existing, what I meant was I hope they never replace consoles. I have no desire to pay a monthly fee to play hundreds of games. The game list could be virtually unlimited, but there's always a real, tough limit - my free time. I can still only play 1-2 games per month and I'd rather own a copy of it. Having access to hundreds, to me, means I'll essentially play a game for 5 minutes, then the next one, then the next one... until I've had an hour of no real experiences. In this backlog culture, it'll be a miracle if anyone ever finishes a game again.
- Jyaif 8y ago
  Regarding your last paragraph, I wonder how you feel about Netflix.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >The game list could be virtually unlimited, but there's always a real, tough limit - my free time. I can still only play 1-2 games per month and I'd rather own a copy of it. Didn't say the same thing for music? And yet how many buy CDs or download music anymore, compared to Spotify/Apple Music/YouTube/etc? An irrelevant (and aging) minority. And at least for music it makes sense. One can and do listen to the same album 10 and 20 years on. And of course multiple times in the same year. Whereas, after someone has finished a game, how often will they come back? And for what percentage of games? And how would a game subscription would hurt their occasional "lemme play this again for a couple of hours" trip down the memory lane?
  - kgwxd 8y ago
    It's that last part that keeps me buying exclusively DRM-free, Linux-friendly PC games. You can't even rely on a console working in the future anymore, or Windows not updating automatically into incompatibility. If it doesn't work, best you get is a not-quite-right recreation on a new platform. Worst case, old YouTube play-throughs are all you have.
- endorphone 8y ago
  The value proposition is that while there are many options, the average subscriber only partakes of a small number that best fits them, the options evolving and changing over time. Netflix has thousands of programs but I feel no obligation to watch them all, and just the tiny subset that I enjoy monthly makes it well worthwhile.
__david__ 8y ago
Don't forget Playstation Now.
- steve_adams_86 8y ago
  Should google stadia be a part of this list too?
  - unsigner 8y ago
    Theoretically no - we don't know yet the business model of Stadia, only the technical delivery (video streaming). Probably yes, though - paying to "own" something which can't be separated from the service it arrived on would sound ridiculous in this day and age.
    - HenryBemis 8y ago
      From what I understood/imagined, is that they do all the heavy work in the back end and will just deliver the navigation and graphics to us. This is a cool idea if you got an average graphics card and a fast/unlimited internet connection (which most of us have) I am imagining this as a '€10 entry to a all-free-to-play-arcade. I hope that joysticks with 4-6-8 buttons will come out so I can binge-play Street Fighter again after 20+ years!!

bilbo0s 8y ago

USD9.99 is not nearly enough. That said, it sounds like they're just going to give the money to the guys who make the games that are played the most. It's not like every developer will get 50 cents a download or whatever. So the big guys will get the real money, and smaller guys will fight for scraps at that price. But at least it's a start.

nouveaux 8y ago

I suspect that gaming subscription services will payout more than your traditional model. The difference between this and music is that most people do not want to hear the same songs over and over again. The $10 is spread across so many artist. Video games will capture the attention of a person for hours in a month. I can see that a big chunk of the monthly fee going to a couple of titles. I was born in the late 70s. That generation of gamers despise free to play games. I like the $5-10 titles on mobile and the $20-30 titles on Steam (I haven't bought a AAA title in a long time.) I don't have a ton of time to game, so I am not spending $120 a year on games. If this is a $9.99 service, it is a sweet spot and I suspect this demographic is larger than we imagine. Since price hasn't been announced, we'll have to see how much it will be.

r00fus 8y ago
> The difference between this and music is that most people do not want to hear the same songs over and over again. Uh... my kids listen to the same damn song hundreds of times before they cycle to next. YMMV, and there's a large market out there that likes repetitiveness in their music. That said, I agree that "no purchase barrier" is a huge step forward to getting me to try out a number of games just like songs. It would make the old good games like "Sword & Poker" viable for developers. They would be incentivized to simply make more such games or add content so players keep playing.
- jplayer01 8y ago
  > Uh... my kids listen to the same damn song hundreds of times before they cycle to next. YMMV, and there's a large market out there that likes repetitiveness in their music. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4301681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4301681 Eh, most people I know and in most discussions I've seen, people would prefer their shuffle not to play the same songs over and over. Otherwise why bother with shuffle? The thing is - people who want to listen to one song or watch one movie or play one game over and over and over are already served quite well. Just buy the damn thing and you have unlimited uses. Gradually, we've seen the growth of services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, etc. because people do want variety, and they don't want to pay for every single song or movie or game (see EA Access, Xbox Game Pass, Sony whatever). Apple's game sub service actually isn't all that novel in general, it's just novel for smartphones where the industry has, over the past 9 years, moved primarily towards f2p, which actually gives people variety if they want it without having to pay for it, while also being able to consume the same game as much as they want as well. It's also no accident that Steam has been so wildly successful through its sales, because that lets people try all kinds of different games without having to sell their kidney.

r00fus 8y ago

> Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. What do you call Steam? Sure it's a-la-carte pricing, but you get all the good & bad sides of subscriptions - you don't own anything, you can play on multiple devices, etc. Netflix for gaming is a big deal. I think it can work on the desktop but perhaps with a different pricing model. Also look to a v2 where "offline only" gets re-thought (possibly with DLC).

geddy 8y ago
Not the same thing, as you pay for a license to play each game individually. But, I see what you're saying.

bliblah 8y ago

>Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. I doubt it; stream boxes are probably 1-2 generations away meaning that online connections are going to be more integral to the experience. The largest publishers makes more than half of their revenue off one game thanks to recurring payments from DLC, multiplayer content, or the brand new concept of battle passes and see no reason to create new IPs when the old ones still move millions of copies. It won't be long until you need to pay some form of a subscription fee for most big budget / popular games (rebranded as a monthly battle pass or something so people don't get dissuaded / angry). The good news is that indies are still around and there are still big single player games that are being developed to placate the crowd. But mobile gaming has definitely been the extreme end of the most predatory business practices in video games and I see no reason that the rest of the industry won't follow suit.

mortenjorck 8y ago

> Let's just hope this "gaming as a service" stays on mobile devices where it belongs. I share your reservations about this becoming the new normal for the industry, but so long as games on the service are still available with perpetual licensing, I don’t see a problem. Really, the much bigger issue with iOS-based games has been with us for awhile, and that is OS compatibility. There are now games from the past decade that are effectively lost to time, no longer compatible with modern versions of iOS and not even available from the App Store on vintage hardware. Archival is a very hard problem on a managed platform.

blihp 8y ago

I don't think it will stay on mobile, but I do think it is and will remain targeted toward more casual gamers. Basically those who want something better than the river of adtech sewage that exists today but short of 'serious' gaming with a lot of depth. My prediction is that other than this initial flurry of titles, you'll see a small handful of more significant titles per year and a lot of shovel-ware... but free of tracking and ads. I don't see how a subscription model can support anything more for most game developers.

earenndil 8y ago

> Also concerned that the (rumored?) $9.99/month price tag is even remotely close enough to get these developers paid. Nothing easier about releasing on a mobile device - the games they showed off look like massive titles Apple is probably eating the costs to get the subscription mindshare.