Hacker News Reader

Comment by KingMachiavelli | Hacker News Reader

The real issue is Sony has many exclusives which gives Microsoft a better case (despite the judge saying it's NOT about Sony).

It certainly harms consumers, so I don't see how the court still approved this especially with the judge's comment against the comparison to Sony. Almost all mergers of this size harm consumers, the fact that it's allowed by default is the crucial issue.

If the FTC still had a spine they would go after all of these kinds of exclusive deals - and not just limited to games.

The film industry was famously broken up such that the production companies couldn't own theaters yet in 2023 that rule (if it still exists) is so weak that most production companies have their streaming service and aggressively pressure theaters into exclusivity Windows.

At the end of the day this only strengthens the trend to PC gaming which only benefits Microsoft and can only hurt Sony. It would only be a minor surprise if Sony joined the Proton/WINE effort with Valve to get around Microsoft exclusives. (Which does help consumers but in a 3D chess kind of way).

View on HN

A judge ended the rule that studios couldn't own theaters in 2020: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomnunan/2020/08/07/judge-decre...

It is a very weird coincidence that every major film studio started streaming services after that law ended. I thought it was more general like a cut between production and distribution not production and theatres.

Now we are in the same position as a hundred years ago. At that time you would have to go into a theatre by the production company and now you have to go to the streaming service of the production company.

That split between production and distribution has to come back.

> That split between production and distribution has to come back.

What if Netflix had made and won that argument before 2020 to prevent production companies from also streaming content? I think Netflix missed a trick here.

But then it wouldn't have been long before competitors emerged in the market threatening Netflix's content deals. I believe only way to reinforce their position was to make their own content.

Netflix with decades of experience in streaming and negotiating content deals would have had some incumbency/first mover advantages.

It could have led the distribution/streaming industry instead of being just another content/streaming player.

I mean, if theatres weren't utterly destroyed by COVID something may have actually happened with theatres. But investing in a theatre in the current decade is like investing in cable at this point.

The only coincidence is this repeal happening during a time where it mattered least.

> At the end of the day this only strengthens the trend to PC gaming which only benefits Microsoft and can only hurt Sony.

Microsoft and Sony aren't the only companies making video games.

Windows isn't the only PC operating system.

In large part thanks to Steam, a lot of video games work on Linux nowadays.

Sony is free to implement their OS in such a way that you can play PC games on Playstation. Of course Sony doesn't want that, because it is Sony's strategy to wall off their ecosystem.

SONY IS THE BAD GUY HERE.

Strengthening PC market is a good news for consumers. Strengthening Microsoft - not necessarily…

Sony sells their hardware at a loss or break even, why would they then let you use a PlayStation in "PC" mode so Valve or Microsoft get royalties instead?

I find it strange that people complain about the cost of printer ink but not computer games

I don't. Computer games take a huge amount of intellectual effort to make, does printer ink? (maybe at some point yes, but certainly not now!)

Edit: Though maybe you're talking flappy bird and I'm talking triple-A, actually impressive boundary pushing game. We may just be talking past one another

I am not playing 3D games developed by team by hundred of people on the color of my printer paper. Thats why.

And if you complain buy a laser printer and never complain again.

true. black and white laser printer is the only way to print.

I disagree with the opinion that it harms consumers. The economist has an article it recently published that argues that this deal actually helps consumers by speeding up the transition to "streaming" games and cloud gaming as an option. I tend to agree. Just because one large company is buying another large company doesn't mean the deal should be blocked.

> argues that this deal actually helps consumers

I'm listening...

> by speeding up the transition to "streaming" games and cloud gaming

Ewww... no thanks!

I love Xbox game pass streaming, for many of the reasons I like streaming music, tv, and movies. It’s cheap to try things- I can fire up a new game without waiting to download 40+ GB. If the play engages me I’ll keep playing, if not I’ll move on.

I’m not a very good with high speed games anyways, so the increased latency isn’t generally noticeable in the games I play.

The issue isn’t about trying out games, it’s about having access to those games in 5, 10, 20 years or later. There is a growing list of digital only titles that are no longer available to new players and may be unavailable to people who “bought” them. I have a bricked Wii with digital games that are tied to the physical console, not any account. There is no way to recover them.

Steam has done a remarkable job staying open for 20 years (My copy of Half Life 2 is right where I left it). Sony has done a reasonable job. I don’t know about Microsoft. Nintendo has failed several times, but may have finally figured it out with the Switch.

I know I can buy discs and cartridges from any previous era and as long as I have a system (or emulator), I can play them, lend them, or sell them. Digital versions allow me to play, but for how long. I can’t lend or sell them. If I get the urge to play Resogun in 2033 and don’t have it downloaded, am I going to be able to?

I do think there may be a generational component to it as well. I’ve always thought Gen X is more tied to the idea of “owning” a copy (music, movies, games), while younger generations are more comfortable with digital only releases, or even subscription catalogues that change over time as the primary means of entertainment.

The majority of new games can't work offline, and having a physical disc is now so rare that companies are selling game boxes and deluxe editions that contain no software at all - not even a download code, since you need to buy it with an account anyway.

What exactly are they selling if there's no game inside?

A lot of collector's editions aren't including the game anymore. It's just knickknacks. Statue, stickers, steel book to put the disc if you bought that version. That kind of thing.

The standard physical editions still include a disc or cartridge and occasionally just a code.

Generally the disk in the box has to have something on it that runs (It may not even be the game). This is due to the lead time involved in pressing and validating the gold master that becomes the game disk. This allows the developers to continue working on their launch day ‘patch’.

With the development cycle and Sony and Microsoft’s distribution setup as it is now, physical copies effectively act as a token to play the game only. Using Cyberpunk 2077 as an example a recent patch to the game mandated a nearly full redownload of the whole game on PS5 and Xbox Series - ~60+GB. On PC it was ~5G.

A little bootstrap installer and license key that lets you download the whole-ass game, generally.

> The majority of new games can't work offline

source?

Microsoft has done a decent job. Digital purchases made on 360 that are compatible with Xbox One/Series consoles have transferred over and you often get the PC and Xbox version of a title for buying a game in the Windows Store (and get the PC version if it is available in the Windows Store if you buy on Xbox).

In theory I'm interested. In reality, 99% of games I care about will be remastered/ported or even remade 20 years later. $60 in the grand scheme of 20 years isn't even an afterthought.

I'm fine enough with piracy being the nuclear option if we run into situations like with F-Zero or Legends of Dragoon or whatnot. But there are official options for almost every other game I would be interested in re-visiting. I still like owning a disc the same way I like owning a physical book, but I'd be lying if I said I ever popped in a disc for any 10+ year old game. It's more of a sentimental gesture to display on my shelf than a means of preservation.

Game streaming is a great option to have but it incentivises the same behaviour we've seen from companies that move to a SAAS model: Charge a monthly fee and remove the option to own the product.

Not actually owning the games is a problem. Nvidia's service, GeForce Now, originally allowed you to play any game you had purchased on Steam, under the theory that you were using your license to play it. Their library was decimated when that was challenged legally.

Most of the services don't offer the same modding options as you would have on PC either.

If I were to pick between the two, I'd rather we move towards having more control over the things we purchase than less.

too bad the choice isnt ours and we've long seen how other audiences in other media have chosen. People simply don't care about those things as a majority

I hesitate to blame the audience when vendors are all too keen to force the transition themselves. See Adobe, Microsoft, and Atlassian's discontinuing/restriction of on premises licenses for their products.

People often seem to have a general sense of helplessness when it comes to large businesses, why get upset about it when there's nothing you can do?

I don't see anything unless people find the motivation to make it a political issue.

A personal anecdote that I think exemplifies the problem:

I was once double invoiced for custom charges by FedEx. The phone number on the invoice lead to a phone tree where every option simply hung up. Depending on where I looked there were three different email addresses, and an online form; only one provided an automated response and my first three emails were ignored entirely. Their customer support line was unable to connect to that department.

At one point I was given an individual's work email and received no response either. Despite this, I continued to receive past due, and final notice letters from them.

It took months and hours of my time to resolve a problem they created, had I not persisted, I would have had to deal with collections and credit agencies.

Why should we allow companies behave this way without repercussions?

It's not the Boogeyman you think it is. You used to have to buy a game for $60 and if you didn't like it? Well too bad, that's $60 down the drain. Now you can just move on to the next one. I get that for enthusiasts owning a physical game may be more desirable, but for the majority of gamers (casual gamers) a subscription based service is a better option.

There is a huge difference between subscription services like Xbox game pass and streaming

> It's not the Boogeyman you think it is. You used to have to buy a game for $60 and if you didn't like it? Well too bad, that's $60 down the drain. Now you can just move on to the next one. I get that for enthusiasts owning a physical game may be more desirable, but for the majority of gamers (casual gamers) a subscription based service is a better option.

Moving from an ownership model to a rental model is very anti-consumer.

So, sure, some people prefer to rent their couch. That's fine. You're effectively arguing that couch ownership should be forbidden.

You are going to have to provide a more compelling argument that "Well, I play every game only once, for 90m, before moving on to the next, so we should enforce my preference onto everybody!"

The majority of gamers don't play more than a handful of games in a year. There's just no time. You find a game you're into, your pour most of your hours into that game.

"You'll own nothing and be happy"

It described life in an unnamed city in which the narrator does not own a car, a house, any appliances, or any clothes, and instead relies on shared services for all of his daily needs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_ha...

seems a bit hyperbolic to compare not owning the software on a disc to not owning clothes. Fact is that deluxe entertainment isn't some crucial necessity for most people. So of course they don't mind the lack of ownership.

> seems a bit hyperbolic to compare not owning the software on a disc to not owning clothes.

True. Although, satire does tend to exaggerate to make its point. (I'm assuming the indicated source is at least in part satire, not having yet read it.)

Related to rent vs own: public libraries are (in a sense) renting, just paid for either indirectly or by other people.

> Fact is that deluxe entertainment isn't some crucial necessity for most people. So of course they don't mind the lack of ownership.

Until they try to play something from the past, and can't, because it relied on a game server, streaming server, or some other kind of remote asset that was not preserved. This portends a greater loss of shared culture compared to that which can be backed up or archived. Some people might be working on that, but I expect most will be made preservable only by rare rights-holders or illicit propagation.

Maybe people consider that eventually they die and that everything is rented in a sense...

> Maybe people consider that eventually they die and that everything is rented in a sense...

Nope. If you own something you can leave it to your kids.

If you rent it, you can't.

With the new model, consumers have two options now, instead of just one. They can rent the game or they can buy it. How is that not better?

Because tomorrow, they'll take away the option to buy the game. Everyone in the games industry is excited about streaming specifically because making everyone rent their games is long-term more lucrative.

We've done this dance with streaming video in the past. First renting was cheaper and easier. Then renting was the only option, and it stopped being cheaper or easier.

>Then renting was the only option, and it stopped being cheaper or easier.

1. you can still buy the blu-ray for any given recent movie. For non-movies, the alternative was cable, which you did not own. And hoping that they'd release a collection on DVD/BD

2. Despite all the price hikes, streaming is still more bang for your buck unless you only watch 1-2 movies a month. And still much more convinent. We;re not at this point in time in video, so i'm not worried about games in the next 20 years hitting that.

You didn't own cable but you could certainly record it. So we've taken a big step back there.

>Moving from an ownership model to a rental model is very anti-consumer.

In that case the consumers have worked against their best interests for decades in other mediums. You can even argue as such in the PC market where physical media has also lost.

>some people prefer to rent their couch. That's fine. You're effectively arguing that couch ownership should be forbidden.

in the same way in that you can still buy a CD or even record of a recent song, I'm sure you'll have physical media for quite a while.

But we should also face reality and realize that most people are fine renting media, so it should be no surprise if companies start to tailor towards the majority.

>You are going to have to provide a more compelling argument

sure: https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/11/mobile-games-now-account-f...

>In the U.S., users generally have eight games installed per device; globally, we play an average of two to five games per month.

we should never discount the mobile market in these discussions. nor teenagers.

So rather than han paying 8 times for their games, the players are paying many dozens of times more for the same experience?

I fail to see how this is a good thing.

If the players have fun, that's all that really matters. Remember that many of these aren't people who would magically jump in and play Skyrim if the mobile industry suddenly disappeared, even if Skyrim was given to them. It's a completely different audience.

Once again, this is deluxe entertainment, and the overall impact of spending more money on a hobby isn't the end of the world. I'm not going to judge how others use their free time and disposable income.

> If the players have fun, that's all that really matters.

That wasn't your argument. If you wanted to argue that, you should have done so from the beginning.

Your argument was that it is more beneficial for players to pay many times the price of any game they play often.

>Your argument was that it is more beneficial for players to pay many times the price of any game they play often.

No it wasn't. My arugment is that this is what players are doing already. I don't care about how you feel about gaming habits. My only point in replying to you is to say that

>The majority of gamers don't play more than a handful of games in a year. There's just no time. You find a game you're into, your pour most of your hours into that game.

is wrong. You asked for proof against that and I gave you a link for gaming trends. You countered with "That's not a good thing", and I don't care. Because that's not my argument. Whever you inferred that I applied personal judgement to these statistics is wrong until you made your comment about that judgement.

So there you have it. If you want to shift your argument to "this isn't good for the consumer"... well, I gave you my take. Take it or leave it, I have nothing more to add to that discussion. If you want to go back to talking about what and how people consume games, feel free to respond to that.

Yes, people do play multiple games a month, so they are also fine renting games to consume more. Even in console games, there are so many accounts to how Gamepass has reinvigorated some people to playing more games than before.

Actually you could take that $60 game and sell it for another. And if you didn't buy an absolute stinker you could often get a pretty good amount of cash/credit back if you traded it shortly after release. We also used to have these places where for about $6 you could rent a game for a few days and decide if you want it to own. They often stocked a lot of the hot new release and they didn't need to enter special deals with the publisher for it to be available. If we had better rights over the stuff we buy digutally we could have stuff like this again.

> I get that for enthusiasts owning a physical game may be more desirable

It is more desirable. So is not having to be connected to the internet to play your games. So is not paying for something that can be taken from you at any time for any reason without reimbursement. So is having a copy of your game that can't be edited or censored at any time (including silently) and which can always be played in its original form.

Also desirable is the ability to modify or patch the games you paid for however you like, even in ways publishers wouldn't approve of. So is the ability to let a friend borrow the game. So is the ability to resell your games. So is the ability to pass them down to your kids or grand kids.

When all you have is "gaming as a service" you'll be giving up a hell of a lot more than a disk or a box on your shelf. Companies love cloud/subscription based gaming because it gives them far more control, gives them new ways to collect data on users and new ways to push ads at them, and it allows them to force gamers to pay for their games over and over again instead of it being just a one time purchase.

I don't care how "casual" a gamer someone is, they will never be better off giving up so much in exchange for so little, especially since what little they do get is all subject to change at any time, just like the ongoing costs will be.

I certainly like all those features, but would rather have them in a digital form.

I want to download the media to my hard drive, store it on my NAS, back it up in any way, and be able to install it from those sources whenever I want.

I also want licenses to be maintained outside of walled gardens using digital signatures, which I can also maintain my own copy of. As long as I present my license file along with signed game media, I want my console or PC to be able to run that game.

I should also be able to lend, sell, and trade the digital license to anyone along with a copy of the media.

I don't mind digital if it's done right. I like GOG because you don't need their client, you can just download all the installers and manuals directly.

Thank you for this comment. I relate to every one of your points.

Especially the silent/forced updates. It can be SO bad in games. since the OP is about blizzard- look at hearthstone. Its a card game where you can’t trade, and the cards you sank money into can just get nerfed when the next expansion comes out. It amazes me this is acceptable to some.

years and years ago I played hearthstone but after a couple seasons of "surprise your decks don't work anymore" I realized this was just an endless grind to get me to buy more packs and never logged in again.

>I don't care how "casual" a gamer someone is, they will never be better off giving up so much in exchange for so little,

maybe you should care more, then. Because you clearly haven't considered the POV of the casual gamer. They want to see a game, download it, tinker for a few hours, and move on. They don't care about data or ads and they sure won't stick around long for subscriptions.

You can't understand an audience if you dismiss them like that.

What are you talking about?? Owning a physical game is not at ALL what we are discussing. I buy 2-4 games a month, all through steam and OBVIOUSLY they are all digital downloads, no physical copies.

Going from an ownership model to a rent-extracting subscription model is a HORRIBLE idea that almost no one wants (just execs who see $$$ and few gamers living in cities with low-latency high bandwidth internet)

It’s like the twilight zone in this thread. You argued that buying physical games is throwing away money. Then proceeded to say subscription services are actually better. Kinda absurd, if I don’t like any games on game pass then that’s money down the drain. No refund. If I buy physical games, I can & do sell them for half or even double what I bought it for. Games are an asset. Humanity is doomed if people really down want feeding trough entertainment, not caring what they play/watch and paying monthly for the experience

I'd rather we were transitioning towards consumers actually owning their games rather than towards them not being able to run them on their own hardware.

We've already seen how this plays out with the proliferation of SAAS and the move to subscription models that leave consumers with nothing if the company goes bust or they stop paying.

Companies that grow beyond a certain size are harmful to the economy. The harm to consumers isn't always direct or obvious but it reduces choice and creates a situation where the company wields outsized power over consumers and the state.

I mostly like Microsoft but they should be a much smaller and more focused company.

you are completely disconnected from reality my guy

I don't believe that streaming games is in the interest of consumers in the slightest.

That said, I don't have a problem with the merger. It won't help consumers and it won't help people working for the studios. That was not the case in any merger in the past.

While they have a lot of solid IPs that will generate billions for years to come, I believe these studios have a hard time to innovate. The likelihood that at some point someone will eat their lunch is pretty high. Gaming IPs have a lot of momentum, but there are always new challengers around the corner.

Cloud gaming is only good if the cloud is your computer.

Is it this article? https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/06/22/blocking-the-mi...

Honestly... IMO that analysis is completely misguided and nearly contradictory.

Even if I accept the premise that the merger will (1) increase cloud and game streaming and (2) cloud/streaming games is good for consumers, I would argue it "harms consumers" under the legal anti-competitive and anti-trust arguments.

My argument is that achieving premise (1) via a merger is by-definition anti-consumer because it would strengthen cloud/game streaming outside of actual consumer demand. It's not possible or the place for the courts to decide what consumers "want" beyond high level details like cost, and availability, etc.

There's no rule preventing Activison from licensing it's games to Microsoft's, Sony's, etc. cloud gaming services. If there was genuine consumer demand for cloud gaming, then Activison is in the perfect position to get the best deal from all/any of the existing cloud gaming providers.

> (Article) Subscriptions and streaming have turned the music and television industries upside down in the past couple of decades.

Music, TV, and Film streaming all grew out of independent providers. Really it started with rentals which used the "first-sale" doctrine to even exist - it doesn't get much more independent than buying the standalone product and renting it. The fact that TV/Movie streaming is now fragmenting is causing large amounts of pain and cost for consumers not less. Over the past decade only Music streaming has remained simple and cheap - and all of the major providers here are independent of the record companies.

Uh that rule was based on a 75 year long 'temporary' agreement that has expired. That is another part of this whole Writers and Actors striking that the media isn't talking about. I think the agreement was to settle a case before the Supreme Court in 1948, it just ended and it is now Game On for the studios to take over the theaters again.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com