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Major Games Publishers Are Feeling The Impact Of Peaking Attention (midiaresearch.com) 168

Posted by msmash from the getting-to-the-bottom-of-things dept.
Some analysis from research firm MIDiA: Earlier this month Electronic Arts (EA) reported disappointing quarterly results, now Activision has laid off nearly 800 staff, mostly in marketing and sales. As MIDiA has reported multiple times before, engagement has declined throughout the sector, suggesting that the attention economy has peaked. Consumers simply do not have any more free time to allocate to new attention seeking digital entertainment propositions, which means they have to start prioritizing between them.

This downward trend in engagement has persisted for a while now, and the latest quarterly results from some major games publishers confirm that a revenue slowdown will ultimately follow consumer behaviour. Arguably sooner than most of the games industry would have thought. Publishers will be quick to blame declining engagement and revenues on Fortnite. While the title indeed intensified the manifestation of the peak attention economy dynamics among gamers, the coming slowdown is part of a much bigger challenge -- how to capture attention in an increasingly attention-scarce landscape.

Top publishers are facing several headwinds at the same time. Fortnite is only one of them, and arguably one of the less harmful ones to the long-term outlook of the games industry: Fortnite's model utilises the attention economy dynamics: It's a high-grade gaming experience and it's free to play, which means there is little barrier for consumers to allocate attention to, compare to its paid counterparts. While it has undoubtedly cannibalised some revenue and engagement from other major publishers, Fortnite engagement still contributes to the bottom line of the global games industry.
More gamers engage with games videos and events than Fortnite: Not only is engagement declining across mobile, PC and console gaming, at the same time, video is winning the race against gaming in capturing attention on multipurpose devices such as PC.
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Major Games Publishers Are Feeling The Impact Of Peaking Attention

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  • It's a high-grade gaming experience and it's free to play

    So giving away games for free hurts the competition. Who knew?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I think there's a touch more to it than that, plenty of Free to Play games have crashed recently.

      It's a high-grade gaming experience

      I've not played Fortnite so I'll take them at their word on this, but the past couple of years have been quite bad for AAA games not meeting expectations. Some have been met with "it looks a bit different but otherwise it's more of the same", some have blatantly not lived up to their advertising, and some have been buggy and poor experiences. The initial impressions of upcomi

      • Re: Sustainable business model (Score:5, Interesting)

        by tysonedwards ( 969693 ) on Monday February 18, 2019 @09:56AM (#58139596)
        Perhaps the problem is market fatigue due to post sale monetization. Today, buying a game that isn't intentionally hobbled to allow for micro transactions is rare. Metal Gear Survive came out with a requirement to pay for a game save slot - the permission to save your progress. You have the likes of Madden and FIFA coming out where it's no longer a game of skill or strategy as building your team is making your best of random unlocks unless you pay for them. You have Call of Duty putting shame icons next to players who don't have the season pass, preventing people from playing all the maps without kicking them from matchmaking. Deus Ex Human Revolution had you pay to unlock and level your various skills in the game at 1.99 a piece, or else to unlock your entire tech tree it would take ~3800 hours to unlock them... For a single player, story driven game. And yes, this literally has made me ignore a number of titles I previously looked forward to.

        • Perhaps the problem is market fatigue due to post sale monetization.

          This is what has fatigued me about the F2P mobile scene, for sure. I like to pay for the games that I play. I know that making of these games costs money, so if I really like a game and keep playing, I think it's reasonable to pay a reasonable amount for the game.

          The only only problem is very few people do it. So the finances aren't based around most people paying a reasonable amount to unlock content/whatever. The finances are based on the assumption that you'll have a much smaller number of people paying

        • I think so as well, the problem really is that the AAA publishers nickel and dime every cent of the customers mobile style. They basically saw that this worked for mobile games and some of them raked huge profits (casual market which does not really know any better) and then they basically brought this business model to the PC and console side and alienated a lot of core gamers that way especially when this model was pay2win mobile style.
          P2W models are basically also the main reason why I do not look at mob

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Warma ( 1220342 )

          I have to ask, what are you even talking about?

          I played through Human Revolution an didn't even know you could spend money to unlock skills - they were unlocked by Praxis Points which you got from items Praxis Pack or whatever) found within the game. Even if I just never found the money option, I still don't get this accusation - the game took some 20 hours to finish, and time to unlock skills is not even relevant in this sense, as it was an action role-playing game, so there was a limited, but sufficient a

  • This is meaningless:
    "More gamers engage with games videos and events than Fortnite."
    There is no conclusion.
    Makes the article worthless.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      Advertising and media.... those entire FIELDS are worthless speculation and bullshit. My sister in law used to have a regional/latam position in a media co and agrees with me. It's all BS. But they'll take the money anyway. And when are Discovery, Disney or Time Warner going to give us another amazing free luxury trip to NY/Galapagos/Marrakesh again?

    • The article started with "peak attention" and talked about two horrible companies that make horrible products, and I decided it wasn't even worth clicking on.

      Possibly we have so much to do we can afford ot be choosy. It's also possible that literally everything EA and Activision spew out is not only trash, but steadily declining trash. We've gone from the kitchen garbage can and steadily degraded to dumpster fire, and of course people are choosing to do literally anything other than play games from those id

  • Bring The Buggles back for this, please. We need a new take on this ironic, but iconic, turn of events.
  • EA and Blizzard are publishing mostly shitty games. Indeed, aside Nintendo, I'm basically stopped playing "AAA" games (the ones that you'll be able to pay $10 in a promotion 3 months later) since 5 ago. I prefer play retrogames: as they're better games in their roots and for most of them a 30 minutes session will be enough. Old games you play to feel the hero. In modern games, you watch a CG of the hero in action. Videogames are about gaming, not about cinematic or storytelling.

    • The funny thing is that both companies have some awesome IP.

      EA could make cash hand over fist if they decided to crack open some of the old Origin games and make them.

      For example, an Ultima reboot. Not a "mobile friendly" app that demands DLC and microtransactions to play, but a complete revamping of the series, where one buys the game, with zero microtransactions. No Avatar loot boxes, no mongbat pets, no fluff... but a return to basic plot and gameplay.

      EA would make money hand over fist if they did this

      • It's not about IP, "plot and gameplay" take talent; microtransactions, always-on connectivity to collect user data, loot boxes, etc don't. The fact they seem to have ditched mostly marketing and sales people may be a sign they are starting to catch on to this, but generally large companies have stable management placement programs, to such an extent that they don't place people in positions of leadership who can see the issues faced any better than they guys before them - so I don't have a lot of faith tha

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      EA and Blizzard are publishing mostly shitty games.

      This. They're both trying to blame Fortnite for their problems, but they simply don't make great games any more. Perhaps giant corporate conglomerates never can.

      AAA games focus on presentation, not gameplay, as that's the easiest way to get first-week sales. But when gameplay is bad game after game, not to mention code quality and server quality, people start to notice. I sure as heck won't buy e.g. the next Diablo without seeing reviews (by post-launch reviewers - everyone who gets pre-launch copies

    • When have "AAA" publishers looking for a profits from CEOs whose salaries could easily fund a smaller more agile studio. Or could replace them with those who are more like the late Satoru Iwata, and willing to cut their own pay in slim times.

      Really what needs to be done is take guys like Bobby Kotick out of the picture. He wants fear? Give me a few minutes with voting stock, and watch him fall flat on his ass as to change his contract to remove the golden parachute to replace it with one made of frayed nylo

    • Has EA ever had a good game?

  • are going to have to learn to code some other projects.

  • Video game market is alive and well (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Monday February 18, 2019 @09:20AM (#58139354)
    EA, Ubisoft, et al. are not.

    So I have a choice with my leisure time, do I play the latest Medal of Snorefare 78 Rehashed edition where for £44 I can buy half a game and be expected to front up another 9 £6 transactions to get the full game...

    Or I can play a game from a studio that interacts with it's community, cares about game-play, balance and re-playability, provides free content updates and fixes bugs (well, mostly)... Is it little wonder Paradox, Eleon and System Era see more of my money?

    EA wen't off to chase the casual crowd with dumbed down "everyone gets a prize" and pay to win games. This had the nasty effect of alienating actual gamers who spend their money on games. Generic Sports 20XX isn't bringing in the money now they have to spend millions on advertising and people are realising that its the same game as last year.

    Another problem is that they expect me to install yet another resource sucking, update popup producing crapware client to run their games. I refuse to do this, ergo EA lost me long ago, as did Ubisoft.

    • EA, Ubisoft, et al. are not.

      So I have a choice with my leisure time, do I play the latest Medal of Snorefare 78 Rehashed edition where for £44 I can buy half a game and be expected to front up another 9 £6 transactions to get the full game...

      Or I can play a game from a studio that interacts with it's community, cares about game-play, balance and re-playability, provides free content updates and fixes bugs (well, mostly)... Is it little wonder Paradox, Eleon and System Era see more of my money?

      EA wen't off to chase the casual crowd with dumbed down "everyone gets a prize" and pay to win games. This had the nasty effect of alienating actual gamers who spend their money on games. Generic Sports 20XX isn't bringing in the money now they have to spend millions on advertising and people are realising that its the same game as last year.

      Another problem is that they expect me to install yet another resource sucking, update popup producing crapware client to run their games. I refuse to do this, ergo EA lost me long ago, as did Ubisoft.

      Yeah, most of my gameplay is Mount and Blade, Factorio, RimWorld, Kenshi, Oxygen Not Included and trying to get into Astroneer. I still play some Fallout 4 for settlement building and a new survival play through and doing the original Mass Effect series again. The major studios just don't have any new releases I care about, The Outer Worlds has my attention and I'm hopeful for Starfield and the next Elder Scrolls, but otherwise most of my money goes to small and indie developers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        Sounds like you missed Kerbal Space Program - don't overlook it if you like the games you listed.

        • Sounds like you missed Kerbal Space Program - don't overlook it if you like the games you listed.

          Landed and returned from every body in the Kerbin system, except Eve and Jool. Working next on setting up stations around every body and reusable "taxis" between them, rather than direct from kerbol missions. Haven't been back for a while as I've gone back to school and the design part of my brain for KSP seems to conflict with the part for school, the other game does seem to have quite as much mental design requirements.

          Good suggestion though!

    • Cyberpunk 2077 will have none of that BS and be on GOG DRM FREE!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )

      "Interacts with its community" is neither fun nor entertaining. Why do you want so desperately to be pandered to? I'd rather have a good product than a product that panders to Internet forum people.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        It's much better than "ignores it's community". This is especially true for bugs, rather than design choices. It's really good to see developers taking bugs seriously, and engaging with players on how to send the info they need to fix the bug.
         

    • Battlefield V sold 7.3 million copies. Far Cry 5 was the best selling game in the franchise.

      These companies are doing insanely great. But it's never enough. [youtube.com] If you grew 600% last year you better grow 700% this year.

      It's a symptom of a larger structural problems with our economy. Like Payless Shoes [vox.com] and Toys R US. It's why we're about to go into a (completely avoidable) recession...

      • Re:Activision had record profits (Score:4, Insightful)

        by lgw ( 121541 ) on Monday February 18, 2019 @02:21PM (#58141022) Journal

        It's a problem with corporate governance. Growth is usually favored over sustained dividends. The problem was created by the favorable tax treatment of capital gains over dividends - investors of course want their profits in a lower-tax way. But it has created a disease that has killed business after business, as corporate leadership seems unable to say "we've won: we've saturated the market and this business can't double again because we already have more than half the possible customers; here's a fat dividend which we can sustain indefinitely".

        Transitioning from growth to dividends is the freaking point, it's how profits are supposed to flow to shareholders. But the culture of corporate governance is broken now, and cultural fixes are hard.

  • Peak bullshit is more like it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blahplusplus ( 757119 ) on Monday February 18, 2019 @09:22AM (#58139378)

    ... the game industry succesfully got it's way to control software and by keeping half of it on their machines. They're finding out how gaming always was - most games will be played once, finished and then forgotten. It's hard for any game to keep players for a long time, which is why people need a rest from games between sequels instead of always online service base gaming bullshit. This is especially true for mobile games that survives off a tiny minority of whales. The sooner the game industry figures out we want good content for money and stop trying to turn every game into a service the better off we'll all be. People can buy multiple single player games they can't play every multiplayer game.

    That means service based games are a winner take all market because free time is limited when many multiplayer games are released in the same period vying for player attention. The level of idiocy coming out of management selecting for short term profits instead of fixing the AAA game industries ability to make said games is the issue.

    • Re:Peak bullshit is more like it... (Score:4, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday February 18, 2019 @12:23PM (#58140408) Homepage Journal

      Problem is that a lot of the really good games don't sell. History is littered with classics that didn't do particularly well when released, where as FIFA 2020 is a guaranteed money-maker.

      Part of the problem is that people expect AAA games to have very high production values, which means very high development costs. The days of a 10 person team producing a top selling game are long gone now. Top of the GoG indie charts maybe, but the AAA studios are multi-billion Euro industries. GTA 5 from way back in 2013 passed the billion dollar sales watermark.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        Top of the GoG indie charts maybe

        Rimworld was written by one chap and sold over a million copies. He's now wealthy and has a huge number of global fans.

        You may say that's not 'a top selling game' but it isn't exactly a hardship situation.

        There's a huge market and plenty of room for plenty of people to offer quality product. They also need to find a way to stand out from the vast volume of utter shit out there.

        AAA games don't do this by investing in top end graphics, they do this by investing in expensive marketing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      No. That may or may not be the current game market, but I stopped buying games when I stopped being able to install them and play them without depending on a remote site for activation and access.

      I was willing to put up with the abusive license terms that I wouldn't accept on software that I used for work, because I counted game a optional extra. I was not willing to accept "We got tired of that game" or "Oops, we're out of business" as a reason for my game to stop working.

      So they killed a part of the gam

  • Sounds Like Spin (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Monday February 18, 2019 @09:26AM (#58139406)
    Responding to criticism with "Don't like it, don't buy it" definitely lessens the attention directed towards your game, even if customers have some in reserve.
    • sold just fine. Far Cry 5 was the top selling Far Cry game in history and a spin off game was green lit. BF V for all the talk still moved 7.3 million copies. Not bad for a year when everybody was going up against the twin juggernauts of Fortnite and Red Dead Redemption 2.

      The article is more about growth. The games industry has grown like crazy thanks to micro transaction bullshit. Seriously, these companies are all hitting record profits with insane valuations.

      The YouTuber Jim Sterling has been poi
  • I think that they're probably right. The amount of entertainment that Americans consume today is insane. Most are badly, *badly* addicted to their screens. From what I see, those who are addicted are already spending as much of their time on these things as possible, already. At some point, there is going to be significantly more entertainment produced than can be consumed profitably. I think that people who are not going to be addicted to the inanity of having to be constantly entertained aren't likel

    • I think that screen is showing the main TV show in the middle and the rest is just ads, not other shows. It was kind of a joke that the future of TV was going to be like the web, which was full of pop-ads at the time.

  • How about game diversity. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday February 18, 2019 @09:56AM (#58139594)

    After Doom, I was already tired of the first person shoot em up. However because it was so popular, nearly all the games have been like that afterwords. Then World of Warcraft was a big hit, so all the game companies moved over to online games. Game makers gotten serious about their stories, so all the games started to have these big huge complex stories.

    With the companies following these fads, we had a lot of good games genres die out.
    1. Single player Adventure Games, these were once games with state of the art graphics and sound, it made progressing to the next screen and area a real joy, you weren't playing against people, or having to keep your twitch reflex on maximum all the time. You get into a place, you then can take your time explore the area find as many hints as your can. The 2016 new Kings Quest while not getting big reviews, I found was a decent attempt of a modern version of the adventure game, however could had been much better with more budget and planning. (There was a trend in it, to make some puzzles, actual puzzles, and not organic part of the game environment)
    2. Platform Games. Sometimes we don't need to use all the buttons on our controller. No story to figure out, no moral ambiguities, you are the hero, everyone else is the bad guy.
    3. Strategy Games. No rush, take your time, come up with a plan.
    4. Building Simulators, no plot just keep of building and simulating

    Sure they are Indy games like this, and on the mobile market they have more options. But most of the big name games are nearly all the same. It isn't that we have lost our ability to pay attention to a game, but the fact after playing a few of these types of games, there isn't much we want to pay attention too.

    Fortnite, is one of those quick to play games with a combination of many genres. You Win, then you Win, if not then you play again.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Nintendo just announced Super Mario Maker 2. I have the first game (it's actually the only game I have for my Wii U!) and it's great fun. Classic 2D platforming action, thousands of great levels and the ability to make your own.

      I'm very happy that it sold well enough and developed enough of a community to warrant a sequel. It came at just the right time, when Mario ROM hacks were getting popular.

      We have seen a bit of an explosion of retro style games in the last few years. There are a lot of hidden gems fro

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by thereddaikon ( 5795246 )
      Oh the genres you listed only adventure games are actually dead. New platformers come out every year, including fucking Mario for crying out loud. It's also a popular genre with indie studios probably because of its straight forward design. Paradox has some great strategy games that cover all the major gameplay types, RTS, TBS, 4X. There are many building simulators of various types as well ranging from crafting games like the ubiquitous minecraft, space engineers etc, to city builders like the Anno series

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _merlin ( 160982 )

        Platformers have been really varied as well, with lots of aesthetics and gameplay mechanics. From New Super Mario Bros U, to LIMBO, to BRAID, to Hollow Knight, to Toki Tori 2+. Platformers have been anything but dead over the last couple of decades.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Dude, do you even game any more? It's like you listed the stuff you enjoyed in the early nineties and haven't bothered to look at what's out there since.
      1. Single player Adventure Games. Popular in the early nineties, over-saturated market by the noughties, fingers burnt, the big players have given up but small teams still churn these out.
      2. Platform Games. Mario has led the pack since the eighties and continues to this day. Buy a Nintendo.
      3. Strategy Games. Because Civ isn't a thing? Or X-Com? Let alone To

    • 1. Single player Adventure Games [...]
      2. Platform Games [...]
      3. Strategy Games [...]
      4. Building Simulators [...]

      I do agree that there's a lot of mediocre sameness when it comes to the popular games, but I think there's a combination of rose-colored glasses and straining to make your point going on, since of the four genres you say died out, none of those are actually dead. Many of them are thriving in the indie space, which you really shouldn't being excluding from consideration. After all, when it comes to single-player experiences, how popular a game is has absolutely nothing to do with how good a game is, nor shou

    • With the companies following these fads, we had a lot of good games genres die out. 1. Single player Adventure Games, these were once games with state of the art graphics and sound, it made progressing to the next screen and area a real joy, you weren't playing against people, or having to keep your twitch reflex on maximum all the time. You get into a place, you then can take your time explore the area find as many hints as your can. The 2016 new Kings Quest while not getting big reviews, I found was a decent attempt of a modern version of the adventure game, however could had been much better with more budget and planning. (There was a trend in it, to make some puzzles, actual puzzles, and not organic part of the game environment)

      I haven't played them but it seems like DoubleFine had been attempting to keep that tradition alive. I really used to love the KQ series, all the way back to the first. I miss them, too and I agree that it seems to be really difficult to make these kinds of games profitable recently.

      2. Platform Games. Sometimes we don't need to use all the buttons on our controller. No story to figure out, no moral ambiguities, you are the hero, everyone else is the bad guy.

      If you like the Metroid/Castelevania format ("Metroidvania") this is the best time to be alive. Cave Story, Steamworld Dig 1&2, Ori and the Blind Forest, Hollow Knight, Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge... there are tons. Just tons

    • There's amazing games in all those categories. Hat in Time, Shantae Half Genie Hero & Sonic Mania, The Crash Bandicoot remakes, Life is Strange, there's a pixel art cyber punk on I can't for the life of me remember the name of and while I don't play strat games my bro who does tells me it's a golden age.

      As for city builders There's 3 or 4 good ones, a couple new Theme Park style games and even a theme hospital style game. Again, I don't play 'em so it's word of mouth.

      The only downside is they're

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sad_ ( 7868 )

      regarding adventure games, a lot of those are being released these days, and a lot of them are really good and high quality.
      as you say, these are indie releases, but i don't see what the issue is with that. they make the games, the games are good, i suppose that's all that matters.

  • People are getting too lazy to play a game. They can only muster the attention to look at a crappy video on their phone.

  • ... has piqued my attention.

  • Well Duh! (Score:3)

    by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <voyager529.yahoo@com> on Monday February 18, 2019 @10:58AM (#58139924)

    I haven't looked forward to a game release in years. It's pretty simple...

    -I don't game on my phone.
    -I don't want a game without a single player campaign (y'know, an actual campaign, not a 90-minute tutorial).
    -I don't want a game with lootboxes.
    -I don't want a game with microtransactions.
    -I don't want a game with an always-online requirement. ...So basically, 98% of new AAA games aren't written for me. And that's fine. I'm voting with my wallet; I've got green pastures of games in my Steam. Not everything has to be incredibly story driven or be some GPU workout, either. I have fun playing PinballFX and Sol Exodus, Game Dev Tycoon and Trine. I'm one of those people who still enjoys playing Unreal Tournament in all of its iterations - it's got the same concept as Destiny 2 ("Go to the place and shoot the lads"), but with far fewer annoyances, free DLC, and free multiplayer. And, of course, no matter how many times I play the Mass Effect trilogy (and even Andromeda), I come across a new thing somewhere.

    I realize that saying "they don't make 'em like they used to" wreaks of nostalgia, but I preordered Andromeda, and on the sole basis that it was one of the last EA games that didn't wreak of microtransactions and lootboxes, I'd do it again if only to encourage that sort of model. Activision has the same problem - Starcraft isn't always my cup of tea, but when I'm in the mood, I'm happy with what it is, to the chagrin of Activision who would far rather I be a fan of CoD: BO4. I got that game for free and I still didn't find it to be fun at all, even though the first Black Ops game was one of my favorites of the series.

    EA shifted their business model toward short term profits, and while it worked for a while, it's obvious to everybody with a brain stem that microtransactions and second-half-of-the-game DLC simply isn't going to garner loyalty in the long term. It's just that the chickens are finally coming home to roost, and while it's possible that they'll figure out what the rest of us already know, I wouldn't wager a counterfeit wooden nickel on it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      The thing is, there are more "real" games like that than anyone could play. Proper single-player games. They just don't come out of big studios.. And that's fine; bug studios are where creativity goes to die.

      I don't look forward to games anymore either - I discover them after the fact to my delight.

    • I haven't looked forward to a game release in years. It's pretty simple...
      [etc.]

      The last game I bought that met all your requirements was Fallout 4. So I'd add to that list "the game actually works correctly". I only paid $20 with season pass from cdkeys, but I would have been pissed right off if I'd paid full price. This is, far as I can tell, actually the lowest quality title in the entire Fallout universe. There've been quest-stopping bugs in literally every Fallout game except maybe Fallout Shelter (which just sucks, both because of stupid limitations which seem like they're from a

  • 2 Words: Bull and Shit (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday February 18, 2019 @11:06AM (#58139984)

    Fortnite is not the problem, and neither is a dwindling interest in video games.

    It's a dwindling interest in paying again and again and again for getting the same video games.

    Does EA even have a line of games anymore that doesn't have the current year in the title? Or does any major studio still offer games where you actually get to buy the whole game for 60 bucks instead of buying a husk that you can then fill with zero-day DLC and "season passes"? Only to eventually find out that you shelled out about 200 bucks for game you already had, just that back then you actually did get the whole game for those 60 bucks (aka what today passes as a "sequel")? But it has a new gimmick and worse, dumbed-down mechanics because crippling games so they run on consoles was not enough, today's gaming market is cell phones so enjoy playing games with mouse and keyboard on your 30" screen that were designed for stamp-sized touch screens.

    EA, it's not that people don't want to play games anymore. You just don't produce the games anymore that we want to play.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by indytx ( 825419 )

      Fortnite is not the problem, and neither is a dwindling interest in video games.

      It's a dwindling interest in paying again and again and again for getting the same video games.

      This. I used to be a fairly engaged gamer, though I never purchased anything when it first hit the shelves. That changed when I was given an original Xbox, and I started buying brand new games AAA games that I could be fairly sure would have a nice long shelf life. I was taking my time upgrading my original Xbox to a 360 and then Micro$oft cut off my access to Xbox Live and suddenly my games stopped working. It dawned on me that even though I had been a loyal customer buying games and paying for Xbox Live f

  • I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed 2 and was ecstatic that I could get it for the PS4 that I bought for my kids. So I bought the whole Ezio collection for my PS4. Then I just found out that the next two games were basically the exact same game with some minor elements added. I won't be buying the rest since I have lost interest.

  • The micro transaction is a way to ensure the gamer returns to the same game to take advantage of the costly little things they have added. This adds revenue, but also increases the returning player base as those players want to utilize their investment into their game.

    This means that for the next big game release, those same users who invested additional money realize that they would have to do the same again... and again... and again... significantly lowering the ROI of each game's annual release after hav

  • During high school, my friends and I joked that one day, every book that needs to be written will have been written. then we will not need to write any more books! Joking aside, maybe video gaming is getting there. If I had infinite free gaming time right now, I want to go back and play the Bioshock series, and the Doom expansions I never played, and a bunch of adventure games that my friends played and I didn't, and the Final Fantasy games I missed, and the Frictional Games (SOMA, Penumbra). Yes, I wan

  • "Home prices NEVER go down" -- typical real-estate agent in 2006

  • Burn it down and build it better (Score:3)

    by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Monday February 18, 2019 @12:48PM (#58140528) Homepage

    The whole gaming industry needs to go through massive a overhaul. The whole model has been straight fucked by mobile and micropayments. Burn it all down, send most every new company out of business, leaving the quality operators like Nintendo and Sega behind.

  • Fortnite's model utilises the attention economy dynamics

    BINGO!

  • Leisure industries should be campaigning for reduced working hours in developed economies if they want people to spend more money on things.

    A week has 168 hours. If I'm lucky, 40 go to work. Let's say 5 hours to commuting (for me) and is much worse for many. Let's say 7 hours a night for sleep but round to 50 hours. Right there I'm at 73 hours. But I also have meals, hygiene, and other errands to run - let's call that 25 hours. I'm down to 48 hours to spend on other things. You're competing with everything

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