This is basically a rental model. The 2 game limit is just for the cheapest option, you could always pay more for more. If you want a reasonable quality catalog at a sub $10 price there needs to be some level of restrictions. If you want complete freedom it’s going to come at increased cost or a worse catalog.
Demos are rare today though. Not to mention some are outright misrepresenting the actual game. Spending some money to try a game without having to do a refund if you don’t like it is a reasonable value. As a PC player I would absolutely spend $15 bucks for a single month to try a few $40-60 games that I would likely purchase through steam after trying. I wouldn’t pay more than a single month at a time though, which also isn’t great for Microsoft.
It would be a hard limit of 2 games/month you could play, without paying more. This is a hard shift in model, but I think it makes it sustainable long term for developers to make their games part of it while allowing the price to be reasonable. Previously game pass was subsidized by Microsoft trying to grow their subscription base, so devs got big payouts to list their games. Publishers/devs aren’t making much if anything from being on game pass, especially indie titles that might only have 20 hours or less of gameplay. With cloud saves you could easily not lose progress if you took a month off from a game to try something else
This model creates a pathway that a developer could get $1-2 per install per month (or more for new/premium tier games) which would be reasonable income after initial launch sales. The vast majority of gamers also don’t play a lot of different games, so those that want more can pay for it while a lower price is available for the majority. There’s also the classic games tier that isn’t restricted as most the games aren’t really that valuable, but it’s a separate add on to keep the main price low.
For games as a subscription to work, it has to balance perceived value for consumers and developers. The unlimited model isn’t sustainable without a price point that makes buying games outright more attractive. I think a better scenario is allowing the subscription to create a funnel to direct sales, which I think this solution does.
I don’t think unlimited subscription models actually work with game development economics. If I had to do something I would make it this way.
7.99 game pass, access to a rotating library of roughly 1-2 year old games. Each month you can select 2 to download/pick and play. Can change selections each month.
+4.99 more games, 3 more games per month to download.
+4.99 classic games, allow unlimited downloads of older games, roughly 3+ years old.
+9.99 premium games, access to games roughly 3 month to a year old. Maybe select titles on day one. Still limited to 2 total downloads with base plan.
+2.99 discount club, receive exclusive discounts and general reduced prices on games that are part of other packages. Allow additional games to be selected/downloaded if one was purchased.
+4.99/9.99 streaming and premium streaming unlocked for any/most games in your library.
That’s the downside to a unified market.
AI is a lot closer to a revolution than to a bust. It’s already likely going to remain an established tool for software development and process automation.
It still remains to be seen if a company can be a single person managing an army of agents can actually become a sustainable company. This would be an industrial revolution on steroids type change that’s honestly terrifying.
An equally or even more likely scenario is we get most of the way there, but it only reduces the need for developer type jobs by 20-50%. From here lots of things could happen. The job market could stay somewhat stable as while companies hire less people, there are more smaller companies with direct hires as the barrier is massively reduced. The job market drastically shrinks and software becomes a less attractive discipline compared to other types of engineering or office work. An industry wide Cobol type situation happens as those that survive the job losses retire and laid off workers have moved on to other industries and no junior positions exist.
The top 20 appears to be play time, but it would be nice if it was ever really mentioned.
Interstate compacts require congressional approval. This one doesn’t have that. There’s also a good argument that a state giving all it’s votes to someone the state didn’t vote for in the majority violates the rights of it’s citizens to a republican form of government.
It’s not just battles trying to delay it. There’s very good legal arguments that congressional approval is required at a minimum in addition to states signing on.
This compact is extremely unlikely to ever be enforceable. The ensuing court cases would make 2000 seem minor.
This article seems to be lumping mobile and PC into the same bucket which is probably more of a red flag for the analysis they are doing here. Of course revenue is going to be more split when you add in tons of mobile games that are very effective at taking lots of money with minimal interaction.
There were plenty that used woke as a non perjorative term.
I doubt anyone was ever shamed for not using Latinx, the problem there was more a mass amount of people that felt it was a way to erase their culture. It’s a very wasp thing to create a term for a people and declare the most inclusive term without actually consulting anyone it addresses.
There’s literally a personal examples of “wokeness” pushing away the people that were intended to be helped on their discussion. If you want to pretend it’s not a thing that happened or it’s not a real movement then don’t expect much change.
The problem with woke was that it tried to solve relatively minor issues with massive changes and shame anyone who disagreed. That unsurprisingly lead to backlash and alienation. Yes there’s some racist dudes who just want to use the N-word without problems, but that’s not enough to explain the cultural swing that happened.
It’s really not. There’s definitely blame to be assigned, but the woke crowd of the 2010s isn’t solely responsible for Trump.
That seems to be what happened here.
There’s been an effort to downplay the attempts made after massive backlash, especially with Latinx. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
I did the thing. I read the transcript (it’s a video chat/debate). Most of the woke they talk about hating is the older stuff that is super cringe or feels racist, like “person of color” or micro aggressions. It does cover that the anti-woke crowd is mostly about being openly racist/sexist or getting to say slurs.
The answer here seems to be leaning towards yes. The creations of labels that the people you were labeling didn’t even like led to backlash, see Latinx or BIPOC. Coming up with euphemisms to justify removing white people from conferences or panels because there weren’t minorities, instead of focusing on the opinions and thoughts represented. The woke crowd created problems that pushed people away that may have mostly agreed with them.
Ultimately it seems like you’re opinion of woke and the definition you give it depends on when you became politically conscious. If it was in the 90e and early 2000s, it’s a more negative view of the progressive definition of woke. If it was during the Obama years, you think it’s more of a maga creation as a way to be more openly racist.
Something major is going to have to change at some point though with game pass. This year is probably the last time we see a day one release of a major title. Cutting CoD is to test the waters for future cuts.