4 ms·

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

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

> 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.