Category Archives: Commentary
Axebox
There is every indication that Microsoft is set to fire a large swath of game developers and/or shut down entire studios in the next few days.
While Microsoft is weighing canceling Blade, it’s also exploring options to sell Arkane Studios. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Microsoft is trying to spin off Compulsion Games, Double Fine, and Ninja Theory, too. GamesBeat reported this week that Microsoft is actively looking for a buyer for Undead Labs, the developers behind State of Decay. If buyers are found for these studios, then they’ll avoid being closed, but sources stress these talks could take months in some cases.
If some of those studios sound vaguely familiar, it’s because they were showcased in the recent Xbox Games, er, Showcase. Like three weeks ago. Ninja Theory is the one developing Senua and Undead Labs has State of Decay 3, a game series that I have very much enjoyed in the past. If the studios don’t find a buyer soon though, they may be shuttered and the games canceled, no matter how close (or not) to release they were.
What has been interesting about this latest round of layoff news has been the general Reddit sentiment. A few years ago, there was an appropriate level of outrage when Tango Gameworks got axed right after releasing the award-winning Hi Fi Rush. With this latest teaser round of studio closures, the reactions are, at best, ¯\(ツ)/¯. Some are straight-up supportive.
…and more and more, I find myself falling into the latter camp.
To be clear, I find Microsoft generally abhorrent. I shill for Game Pass because I consider it a great value for consumers (for now), but everything else about Microsoft is bog-standard megacorp bullshit. Asking for your games division to have a 30% profit margin like the rest of your monopolies products is absurd. Buying studios and then shutting them down so that the IPs are forever entombed is tragic, let alone the reality of layoffs in this economy generally.
However. HOWEVER. Sometimes… there’s no baby in the bathwater, and you’re hanging on to dirty bathwater for no reason. Sometimes it’s been so fucking long since you’ve checked on the baby that he’s done grown up and moved out of the house. If Undead Labs gets dissolved and we lose State of Decay 3, I will be sad. Or would have been, if I hadn’t done some cursory Google searches:
A 2022 investigation by Kotaku reported on a sexist studio culture, which was abetted by Philip Holt, the new studio head who replaced Strain, and then-head of HR Anne Schlosser.[15] Schlosser was removed after a Microsoft HR investigation. The toxic work environment, which continued after Schlosser’s departure, led to a high employee turnover rate, especially among experienced staff. These issues, combined with a lack of design vision, contributed to extensive delays in the development of State of Decay 3.[15] Employees also blamed Microsoft for not living up to its goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion by not responding to reports of abuse in a timely manner.[15]
Back in April, I wrote Game Development is Expensive for Dumb Reasons. This is the sort of thing I am talking about. Presumably not every studio has the same skeletons in their closets, but the point is that these companies are not releasing games faster because of incompetent (at best) leadership. It does not have to take 6+ years to develop a game. The original Mass Effect trilogy came out in 2007, 2010, and 2012. Can you imagine how long it would take for any other trilogy to come out these days?
Arguably, Microsoft should not have bought all these studios in the first place. Or maybe if they didn’t buy Activision Blizzard, they would have had the time to let the devs cook longer before layoffs. But it could also be true that many of these studios would/should have died on their own via natural selection. We’re used to being outraged by publishers closing studios, but I somehow doubt that Undead Labs could have gone 6+ years without another product to sell without folding on their own. Mayhap it was the Microsoft money that encouraged the foolishness and dulled the scrappy edge.
I dunno. The sympathy I have for game developers in general is at an all-time low. The live-service bubble is for sure popping, and the economics of AAA games in general is collapsing along with it. And it kind of has to, for everyone’s sake. The status quo is being made possible by only the most extreme psychological hacks, FOMO, battle passes, gacha mechanics, etc. Remember when these companies were incentivized by, you know, selling more copies of the game? The indie and AA developers remember because that is pretty much all they have access to. We should get back to that.
Soon enough, there may not be another choice.
Steam Machine is $1000+
Remember eight months ago where I imagined a fantasy of the Steam Machine costing $650? Apparently, it was a bargain at nearly twice the price:
I took that screenshot directly from the Steam interface. It’s official. Valve is legitimately selling a 512GB Steam Machine with no controller for $1049. That’s a big yikes. Suffice it to say, Valve will not be capturing the coveted Azuriel market, or arguably any reasonable market whatsoever.
The funny/tragic thing though, is that this pricing is actually pretty spot-on when it comes to off-the-shelf computer components these days. From the various Reddit posts, a few people have been able to use PC Parts Picker to find slightly cheaper configurations. For example, this one clocks in at $971. However, there is a big difference between a 6-inch cube and a bog-standard 17″x8″x17″ case.
That said, once you are in $1,428 territory, you may as well buy a CyberPower or other prebuilt PC.
Ah well. I still anticipate the Steam Machine will sell out, considering how the Steam Deck also sold out despite getting a huge markup. At this price though, I just don’t see it affecting the broader videogame market in the same way that the Steam Deck did. I never bought the Deck, but it absolutely influenced what other companies offered in the handheld space. In this case, the Steam Machine is likely just another grave marker for the AI madness that has gripped the economy.
Stop Killing Games Stopped, Possibly Killed
You may or may not have heard about the Stop Killing Games movement, which was an attempt to raise awareness and foster legislation around the games industry predilection towards, well, killing games they sold. For example, it is not uncommon these days for single-player games to authenticate or “phone home” on start-up. If the publisher decides to shut down that authentication server, whoops, your game is bricked. Other multiplayer games may feature both online and local multiplayer modes, but will still be nonfunctional even via local connections if the overall game is shut down.
Recently, the movement made it all the way to the European Commission, where it had perhaps its best hope of achieving something actionable. Unfortunately, it fell short.
The Commission considers that at this stage it cannot propose a legal obligation to keep video games playable after they stop being provided commercially. This is due, also, to existing intellectual property rights. Under EU copyright law, rights holders enjoy exclusive rights over their creations. In addition to copyright, other intellectual property rights may also be relevant as they may protect different visual and technological aspects of a video game.
Existing EU consumer law already provides for important safeguards protecting the economic interests of consumers. Video game providers must inform consumers about the duration and the conditions for terminating the contract before the consumers signs up for the video game. The Directive on digital content and digital services provides consumers with remedies when the content or service provided does not conform with the contract and what consumers could reasonably expect. Consumers may be entitled to proportionate refund of their purchases.
My title is a bit sensationalist, as the movement continues on along other avenues. In the US, there is the Protect Our Games Act moving forward in the California legislature. Back in the EU, I believe the focus is now on the Digital Fairness Act, where some of the goals may still be achievable.
What I really wanted to talk about with this topic though, is the frustrating counter-arguments surrounding it. Specifically, the sort of “you can’t just legislate that” or “how it is achievable needs to be expressly defined” arguments. Uh, no. As demonstrated by the apparently worldwide age verification push – and insane attacks against VPN usage – shit gets mandated by fiat all the damn time.
I understand that that is… perhaps not the sort of comparison that invites sympathy to a movement. Nevertheless, the sort of reductive, prescriptionist mindset of “you can’t do that because it doesn’t work that way” grinds my gears when, in fact, people have to put up with crazy, non-consumer-friendly changes all the time. See also: Congressional approval for wars longer than 60 days, repaying unconstitutional tariffs, rampant corruption, etc, etc, etc. Just because we have normalized “buying” revokable licenses to play the games in question doesn’t mean we have to accept it forever.
Hell, go nuclear with it: force game companies to replace the words Buy/Purchase with RENT, if it’s in fact just a revokable license. Let GOG and any other storefront that allows for offline downloads continue to use Buy/Purchase, assuming the game can still be played with the servers shut off. “But Azuriel, what constitutes ‘playable’ if it requires 100 TB servers to function?” “What if the devs ‘update’ the game to be Pong in the last patch before shutdown and claim that they made the game playable?” Simple – see ya in court! Maybe have some teeth in there so that there is an automatic refund (to include DLC and cash shop) mechanism until/unless the publishers demonstrate they were in the right.
Things don’t have to be shitty. We used to own things, no matter what the EULAs said. If you still have a functioning Playstation 2 and a PS2 game, you can go play it right now. Warner Brothers doesn’t get to remotely delete the DVDs on your shelves just because the studios merged and then shut down. Your books are (probably) not written in disappearing ink that takes proprietary lamps to display.
“But what about all the potential games this could hurt?” Fuck’em. No, seriously, if the economic viability of your entire design is predicated on smoke and mirrors and otherwise leaving town before the bill comes due, maybe don’t make that game. Maybe nothing of value will be lost.
I dunno, guys. I never played Anthem, even when it was “free” on Game Pass. But it’s gone now for everyone, including the people who bought it, forever. Even though, technically, you could spin up a private server, assuming you don’t get sued. Sure, IP owners own the IP, so if they don’t want to sell it anymore, that is their right; Disney used to “vault” their classic movies on a rotating basis, presumably as a marketing ploy or whatever. If you had bought Cinderella though, you could still watch it. If someone can prove they purchased Anthem, what’s the actual harm in letting them run a copy?
The industry just seems to keep coming back around to having pirates offer the superior version of the product, e.g. one that works. I understand why things are set up this way, but they don’t have to be. Nor do I have to figure it out for them. Maybe fewer $80 game rentals is exactly what we need.
Gaming News Roundup
A lot of gaming news came out this week. Here is what I have been keeping an eye on.
Fable (Feb 2027)
I never got into the Fable series back in the day, as they were XBox exclusives for a long while. Technically, the first and third entries are in my Steam library, but Fable 3 crashing during an auto-save didn’t cut it in 2016, let alone a decade later. What is cutting things, is this 30-minute gameplay trailer.
The systems presented are very gamified, as I am sure the originals were as well, but I was impressed nonetheless with the overall game vibe. “Romance any random NPC” telegraphs that romance isn’t that deep, but maybe that doesn’t matter if you take a shining to a particular barkeep or general narrative. No doubt there will be forum posts detailing RimWorld-esque grotesqueries such as swooning the orphan whose parents you murdered for no reason.
But you know what? Good on them. When you build a sandbox, sometimes you are going to uncover some buried shit.
Anyway, I’m excited. It’s also going to be on Game Pass, so there’s that too.
Palworld 1.0 (July 10th)
After my original forays into Palworld two years ago, I have not touched the game since. While the zeitgeist has moved on, I was waiting for precisely this particular bit of news, e.g. a version 1.0 release. I do not have grand delusions that any developer takes versioning seriously, but if you are going to pick a particular point in time to make final determination as to the quality of a game, I figure 1.0 is about as good as anything.
You can watch the latest trailer here. It has nothing on the very original teaser trailer, but then again, nothing else really could.
Valheim 1.0 (September 9th)
Same deal as Palworld. Played for almost 50 hours five years ago, and stopped once I ran out of Early Access road (and encountered placeholder monster drops). I have some concerns about what I have heard about the Mistlands experience already in the game, but we shall see. Trailer here.
Abiotic Factor: Entropic Break (Autumn 2026)
I almost didn’t include this one, as I am not entirely sure how I feel about it. Specifically, Abiotic Factor is getting a DLC released later this year. Which is good! But I spent nearly 160 hours playing the game already, and I’m not certain whether I want (or am able to be) sucked in back in. Trailer here.
Guild Wars 3, Anti-Hyped
I had intended to make a post earlier in the week, when rumors that ArenaNet were planning a big reveal at Summer Game Fest began surfacing. But since things were going to be revealed on Friday, I figured I may as well wait. In any case, the rumors are true: Guild Wars 3 is a thing.
I could not be any less hyped. In fact, I feel negative hype.
The trailer is whatever. It’s fine. The issue is that this announcement effectively kills Guild Wars 2 for me.
Although I haven’t been posting too much about it, I have low-key been playing GW2 for several sessions each week pretty consistently. My goals have mostly revolved around completing the weekly Wizard Vault quests to earn currency to purchase some of the account upgrades in said Wizard Vault (bag slots, etc), with some farming routes on the side. From a game perspective, both of those activities were in service of working towards additional Legendary items to share amongst my characters. And remember, getting a Legendary means you never have to worry about that specific gear slot again.
…until there is an entirely new game that obsoletes all your work.
This isn’t my first rodeo – I’ve played WoW for more than a decade, and every expansion had green gear better than your raid purples. The continuity though came in the form of cosmetics/transmogs, titles, mounts, toys, Achievements, a sense of pride and accomplishment, gold, etc. There will undoubtedly be Hall of Monuments deal wherein you can get some exclusive skins in the new game for having X or Y achievements in GW2, just as there was coming from GW1, but it is not the same.
I dunno. People still play “dead”/maintenance mode MMOs all the time. Of all the alternatives out there, GW2 remains a fairly unique example of one where horizontal progression means you can indeed do most anything you want to as soon as you hit the level cap. If I were solely interested in exploration or drinking in the scenery or whatever, then there would still be a lot to like. However, I still prefer form and function, and if not for the hitherto meaningful function of Legendary crafting, I don’t see much marrow left on the bones for me. Nevermind how difficult it will be acquiring the hundreds of components of these items once the population winnows down, events fail for lack of players, and economy withers.
We shall see, I guess. Guild Wars 3 is going to launch into beta in Fall 2027. No word yet on any plans for future content in GW2 leading up to that (or afterwards).
About that E33 MoCap
I heaped a lot of praise about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s (E33) character animations already, and yet I feel a bit remiss for not showing what I was talking about. Below is a Youtube link to a “behind-the-scenes compilation of several early-game scenes, which includes both the finished game sequence (sans official voice actors) + the motion capture actors.
I would not consider these to be spoilers, as they occur within the first 5ish hours of the game. But…
In my First Impressions post, I said the following:
Nearly 14 years ago, I was blown away by Mass Effect’s wink, and here in Expedition 33 I just witnessed a character search another’s eyes to see if they truly meant what they said. You know, her face close, the silence, her eyes going back and forth with purpose, debriding the layers of your soul. I don’t know how, but they captured it. The bar has been raised again.
Feel free to watch the whole four-minute video, but the soul debridement happens at around 3:25.
All of it is so ridiculously good that I had to look up whether Sandfall Interactive had invented some secret tech or whatever, because why isn’t every new game coming out like this? Did they pour 80% of their budget into mocap or something?
Near as I can tell… nope. Or, technically nope. Most of the magic outside the performances themselves comes from off-the-shelf features of Unreal Engine 5. So, in many ways the “secret sauce” had a lot to do with being a new, smaller team without a lot of tech debt being able to pivot to an entirely new game engine at the perfect time. As this article points out, most of the work they did in UE4 had to be redone entirely due to the engine differences. One could imagine how much work would be thrown away if instead it was in a custom-made engine. A larger studio with 500 developers with 15+ years of experience on a proprietary engine is thus unlikely to be able to match E33 anytime soon (if ever).
Which… goddamn. Talk about perfect time and place.
In any case, I am a bit more optimistic about the (gaming) future. Sandfall Interactive probably doesn’t quite qualify as an “indie” studio, but I do consider these smaller teams to be the best path through the coming industry implosion. That we get to enjoy premium facial animations while doing so is all the more a bargain.
GameNative
It took me several hours to set up my Retroid Pocket 6 (RP6) with all the emulators and copies of 30+ year-old games. Then I downloaded an app called GameNative, and within minutes had access to over 2000ish of my games across Steam, Epic, Amazon (?!), and GOG. And it is seriously changing the way I look at games and how I play them.
Probably.
In the likely event you haven’t been watching RetroGameCorps or TechDweeb videos for the last year, the handheld gaming scene is having a Renaissance moment. The nostalgia mining element has always been there – “Here is a $80 GBA-looking thing that plays PlayStation 1 games!” – but there are only so many of those veins to go around. Then the Steam Deck came and kind of blew open the more premium tier of handheld devices. In the last year or so, though, there have been some serious developments on the software side of things that allow for Steam to more easily communicate on Android devices without a lot of workarounds. This includes automatically applying drivers and settings and tweaks to get games to function correctly.
I don’t know all the technical stuff, but as Todd Howard would say: it just works.
…for most games. The RP6 I own has a chipset which is the equivalent to a 1050ti graphics card, for example, and only 8 GB of RAM. I’m not going to be playing Cyberpunk 2077 or Baldur’s Gate 3 on this thing. However, most of the games I have (by volume) aren’t AAA titles. Hell, I spent like 200+ hours in March playing Mewgenics and Slay the Spire 2. And guess what? Both games fully work on the RP6 and include cloud saves. Granted, Mewgenics isn’t as controller-friendly as I’d like, but still!
As mentioned earlier, all this is changing the way I look at games in general. For one thing, it has me reexamining my entire decade+ Steam/Epic/Amazon/GOG libraries to see if there are games that I may have otherwise ignored/missed that could be more fun by virtue of playing on a handheld.
For example, I just played through the entirety of Celeste on the RP6. Was it a better experience than just playing on my PC with a controller? Probably not. In fact, I ended up purchasing a separate grip for the RP6 because I was getting hand cramps after playing more than an hour straight with the RP6. Although that might be more due to Celeste’s control scheme and precision platforming. The fact remains that I did stick with it and beat Celeste in little 15-20 minute increments in-between meetings, while waiting for other games to load, and eventually just in straight-up long sessions. Celeste is certainly more amenable for this sort of gameplay experience than other games might be, but it’s a proof of concept for me. Plus, as an Android device, the software manages to perfectly (thus far) suspend the game at a moment’s notice if something were to come up.
After reviewing my existing catalog, I have begun to pay more attention to all those ancillary (bundle) sales that I may have hitherto ignored. Just this past week, I picked up Journey and Donut County for just over $3 apiece. I haven’t played Journey in just about 13 years and I would probably enjoy it more on a larger screen… but the fact that I could play it (natively!) on a handheld? Yes, please. As for Donut County, that looks precisely like the sort of goofy fun I wish to be able to conjure up to fill in the gaps between moments.
Not everything is sunshine and rainbows, of course. I was initially excited to finally have an excuse to play Rain World, but everything looks tiny on the RP6 and there aren’t any in-game graphical options to correct it. Slay the Spire 2 has controller support already, but not touchscreen support that I can tell. As mentioned, Mewgenics is playable, but there’s no way I’m going to move the mouse cursor around with a thumbstick the entire game when I just want to move a few squares. I anticipate many such idiosyncrasies as I load into various games.
Overall though, I’m finding GameNative to be a game-changer for me. In many ways, this functionality was what I was waiting for the Steam Machine for. The Retroid Pocket 6 has video out capability, so it technically fulfills that portion too, if I were so inclined. All that is left, really, is to check its MineCraft capability. And wouldn’t you know, MineCraft is on Android and this is an Android device.
So, my guess is: “pretty good.” Better than on Switch? We shall see.
Retroid Pocket 6 and Nostalgia Horizon
I previously purchased and just now received (a month later) a Retroid Pocket 6 (RP6).
The total was $275. “But, Azuriel, don’t you already have two retro handhelds?” I do. “Then surely you are using them so much that an upgraded experience is warranted?” Hahaha.
Here’s the thing: I considered the RP6 a defensive purchase. Do I need it? No, my PC plays everything I could possibly want, including the very games being emulated. But will I always be able to power my PC to play some dumb game or another? Who knows. Plus, prices are only going up.
I’m not here saying that the RP6 is necessarily a prepping item, but I do know that it is a complete package that is capable of playing all the games I have nostalgia for. My prior handhelds could do up to PS1/N64, but the lack of an analog stick made those difficult (despite the PS1 not having a stick…). Plus, you know, it also does Switch, a bunch of Steam games via GameNative, Android ports, and some fancy shit like plugging into a TV and operating like a mini-console. We’ll see how that works out.
That phrase though, “All the games I have nostalgia for,” got me thinking. When I look back, the PS2 is very much the caboose of my nostalgia train. I technically had a GameCube and a PS3, but the library of games I played on those two combined are dwarfed by anything I played elsewhere. I never purchased a PS4 or PS5, nor any Xbox console. I pretty much went from PS2 to a straight PC, playing Battlefield 2, then Magic Online, then World of Warcraft, then a decade-long fugue state and yada yada here we are.
But… why? Why do I feel no nostalgia for games past PS2?
The simple answer that comes to mind is the coincidental end of an age: I had graduated college and started the 9-5 drudgery of adult existence right when the PS2 “ended.” That feels about right. At the same time though… it doesn’t really explain why I don’t feel nostalgia for games like Command & Conquer, Diablo 2, DOOM, and Fallout 1 & 2, all of which I played on PC within that same window.
Is it because the PC “era” more fuzzy? I have changed computers several times over the intervening decades, but still interact with the games using the same keyboard and mouse interface. In contrast, I had to relearn like nine different controller types in that same period. Hmm. Nah, that doesn’t feel like a legitimate reason.
The only thing left that comes to mind is, perhaps, that the nostalgia is tied to specific (social) memories. Games like FF7 blew my high school mind, but it was further cemented in memory when I then started bringing all my friends over to watch the cinematics (after loading one of the many specific save files curated for that purpose). There was nostalgia for GoldenEye after probably a dozen or more weeks of split-screen multiplayer deathmatch parties. Facility + Proximity Mine only = hilarity ensued. I have some very formative (and social!) memories surrounding Command & Conquer that I may share at a later time, but few other kids my age had PCs available, let alone games for them.
Anyway, there it is. Retroid Pocket 6 acquired.
[E33] Back on the Horse
After a quick, 250-hour detour through Mewgenics and Slay the Spire 2, I am back on the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (E33) horse.
It’s a very beautiful horse. Very sleek, powerful. Just wish I didn’t have to muck the stall all the time.
As before, it all comes down to the combat system. In short, I do not find it fun at all. There are certain aspects of the pre-combat planning bits that I do find engaging. There is a ton of customization when it comes to choosing which Pictos (passives) to have active, with synergies and combos galore. Indeed, the whole thing actively reminded me of Final Fantasy Tactics and the the Job system, where you could mix and match certain abilities together. Every time I pick up a new Picto, I start reviewing the whole list and see where it generates new interactions.
The actual battle execution is just not my cup of tea. I’m no longer “punishing myself” by trying to Parry every enemy attack, and just using Dodge instead. This has improved the experience quite a bit, or at least lowered the frustration, but fundamentally combat is still just a long series of Quick Time Events. You have to Dodge/Parry in games like Dark Souls too, but you can also strafe, run away, approach at different angles, and so on, which makes the Dodge/Parry feel less binary overall. Not so in E33.
It also doesn’t help that all the fun and exciting parts of combat are heavily focused on the Dodge/Parry mechanics. If you successfully Parry every attack in a sequence, you gain AP and deal immense counter-damage and greatly increase the Break bar. With the right Pictos, you also heal and get a bunch of other bonuses. Dodging attacks gives you like 1 AP total, if you have the appropriate Picto equipped. Granted, certain Picto combinations can give you AP for face-tanking if you don’t want to press buttons at all, but the point is that very clearly the game puts the ideal “Parry everything” reward front and center. So even though I am progressing through the game just fine, it certainly feels like I’m just not engaging with like half of it.
Which… is probably accurate, honestly. If this wasn’t Expedition 33, I would have stopped playing.
Luckily (?), it is Expedition 33, and I am committed to seeing it through. All the positives about the characters, the emotions, the evocative environments that remind me of Journey are still there. There is something special to be said about a game that compels you to take 5-10 screenshots a session, including of the dialog.
And so, I continue on. For those that come after.
In An Age 
Digital Resell, 2026 Edition
Jul 9
Posted by Azuriel
The gaming news of this past week was Sony’s announcement that they are ceasing production of game discs starting in January 2028. In completely unrelated news, Sony is also removing access to ~500ish movies from customer libraries while offering zero refunds for otherwise permanently lost access to
movieslicensespurchasedrented with real money. While the ascent and eventual domination of digital has been a long time coming, it is perhaps an especially ignoble end coming first from the same company that put out this (at the time) devasting advertisement.There are a lot of different concerns surrounding the upcoming loss of physical media in the game sphere – Bhagpuss and others have shared a few – but I keep circling back to the fundamental, unresolved question of: do we have the right to resell things we purchased, specifically games?
Yes… but also no.
Everyone intuitively understands and accepts that a physical disc or cartridge can be resold. As soon as it becomes exclusively digital though, suddenly it is a wildly different thing… for no particularly good reason. We already have ubiquitous DRM, we already have storefronts capable of revoking access to games on an account level. What’s the hang-up? Other than unabashed corporate greed?
I made post in 2015 about this topic, which also referenced a 2012 legal outcome in the EU that stated software licenses could be resold. Considering that nothing seems to have come from that, suffice it to say there must have been some carve outs that game publishers just sailed their mega-yachts through.
My next follow-up was in 2019 where, spoilers, the issue remains unresolved. Although, at that time there was a new gaming storefront called Robot Cache that was set to revolutionize the market by allowing digital game licenses to be resold, with publishers taking a cut of the profits. I wonder where that ended up…
Oh. So the worst possible ending, eh?
I have been a PC gamer for decades now, for which a resell mechanism has not truly existed since the beginning. Why care now? Because we as consumers are losing out. I have specifically purchased almost all my Switch games as physical versions, because there is utility in being able to resell them on eBay or GameStop or whatever else. The only exceptions were Mario Kart 8 that “came with the system,” and Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom which were purchased at a discount via Nintendo vouchers. For all the other games, since they cost the same either way, I essentially had a choice: convenience of not having to swap out cartridges, or being able to recapture 50% or more of the value of the original price. Option B was of greater utility to me, so that’s what I went with. Sony will be eliminating that option for everyone on their platform in 2028. That’s a loss, whether you used it or not.
I don’t expect much progress on the digital reselling front in the near future, especially under current regimes, but I do feel like the topic will become increasingly urgent. The industry has been coasting on the (occasionally court-imposed) good graces of Valve and Steam, but Gabe Newell is 63 years old. Already we sort of hand-wave away the inability to bequeath a Steam library upon death, but there’s a future in which Gabe retires/dies, Valve goes public, and all sorts of corporate tomfoolery occurs. Legally, what stops Valve from revoking access to games in your library arbitrarily? A Terms of Service… that can be amended at any time?
Sony already has us trained to accept that entire storefronts can close, such as the PSP and PSOne in 2021, and now the PS3 and Vita stores in 2027. If you previously purchased a game, you can still download it “for the foreseeable future,” but it kinda makes you think. I can still download and install Farcry 2 and Kane & Lynch: Dead Men via Steam, both of which show up as Last Played in 2011. Maybe that is a trivial expense on Steam servers, but we can imagine a scenario in which a public Valve invokes the same “adapt to consumer trends” language to essentially prune the storefront. Again, what stops them? Potentially negative PR?
I don’t imagine there would be much of a resell market for my copy of Farcry 2 or Kane & Lynch: Dead Men all these years later. And ironically, IsThereAnyDeal shows that people can buy Farcry 2 “new” for like $2.40 right now. But I feel like having some stronger sense of legal ownership even over the license is necessary to dissuade future shenanigans. Or, fine, go all the way the other direction and replace Buy/Purchase with Rent.
Posted in Commentary
5 Comments
Tags: Game License, Resell, Sony, State of the Industry, Storefront, Used Games