this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
700 points (97.3% liked)

Technology

60079 readers
3206 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games for Subscriptions to Take Off::An executive at Assassin’s Creed maker Ubisoft has said gamers will need to get “comfortable” not owning their games before video game subscriptions truly take off.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Breve@pawb.social 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think the direct parallel was Netflix. It used to be the only platform of it's kind with an extensive catalog, so it was a far easier sell for people to sign up and stay subscribed. Even at it's peak though, Netflix never managed to kill off physical media because there are still fans who want to own that disc of their favorite TV show or movie that they could watch anywhere, anytime. Then when other media companies wanted to grab their share of streaming revenue by clawing back their stuff from Netflix and setting up their own smaller catalogs, thinking they would get the same retention that Netflix achieved, instead people started to play the subscription hopping game. In the wake of this, sales of physical media are even seeing an increase too.

I feel like Steam comes close to being the "Netflix" of games because even though it's not literally streaming games and doesn't use a subscription model, it still has an extensive catalog and acts as an alternative to owning physical copies of games which comes with both benefits and drawbacks. I'm pretty sure that if publishers keep trying to claw their stuff away from Steam though, that we'll see a similar uptick in people returning to buying physical copies as a result.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Can you even get physical PC games anymore? I have an official flash drive with Psychonauts 2 on it, but that's just because I was a backer for hte game

[–] Breve@pawb.social 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that's true, I was thinking more of consoles but I suppose Steam doesn't really have any bearing on that market. I guess the better equivalent for PC would be DRM free games where it's downloadable, and could be backed up to physical media (not provided). 😅

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Indeed, and we honestly have Steam to thank for there even being a PC gaming market, there was a period of time where PC ports basically didn't exist, and developers when asked why basically turned around and said they want the game to be bought with money instead of being downloaded off of limewire... and before Steam came along, there really wasn't an answer to that question as piracy really was more convenient than the actual PC market at that time.