Google Stadia is still a thing...no really you guys....
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Terraria on Stadia Canceled After Google Locks Creator Out of Accounts
Terraria creator Andrew Spinks has announced that the game is canceled for Google Stadia after being locked out of his Google accounts.
www.escapistmagazine.com
Talk about having a bad week. Stadia loses another developer's support because Google are being useless pains in the arse.
Of course we're talking about nit-picky-to-unlikely-massive Internet outages, but is that not the same thing these companies are banking on when they "sell" digital games? That an outage is unlikely, or at the very least intermittent, when they're charging full price for games? What's the contingency plan when what they've "sold" is suddenly unavailable to the buyers? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
I recall buying my Xbox One at launch; t'was midnight, and I rushed home to get at least a good couple of hours with my new, next-gen console. My chagrin when each of the scant few launch titles I'd bought required a lengthy installation process that pushed my excitement to the following, late-AM morning. I stayed up late just to bring the console home and stare at it. And this was after console developers had been talked off the ledge by gamer outrage from crippling DRM that required an internet connection to play anything ever. Now, they're selling us the future as not just substantial internet dependence, but COMPLETE internet dependence?
Download-only OR streaming are both hilariously limited conveniences being sold as "the future of gaming." I guarantee you, in the time it'd take me to drive to my nearest retailer and back with a new DISC, the same +200GB download might be halfway done. They're saving on costs by not offering discs, but they're charging the same price... how are so few not seeing the blatant fallacy here? I also brought up Sega Channel, flawed as it was, at least it was a true "service;" they weren't charging full-retail for the games they allowed you play, then a couple of years later, they got shut down; who's holding to the fire the feet of those who're selling the ability to play games as a full-on purchase of said games?
Some would argue that not everyone lives so close to a retailer and disc-less options are necessary, and to them I'd ask how many people that remote have incredible internet bandwidth to wait out a +200GB download or, God forbid, rely on said bandwidth to sustain a two-way communication of real-time inputs at any appreciable level of fidelity?
"They can't accuse us of giving up on the Stadia if we just 'accidentally' ban everyone developing for it!"Terraria on Stadia Canceled After Google Locks Creator Out of Accounts
Terraria creator Andrew Spinks has announced that the game is canceled for Google Stadia after being locked out of his Google accounts.
Talk about having a bad week. Stadia loses another developer's support because Google are being useless pains in the arse.
The ownership angle makes sense but the thing is, everything requires an install now - especially current gen - because discs are too slow. PC has been at the forefront of this philosophy for decades now, and it’ll only be a matter of time before discs disappear altogether. It’s already tending heavily in favor of digital.
The resale of discs is nice, if the game is worth much. Usually it needs to be a fairly rare classic from two or three generations back to see your money back or more though. The other trade-off would be if discs get scratched and won’t play (though not really a problem with Blu-ray at least) you essentially lose the game, whereas with digital as long as the service is there you can redownload as much as you like.
Both disc and digital have dirt cheap sales, which is where it makes most sense to make an initial purchase. External drives can also now hold plenty of games on them without taking up extra space, and can be installed faster than discs. Perhaps there will still be physical media in the future that we don’t even know of yet, like something much more efficient than discs that act as portable high speed drives ready to go.
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They also want you to buy digitally to remove the 2nd hand market and the ability to sell your copy. If you want me to scratch your back, you better scratch mine too. That's why I don't buy digitally unless it's dirt cheap.
I sold Ghosts of Tsushima for $50 and I took at least a couple months to play it.
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The ability to trade in your old games was the last great thing consoles had left. It used to be the ability to just plug in a game and play, then you started to have to run updates, then you had to start installing games. Soon the discs will be gone and a console will just be a cheaper computer with less functionality, if they aren't already.
Maybe it’s because by the time I bothered selling any of my games there were already Greatest Hits editions out.
Not saying you're wrong; I know the trend is towards digital-only, just that I don't like it, and for all of the costs they've mitigated (discs, DVD boxes, paper inserts and box art, shipping, warehousing, distributing, etc.) why hasn't ANY of that savings trickled down to the consumer as the tenuous "ownership" of the games they're purchasing becomes more and more so?
Instead we get unoriginal games, riddled with microtransactions and filled with bugs, and game companies try to sell us the line that "games are more expensive to make; we actually need to charge MOAR!" It's just gross.
Disc games don’t even come with anything worthwhile anymore though, unfortunately. Unless they’re collector’s editions in a steel book case (which are cool) it’s usually just a packaging insert for a few, ironically enough, downloadable codes of something. It sucks, but just like a vinyl, 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, etc. have been phased out for music in favor of digital, so goes the game market. The fact that the console makers have banked on this with digital-only versions of their hardware shows that it’s only a matter of time.
Look at how people have to usually play legacy games on PC. They find some emulator program or use some digital service. Pretty soon it will require a workaround to get old physical media to even play on modern operating systems. I’ve never tried installing old CD-ROM games on Windows 10, but I suppose it would be a fun experiment.
This pretty much says it all -
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With the next console generation, buying digital looks better than ever
Is it time to abandon physical media?
Even if it just doesn't come with something worth while, unless it's a good collector's edition. I will still prefer buying a disc version, if the game is good. I'd rather have the physical copy, then some digital version that might disappear at some point. There's a whole bunch of digital games you cannot get anymore cuz they got delisted at some point. Emulators are nice and all, but I prefer having the actual thing. there are still plenty of Wiiware games that got delisted and there's no way to play them. No emulators for them either.Disc games don’t even come with anything worthwhile anymore though, unfortunately. Unless they’re collector’s editions in a steel book case (which are cool) it’s usually just a packaging insert for a few, ironically enough, downloadable codes of something. It sucks, but just like a vinyl, 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, etc. have been phased out for music in favor of digital, so goes the game market. The fact that the console makers have banked on this with digital-only versions of their hardware shows that it’s only a matter of time.
Look at how people have to usually play legacy games on PC. They find some emulator program or use some digital service. Pretty soon it will require a workaround to get old physical media to even play on modern operating systems. I’ve never tried installing old CD-ROM games on Windows 10, but I suppose it would be a fun experiment.
This pretty much says it all -
With the next console generation, buying digital looks better than ever
Is it time to abandon physical media?www.theverge.com
I mean I said this and many ohters did when the stadia dropped that this was doomed on arrival cause the good ol USA internet infrastructure is hot garbage doo doo butter buttcheeks.
The gross incompentence and terrible business decisions afterwards are just a bonus.
The gross incompentence and terrible business decisions afterwards are just a bonus.
I'm not saying digital downloads aren't a viable evolution of gaming; I'm saying that a critical part of it ISN'T evolving.Disc games don’t even come with anything worthwhile anymore though, unfortunately. Unless they’re collector’s editions in a steel book case (which are cool) it’s usually just a packaging insert for a few, ironically enough, downloadable codes of something. It sucks, but just like a vinyl, 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, etc. have been phased out for music in favor of digital, so goes the game market. The fact that the console makers have banked on this with digital-only versions of their hardware shows that it’s only a matter of time.
Look at how people have to usually play legacy games on PC. They find some emulator program or use some digital service. Pretty soon it will require a workaround to get old physical media to even play on modern operating systems. I’ve never tried installing old CD-ROM games on Windows 10, but I suppose it would be a fun experiment.
This pretty much says it all -
With the next console generation, buying digital looks better than ever
Is it time to abandon physical media?
I know game discs haven't been coming with any substantive for a while, I'm talking about the fact that digital offerings mitigate cost for publishers, i.e.: no cases, no artwork, no shipping, no warehouseing, no distribution and most obvious, no discs. Yet I'm still being charged the price that was agreed decades ago accounted for those expenses.
Your example of music media: I used to spend $15 on a whole CD of a singular artists, let's say 12 tracks on average per CD; I might love 5 of those songs. Today, I can go on services such as iTunes and buy just those 5 songs for $0.99 apiece; quite fair and the added benefit that I can download them, HUNDREDS of just the songs I like, to my device of choice. Or Spotify, I pay a flat, monthly rate for unlimited access to (not ownership of) ANY music they have on offer, which is a LOT. Again, fair.
Now, gaming... I used to spend $60 on a game disc that I then owned. Didn't matter if I played it today, next week, month or year; it was mine to play when I chose for my $60 investment to own it. Today, with the inexorable push towards digital and streaming, we're still paying $60 to own, but it's effectively a service contingent upon disc space on my console, high fidelity Internet and the availability of the provider who "sold" me the game. Difference between paying $20K for a car or $20K for a car, but the dealership keeps the keys and you hope they stay open on major holidays, don't go out of business or decide to make your model of car unavailable because demand for it slacks off.
I'm not against digital downloads at all. I'm against paying the same as what I used to pay when I'm not getting nearly as much. If discs go the way of the dinosaur, fine; so be it, but charge us substantially less for "ownership," or call it what it is, a service, and charge a monthly rate for access to whatever library they chose to offer.
That would assume development costs have stayed the same since the 90’s though, which isn’t the case. There was a pretty comprehensive analysis done on this recently, which excludes marketing costs for a clearer idea of actual “development” costs -
The cost of games
Guest Join gaming leaders online at GamesBeat Summit Next this upcoming November 9-10. Learn more about what comes next. Recently I was in Anaheim giving a talk called “Industry Lifecycles.” It was intended to be a brief summary of the blog post of the same title, with a dash of material from...
venturebeat.com
With the car example, the dealer isn't keeping the keys so much as storing a signal to reacquire the key in the future if it gets lost or you don’t have a backup made. It’s not like you need to ask permission to play if a game is on a HDD or SSD. With modern systems needing installs and updates to play games it’s really only offline legacy hardware that can subvert the digital advancements.
Then, the next question becomes well, even with my physical media, how long will it be before my legacy hardware goes bad rendering it useless anyways?
Let's just agree to disagree. You see the optimistic future of gaming, and I see the realistic future wherein control is leveled at consumers under the guise of convenience "at the same, low price!"That would assume development costs have stayed the same since the 90’s though, which isn’t the case. There was a pretty comprehensive analysis done on this recently, which excludes marketing costs for a clearer idea of actual “development” costs -
The cost of games
Guest Join gaming leaders online at GamesBeat Summit Next this upcoming November 9-10. Learn more about what comes next. Recently I was in Anaheim giving a talk called “Industry Lifecycles.” It was intended to be a brief summary of the blog post of the same title, with a dash of material from...venturebeat.com
With the car example, the dealer isn't keeping the keys so much as storing a signal to reacquire the key in the future if it gets lost or you don’t have a backup made. It’s not like you need to ask permission to play if a game is on a HDD or SSD. With modern systems needing installs and updates to play games it’s really only offline legacy hardware that can subvert the digital advancements.
Then, the next question becomes well, even with my physical media, how long will it be before my legacy hardware goes bad rendering it useless anyways?
Giving my view of things the "realistic" banner wasn't a jab; I'm not calling you naïve; it's just a quick glance at the industry on the whole leads me to believe their priorities don't really have the consumer in mind. For every RDR2 with realistic horse testicles, we get a Cyber Punk 2077 that spent more time marketing the famous face of the game, and less time ensuring the title wasn't a mess at launch. Everything in between those high profile outings is a clone of a clone, cashing in on trends and/or filled with mechanics to further drain our wallets for little to no appreciable return.
I’d be all for smaller, more densely designed games, on average. Some developers have the resources to go big, but it shouldn’t be for everyone. Gaming has turned into too much of an arms race because of competition for consumer dollars. It’s a vicious cycle.
That's why I only buy games when I want to play them when they're newish-ly released games. Sure, if I see a game on a good good sale that I want to play, I'll probably pick it up then, but I'm not paying $60 for a game and not playing it when I get home (like if I'm in the middle of another game). That doesn't always work out because you think you wanna play something, then you start playing it and don't dig it that much, but you're like "I'll get back to it and whatnot" or maybe a friend mentions another game and you realize you're a lot more in the mood to play that type of game now. I'm at least somewhat good at sticking to the plan.
