@LtSarge That's a fair argument perhaps for Firesprite and Fabrik but for Firewalk and Haven they are perhaps big enough names to have a small influence on which platform some gamers will choose to buy. Be great to have some inside info on these purchases.
@LtSarge as I said, it's highly possible that you're correct but I just see it being more possible that it's a move of protection.
Either way it doesn't really matter, I won't be getting Sony's eventual/likely answer to GamePass as I'm an out and out collector... I also like to have a huge backlog so that I can dip in to it and play anything that might take my fancy, rather than feel pressured to play something quickly as it'll be leaving 'Spartacus' shortly.
It's just one of those things... GamePass fans will never understand why it doesn't make sense to 100% of the population. Just like how PlayStation 4 fans never understood how anyone would choose xbone.
@Voltan Your view on Spotify is in line with many small artists I know. For them they sell CD's at their gigs and made a pittance. They reckon they make more money on Spotify, and Youtube, Bandcamp etc.
It's also never been easier to put your work out there. A lot to like. I think the ones that lose out are the middle and huge artists who remember the glory days of the CD and everything that comes with it.
Austin Wintory (of Journey, Abzu and The Pathless fame) is very interesting on this subject and has discussed that period as a blip in musicians financial history. Up until then for hundreds or even thousands of years musicians needed patrons and were never rich individuals. Rock and Roll changed that briefly and made many multi-multi-millionaires, is this just course correcting and a return to the norm?
@Voltan Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only studio that I've seen reported to primarily work as support is Valkyrie Entertainment and even that studio is supposedly planning to release original games of their own. Hermen Hulst has said that Firesprite for example will be primarily developing original games rather than helping other studios.
If this pattern had started in the beginning of the PS4 era, then I would've find your argument reasonable. But it's occurring right as Microsoft has been doing the same thing and that's why I think there's a major reason for it happening. I believe it's a clear response to Xbox Game Pass.
@LtSarge Nixxes is another one and Fabrik Games, which was technically acquired by Firesprite while they were being acquired by Sony, I believe is another one. Of course then there's the usual Sony style acquisitions of studios they already had very close relations with - Housemarque and Bluepoint - these will hopefully let these studios fully spread their wings like Insomniac did.
@LtSarge Nixxies - PC port developer too. But they've also been reportedly scaling up their XDev and other support studios. Not to mention many studios now support each other on releases. It's not uncommon to see Santa Monica, or formerly Japan Studio, pop up in the credits of a another studios game etc. I think they see it as a pool of talent they can dip into when needed.
On the whole I don't think Sony is going to come up with a 1:1 game pass competitor in Spartacus. I.e. I don't think it will offer Day 1 releases, and I think the acquisitions are just
A) to increase their output to compete with MS & GP
B) to increase their pool of talent to try and speed up game development (which is agonisingly getting longer and longer) for right or wrong we used to see sequels every year or two.
@LtSarge what I will say that partially supports your point is Sony's very apparent move to make more multiplayer exclusives. Although I don't think 'Spartacus' would get your TLoU3 (or other single player blockbuster exclusives) day one... I wouldn't be surprised at all if the next Factions (& all other multiplayer exclusives) go on PonyGAAS (I'm particularly proud of this btw 🤣) day 1.
@themightyant That's good to hear that some artists are doing better regarding streaming than the ones I read about in the press. At least will make me feel less conscious when I stick something on on Spotify.
@colonelkilgore Good one on the PonyGASS It totally makes sense for multiplayer games to go on a subs service as the majority are fuelled by MTX anyway. They could just stick those on PS+ as you need that to play online anyway, so essentially just bulking out the PS collection!
@colonelkilgore Yeah I was actually just thinking that maybe Sony is trying two different approaches: one where they keep releasing these blockbuster games like they've always done, and the other being that they release smaller titles that don't require a large budget on a subscription service. Could be a great way to attract more people to their platform by letting them pay for a cheaper option, hooking them in and then they'll want to buy their blockbuster games.
@Voltan My uncle’s royalties were initially absolutely decimated by Napster and the piracy wave and now it’s services like Spotify that pay him pennies. So any chance of living off the royalties is gone, he sold all his pedals to less jaded student bands and at least he got a mortgage with my auntie’s wages going in too. He doesn’t begrudge anyone using Spotify as that’s just the way the industry’s went but it’s a big part of why he sticks stuff on Bandcamp instead whenever he decides to get back on the music horse. I keep trying to persuade him that reissuing his band’s stuff on vinyl would be a good idea given the boom but I have no idea how that all works with the record company!
@nessisonett To be clear - I'm just saying I'm not too sure things would be better without the streaming services. Did they exploit the situation created by file sharing by offering only a the bare minimum more than pirates (aka nothing)? Possibly. Is it still better than leaving it up to file sharing? It sure is, IMO
There's no denying that fast internet really changed the music industry and not necessarily all for the better - but there are upsides too, especially for people like me - both from a listener's and a musician's perspective
Vinyl is cool but it's kinda tricky. It's a bigger investment with much smaller returns than CD, unless you can sell a lot of it (and while it's market share has grown manyfold over the last decade or so, it's still rather niche).
@Voltan Absolutely yeah, way he sees it the tiny royalties are better than essentially nothing, especially seeing as radio’s dying out too. In a way, music piracy has actually been effectively dealt with thanks to streaming services though!
@nessisonett@Voltan Does the piracy issue exist with games to the extent it did? I'm kind of out of the loop on that one a bit these days but back when I did some PC gaming there was a reasonable amount of piracy around with that. I'm assuming that there is generally less around the console space though as most people tend not to jail break their devices and more people are likely to want the easy life of just buying a game and playing it without all the faff.
Basically what I'm saying is game sales are still quite strong so don't need saving by streaming services like music potentially did. There's plenty of people still willing to buy games but it's the industry, or certain players in it anyway, that are telling us we don't need to when instead we can give them a small monthly fee.
@render I haven't been a PC gamer for years now but I'm pretty sure it still does there. I remember stories about some games working better cracked (day 1) than legit because of some DRM stuff - from just a couple years ago or so.
But yeah, since it's definitely not that big of a problem on consoles and overall way less of a problem than it was with music, all that Spotify stuff is just a digression really
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