JPMar 3
"Gamers aren't buying games anymore":
https://www.vice.com/en/article/us-gamers-arent-buying-video-games-anymore-new-study-reveals
During the big platform subscription service push 6-8 years ago I was sounding the alarm about this. It seems inarguable now that the mass devaluation did happen and we are dealing with its consequences.
Show threadPer VognsenMar 3
@jplebreton It's really been a multi-phase assault. First F2P, then Steam sales, then GamePass and other lossleader subscriptions. F2P was ultimately less impactful to price vs value perception in the West because it's been for disjoint categories of games. Steam sales definitely conditioned people heavily in the PC space. What happened with GamePass was extremely predictable and unlike with Steam I think it's just an unmitigated bad thing unless you personally got the early money bags.
Show threadPer VognsenMar 3
@jplebreton We should probably also include early Humble Bundle in that mix. Which in addition to everything else had built-in charity-washing. It's been forgotten about so completely now that any time I see a pen-and-paper RPG bundle on some subreddit I follow, my reaction is always, "Oh yeah, some version of that company still exists".
Show threadJosh Simmons
@pervognsen @jplebreton i also find it interesting how effective the pay-what-you-want style in f2p (and things like humble bundle) is at extracting a lot of cash dollars when inequality of income increases. i'm guessing we're going to keep seeing deeper segmentation of the streaming market as well as companies try to lever as much as possible out of the community of higher income earners, while they slide ad revenue back in underneath to benefit from the broad subscriber base.
Mar 3 at 11:45pmPhanpy