Subjective Quality of Streaming Services *spawn*

[lefantome]

Yeah. Those Netflix and Amazon Prime thingies are truly awful.

Comparing apples and oranges and still proving my point.
Netflix catalogue has shrunk on the last 5 years while its cost has grown.
This is not even mentiojing the quality of its originals that is too subjective even though many people find it bad.

With gaming it's different.
- First of all games don't have cinemas.
- You need a specific hardware to play them and someone has to produce it.
- One game on average provides dozens of hours of entertainment, not 1-3 and the cost/hour is much lower therefore it makes sense to own games much more than movies.
- The cost of streaming games is much higher than movies: it has to be extremely low latency and games are expected to use extensive computational resources to be played. A movie only requires to send data.

You should compare game streaming to online multiplayer services like Xbox live gold and PlayStation plus.

We are paying 60$ a year "to play online" while these money don't even go to the people paying for the actual game servers.
You were lured in into these subscription with free games but their quality is lower than at the beginning the the service costs more.

EA and Xbox gamepass?

They are cheap but have you noticed that they are releasing less games every year and of lower quality?

When everybody will be dependent on passes, you think they will keep prices low and invest in many good quality games if people are paying anyway?

This is a game where every competitor wins lots of money by not competing too much and fucking customers.

 

[iroboto]

They are cheap but have you noticed that they are releasing less games every year and of lower quality?

? Gamepass has never been better than right now. And I have been a subscriber for a year. I have a backlog of titles I need to crush through on Gamepass that are actually worth playing through.

 

[BRiT]

Feel free to express your own subjective opinions in here to your heart's content, since the discussion has been split out.

Lefantome, I completely disagree with your opinion on the quality. My opinion is diametric opposite.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

EA and Xbox gamepass?

They are cheap but have you noticed that they are releasing less games every year and of lower quality?

You'll need ot cite evidence for that. I thought the Game Pass reveal was pretty sparse and mostly old, cheap games, but it's definitely fleshed out and has day-one release of all XB exclusives.

Also, where does PS Now fit in?

 

[AzBat]

Sounds like somebody needs a Snickers, that's a lot of hangry right there. Great thing about Game Pass & EA Access is that it's another option. Choices are an amazing thing. Currently they have 201 titles in their library. They also have their own Android & iOS apps for going through all of the titles & allows for remote installs. You want to own your favorite Game Pass titles? Buy them at a discount. You'll still earn Microsoft Rewards on those purchases. They even have specific Game Pass quests to earn more Microsoft Rewards points. If you dont want to partake in any of that, your free to buy all your games at full price on disc or digital.

Btw, if you don't want to use their app or website I found this pretty good list...

https://www.trueachievements.com/xbox-game-pass/games

Tommy McClain

 

[AlNom]

? Gamepass has never been better than right now. And I have been a subscriber for a year. I have a backlog of titles I need to crush through on Gamepass that are actually worth playing through.

kids are a helluva drag :V

 

[iroboto]

kids are a helluva drag :V

Lol.

 

[lefantome]

? Gamepass has never been better than right now. And I have been a subscriber for a year. I have a backlog of titles I need to crush through on Gamepass that are actually worth playing through.

Of course is good now, it's not established and and it's the only thing keeping Xbox One afloat.
Two birds with one stone for Microsoft.

But I was originally talking about older services: gold and plus.

Remember when they were giving away AAA games released a couple of years before?

That's what made everyone accept paying for online gaming.

Now that everyone is paying and has no other options, they don't need to do that anymore.

You'll need ot cite evidence for that. I thought the Game Pass reveal was pretty sparse and mostly old, cheap games, but it's definitely fleshed out and has day-one release of all XB exclusives.

Also, where does PS Now fit in?

Yes because they want to use the low quality and underperforming exclusives they are released to push for this service that if adopted will make them earn a lot of money, continuously and without the high risks of AAA publishing.

For evidence check wat Xbox live gold and ps plus were releasing at the end of the previous generation.

PS Now is the next step of this process.
Without a machine to run games on, consumers will be 100% dependent on online services.

Sounds like somebody needs a Snickers, that's a lot of hangry right there. Great thing about Game Pass & EA Access is that it's another option. Choices are an amazing thing. Currently they have 201 titles in their library. They also have their own Android & iOS apps for going through all of the titles & allows for remote installs. You want to own your favorite Game Pass titles? Buy them at a discount. You'll still earn Microsoft Rewards on those purchases. They even have specific Game Pass quests to earn more Microsoft Rewards points. If you dont want to partake in any of that, your free to buy all your games at full price on disc or digital.

Btw, if you don't want to use their app or website I found this pretty good list...

https://www.trueachievements.com/xbox-game-pass/games

Tommy McClain

Let's say you want to play a game online in Xbox or PlayStation.

Do you have a choice of you don't want to pay plus/gold?

Those services are no other than a pointless tax that yields a lot of profits every year.

People were lured into accepting this and now they have no other choice but to pay.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But I was originally talking about older services: gold and plus. Remember when they were giving away AAA games released a couple of years before? That's what made everyone accept paying for online gaming. Now that everyone is paying and has no other options, they don't need to do that anymore.

XBLive didn't have free games. Everyone accepted paying for online play because it was necessary on the platform and they got the world's best online experience as a result. Sony introduced the PS+ game service, providing games and discounts for a monthly sub, and then made that into a compulsory fee for online gaming for PS4 which everyone pays because they have to, though the games make it less objectionable. MS followed suit giving games with the online subscription fee, and continue to give free games. This month's games are Plant's v Zombies Garden Warfare 2, Adventure Time: Pirates of Enchridion, and the 360 game Metal Gear Rising:Revengeance through BC.

People were lured into accepting this and now they have no other choice but to pay.

How were they lured? It's a necessary payment to play online (and use the other online services) that is explained up front and you choose whether online play is worth it for you or not.

 

[lefantome]

No It was not necessary, but they did it because it was the only way to play the biggest Xbox exclusive online: Halo.

People(a small parte of the market) accepted it anyway.

Sony noticed that it was a good way to make great profits and they created psplus once things were good for them, they decided to give games for free to avoid backlash.

Now the games given away have lower values and there is no alternative, if you want to play online on console you have to pay.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No It was not necessary...

It was necessary for XB owners to play online. That's why they paid. They had the choice to not pay and not play online, which is basically how buying stuff works. I have the choice to pay for NetFlix or not, depending on whether I feel it's worth it to me or not. XB gamers had the choice to pay for online play or not. Millions felt the price was worth what they gained from the service in terms of unified ID, matchmaking, chat, etc.The other option was networking on PS2 for free which was pretty crap, or networking on PC for free which was very crap. So a smallish fee for a working service seemed good value to a lot of gamers.

Sony noticed that it was a good way to make great profits and they created psplus once things were good for them, they decided to give games for free to avoid backlash.

PS+ was created before it was an online requirement for PS4, in 2010. There was no luring. PS+ was a game subscription type service. Then it got turned into an online play subscription with additional games for PS4. XB just added additional games to their online sub fee to improve its value as a network gaming service against PS+.

No-one has been lured into paying for online. It's a straight choice, both with the added value of additional games.

Now the games given away have lower values and there is no alternative, if you want to play online on console you have to pay.

Yes. If online play isn't worth the asking price, don't pay. If you want a unified user name across all games, networking with friends, chat, etc., you have to pay for it. At least MS and Sony offer a working net service unlike Nintendo who charge for shit.

If it's not worth it to you, you can play for free on PC, but then you need to spend more on hardware up front and potentially different accounts (something that's crept into console online which is an affront to the notion).

BTW: Please use paragraphs and don't write every sentence on a new line.

 

[AzBat]

@lefantome I disagree about your Xbox Live Gold comments. Microsoft has always required Gold on Xbox, but never on PC. Plus, it wasn't until summer of 2013 they decided to give away games. A year later they dropped the Gold requirement for Netflix & other entertainments. Nobody had any problems paying the Gold subscription the whole life of the original Xbox & Xbox 360. I also disagree that it was a small portion of gamers that paid the fee. Unfortunately we don't get those market figures. Anyway, had the Xbox One launch went as planned I'm not sure they would have made any changes to Gold. Competition is a funny thing.

BTW, Check out my Xbox Live Games with Gold spreadsheet that I've been updating since June 2013. I think you'll be surprised at the quality of games recently. The top 2 Metascore games are
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain(Score of 95) released on GWG May 16, 2018 & Celeste(Score of 94) released on GWG January 1, 2019.

Sorry you don't like paying for the service, but that's the breaks for buying hardware with slim margins. They have the right make money off their games & services. If you don't like that, then there's always the PC.

Tommy McClain

 

[AlNom]

I'm sure the revenue helps offset on-going costs of support and

Spoiler

stability

updates to the system...

Nominally, people pay that one-time fee of an OS (or some OEM hidden cost) on a PC - cheaper over 10 years, but certainly a much higher volume of folks. As the Xbox-Windows relationship tightens, it'll be something to consider in the budgeting maybe, but maybe that's where Gamepass subsumes XBLG as the defacto revenue stream (if they can price the combined package right).


off-topic.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Actually the cost of Windows 10 has plummeted. I think I bought Windows for less than a year's console sub!