Ultimately, consoles are subsidized devices sold at a loss (or break even) so that the platform holder can recoup by raking 30% of revenues that go over the “box”. So no matter how cost effective laptops can be, boxes will always be cheaper on a “dollars per frame” basis.

Subscription services are bad for game developers because instead of selling to millions of buyers (the players) you are selling to GamePass, who has immense leverage over you.

Stardew Valley became a successful phenomenon because a game developer had a passion to build something non-violent that turns out to ring true for millions of players. Its success had nothing to do with some (pseudo)intellectuals from an ivory tower reasoning we ought to overturn unexamined colonialism in video games.

Absolutely. Always online, free-to-play, games as a service was pioneered in China, where piracy was rampant and pay-up-front products were effectively DOA.

The passengers are getting rides at rates cheaper than what is economically feasible if you tallied up everyone’s true costs. That’s what this means.

Anyone getting Alyx and Eli Vance vibes from Half Life 2?

Hedge funds, Big oil, Big pharam, Big tech can afford to influence politics at a significant level. Even though EA/Activision are the biggest in this industry, they’re still an order of magnitude too small to “afford a couple congressmen”.

You nailed it. The Division 2 is paradoxically extremely high quality, yet extremely boring at the same time. I think the problem resides the game being a cover shooter. It is a dated mechanic that ran out of steam after Gears of War. Combine that with bullet sponge enemies, a limited variety of skills due to them all…

Console exclusives cost you several hundred dollars buying another piece of hardware.

You can’t blame EA/Ubisoft for having their own stores, they’re just trying to avoid paying 30% to Steam.

Actually, there is a consistent thread there. Google is also a 30% tax collector on Google Play store, and so is Apple with their App Store. Tim Sweeney is on a personal mission to smash these gates down. He’s doing it on PC because PC is an open platform. He did it on Android because Android is relatively open. He…

Good point, where was the outrage the League of Legends is exclusively available on the League launcher?

Stores are the providers, game developers are the customers. Stores are competing with each other to distribute for game developers.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I think the project name “Dylan” shows that their heart was in the wrong place from the very beginning.

Sony has final say on what software can and cannot be published on their PlayStation hardware. If they don’t already have a kill switch on the OS, then at least that developer is unlikely to ever to have any future games published. That is what platform control is all about.

This one seems to be going for depth though. Check out Lupos stream. In a span of 10 minutes  I saw portals, protective domes, and area-denial mortars used in fighting 

“Outside of a very small subsection of MMO players: no one wants to play always-online games.”

The choice of publisher / distributor belongs to game developer, not the consumers.

Kingdom Hearts’ story is as convoluted as any Final Fantasy story, so not breaking any new ground there.