Netflix adding video games to it's service next year...

Netflix Is Getting Video Games (kotaku.com)

The article goes on to highlight how this could be a bad thing for gaming with a Video centric buisness model based on hours watched potentially distorting the types of games being created from short fun to long grinding experiences.

What do you think and how will netflix deliver games e.g streaming or downloading?

 

I am so sick of the push towards these types of services, its nothing but bad for indie and medium sized businesses

Much like how streaming music artists get peanuts compared to the payouts of the streaming companies, nothing good will come of this for us.

 

Ad-based freemium revenue models already pushes plenty of games that way. Same deal with online subs, or microtransaction based monetisation. It's not usually my cup of tea, but it does work for some things, and being included in a sub could be a win-win compared to ads, at least?

I definitely agree on the model being terrible for games with custom / bespoke content, a narrative, and/or an end. Which is why it's not my cup of tea.

 

Talk to any musician about their Spotify earnings and you'll soon change your tune. Subscription services have maybe a year or two of life in them before the revenue vanishes as payout methods change.

 

They literally were talking about this in UK parliment today and yesterday, about changing to a 50/50 split as right now a major artist like ed sheeran would get a maximum of 16% of the revenue from something like millions of spotify plays a month.

Imagine roughly half of what steam take as their cut, being your ONLY revenue from YOUR game. Not 70%, 16% (or less, most that are not major artists get around 0.5-1%). It stops being viable to be in the industry at that point for many.

I rest my case - I cannot wait until the methods of payouts change. Then I will be on board, until then, it feels like a very well engineered pyramid scheme.

 

The problem is games cost a lot more to make than just music. Besides shovel ware, converted freemium and classic games where anything past their initial earnings is a bonus, nobody in their right mind would go for a sub platform if they want to avoid bankruptcy. The concerning bit is the likes of Netflix creating games or paying other dev's to put games on their platform, they can afford loss leaders.

Not that the market hasn't already spiralled down into a bottomless pit anyway, I'll replace with word "concerning" with the phrase just another day in the games industry.

 

I understand it sucks for musicians. Their business models are a bit different to ad-based freemium games, though.

And Spotify giving artists a terrible deal is a legitimate issue, but a separate one. If artists got a fair cut then would the model still be an issue?

 

I guess if I was going to play devils advocate, I would say that on the flipside, netflix have been known to offer decent deals for TV and Films, and have a low bar to entry. So there is a possibility this could end up benefiting a (small and eventually probably hard to become) group of indies.

Still think it stinks in general. Until these service based offerings find a way to be fair to the creators, it feels a lot like a pre-fairtrade chocolate type of situation where the farmers (creators) do all the work, and a middle man comes in and takes the lion share of profits.

I am sure that we are heading towards a better globally regulated streaming style service situation because its been talked about for at least half a decade and is now being talked about in courts and governments. As @Murgilod rightly says, its only a matter of a year or 2 before the current paradigm completely shifts with the advent of new payout methods.

Nowhere does it say "freemium games only". This will likely have a mixture of all types. Until they say its only freemium, I think it goes without saying to be cautious and plan for the worst, while hoping for the best

I do agree that for freemium games this would be good (for them if payouts are not similar to other streamers that is, as likely they would take a cut of everything including stuff sold in game), but thats really just going to be the same big players on the mobile market launching similar/same games on your TV.

As for the spotify question - without this current model (payouts at current rate included) they could not operate based on their costs etc. The entire industry has to change, to make it "fair cut". So it is an issue really until then.

 

I understand that. But my statement, which was quoted to start this tangent, was specifically in reference to ad-based freemium models.

 

The whole value proposition to consumers is "spend less, get more", which means less dollars getting into the industry if taken in isolation.

 

Sure but the total volume of money going into the industry being lower, should not have any impact on the ratio of the split that creators are getting. I agree it means payouts will (potentially) be smaller in total, but that doesnt mean that a creator should get less than half.

 

I don't disagree. I'm saying there are multiple things which need attention.

 

Agreed! I also dont want to come across as simplifying the issue as I know its super complex. Im interested (but cautiously so) in where we will be in 5 years time based on all the current talk in governments now about all this

 

Just let me know when it's time to start telling everybody netflix is evil and ruining lives.

Only problem is, where will they premiere the documentary about how evil and fat netflix is?

 

The choices are Bezos prime, Apple F***yourdevicefreedom TV, or Adolf Disney+ All known as bastions of greater good I am sure (sarcasm intended, I am british)

 

Why are you talking about this as if it was mandatory to join in to this service? No one forces anyone to make a deal what is not good enough for them. Don't like the cut? Don't sign the contract. You don't have to be on Netflix if you find that they don't pay enough.

 

i what is being discussed is reasons why they wouldnt want to sign the contract, and under what conditions they would want to.

 

Sign me up, netflix! I'll happily show my games here.

 

Honestly, I'm more interested to learn if Netflix will make their own games and what kind of games they'll be.

Streaming games are not important and they are currently a dead end. If it will be a part of the streaming service it will have the same effect as Stadia had: completely nothing.

 

If you are concerned about a small cut just release the game normally for a period of time and when the game is no longer making bank release it on subscription services.

 

If it is a Stadia like streaming service, they could actually do what I'm surprised Stadia didn't, by offering games which can leverage the advantages of having the game clients and servers all located at the same place. Things like thousands of players all within relatively small areas. There's very few games which offer huge battles involving thousands of players, because the technical challenges are very difficult, as is the challenge of simply getting that many players together all playing at the same time.

But I could certainly see Netflix instead just going for more traditional game delivery. They could create yet another Steam like game platform and have players download the games the old fashioned way. Just tie access to the platform to an active Netflix account.

 

They're not. They're talking about the overall effect of large-scale adoption of the model throughout the industry.

For a similar-but-different example, look into the "Race to the Bottom"-type situation which occurred during the early days of mobile gaming. Before that most games used a model where players paid up-front for their games, with natural forces or vested interests in each major distribution channel protecting prices. Then mobile gaming suddenly became a thing and had neither of those influences in place and an audience who largely just wanted cheap distractions. The result was a vicious cycle of developers undercutting one anothers' prices until it became de-facto standard to give your game away for free* just to get users and figure out how to make money from them after that.

That has absolutely had a whole-industry impact. Whether any particular developer chooses to make any particular game freemium or not, they are still influenced by customer expectations, competition and prevailing market factors which were impacted by that shift. Of course there are always shifting market factors to consider, and this is just one of many - albeit a major one.

Consider: would the British parliament need to be discussing Spotify splits with regard to market viability for artists if it was really just a matter of individual artists saying no to crap deals? Of course not.

* In fact, many developers pay for installs.

 

Well, they shouldn't, but I guess, it's not a free market.

 

They shouldn't discuss it in parliament, or they shouldn't need to?

I agree that they should probably be focusing on more important things than the entertainment industry. But I also think that protecting industries from this kind of thing is a perfectly reasonable consideration for a government to be making.

 

I know, back then in the communist era, the government told us how much a kilogram bread should cost, how much a baker, who baked the bread should make and how much a contract between the corner shop and the bakery should worth. Good times.

 

At the end of the day someone is going to be making that decision whether you like it or not. Would you prefer it to be made by your elected government officials, or by executives over at Spotify?

 

The key is that not someone will make that decision, but some people together. If Ed Sheeran doesn't like how Atlantic/Asylum handles his records, then he signs with someone else. If Atlantic/Asylum doesn't like how Spotify handles their business, they block his records on the service. If users don't like how Spotify works, if they can't find the type or the exact music they like, they leave the service. It really is that simple.

Obviously the more money you make for people the more power/opportunity you have, but that's not specific to this case, that's life.

 

No, it isn't, because the users aren't the ones suffering from Spotify's decisions. Musicians are. Spotify's payouts are criminally low.

 

Yeah you can't trust consumers to act in the best interest of those affected by what they're consuming, ever. I would in fact prefer the government acted to ensure the producer of any given commodity is given their fair share by any middleman (though middlemen of every sort are on their way out these days). Milk's a good example; most people here in Australia buy their milk through the Duopoly that is Woolworths and Coles, even though both companies do their best in ripping of Australian Milk produces. I would not mind if the government (not that our conservative lot ever would) mandate the price, both at the retail and wholesale level, to ensure farmers get their worth.

Anyway, on topic, I'm curious as to how games through Netflix would work. Is there any indication so far, or is it all rumours so far?

 

Yes it is. Congrats, IDK whom you're arguing with, because I never stated that they do. That's not their job. Everyone should be responsible for their own interest. Musicians should sign with a label/agency who handle their records properly or handle their own catalog themselves. End of story.

 

Don’t argue against the free market people. It is always fair and it never does anything wrong and all parties always have a choice, even when they don’t really have a choice.

On the Netflix thing, I’m still not clear if it’s actual games, or whether it’s some evolution of the interactive movie experiments they did a while back.

 

And then listeners are less exposed to his work, and so both the artist and record label make less money. Because previously, casual listeners found out about new albums by pop singers when the singles were played on the radio. Now a great deal of those casual listeners don't listen to the radio any more, so the interaction between a streaming service and a record label is about a heck of a lot more than just the royalty splits.

[edit]You really can't look at stuff like this as if each of the different decisions being made are in isolation of one another. They're not. Listeners making the "use Spotify or not" decision absolutely have an up-stream effect on artists and record labels. Spotify's business model is specifically designed to exploit this. It's standard supply chain disruption.[/edit]

And Spotify has the listeners, so without some external influence they have basically all of the negotiating power. Spotify don't need any one particular artist, but all artists need access to their audience.

Indeed, if by "games" they're referring to stuff like Bandersnatch then I don't think anyone will be upset.

 

IDK, I have serious doubts that they would hire Mike Verdu for that. Obviously I can be easily wrong.

 

I thought for artist YouTube was already low paid income source.
But I suppose, netlix, or Spotify are just additional sources, rather than replacement to one or another.

But I wonder regarding streaming game service. Is this something to be applied to existing games? Or specially developed and dedicated titles for Netflix?
Could it conflict with Steam contract, if game was released on Steam and then using Netflix services?

 

@Lurking-Ninja
Spotify cornered the infrastructure of music listening, that's why the need to be regulated, free market works when the market is fair, spotify IS the market, that's where people compete for listeners, which mean spotify is as powerful as a government, and they aren't fair, they literally do the equivalent of telling us how much a kilogram bread should cost, how much a baker, who bake the bread should make and how much a contract between the corner shop and the bakery should worth. Good times.

Most tech monopoly are basically hack in the system to have government reach on localized market.

The same reason people revolted against national governments, the same reason people reason people start to rise up against corporations government.

 

Probably both as they do for movies / tv series.

 

(Sorry for off-topic but...)

Governments aren't supposed to prevent monopolies, they're supposed to split monopolies.

This is because the most classic way governments try to prevent monopolies is through tons of regulations.

Regulations don't actually hurt monopolies — they just hurt the companies that can't conform to all those regulations, stunting all the monopoly's competition rather than the monopoly itself.

This is why governments are supposed to split monopolies. If a monopoly is split, it instantly creates more competition in the market without hurting the pre-existing competition — which only boosts competition even further.

TL;DR: Regulations bad. Monopoly-splitting good.

(Back on topic...)

I hate streaming services with a passion.

 

Monopoly splitting is literally a regulatory act. This post makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The definition of a monopoly is even determined by regulation.

 

Neither have my best interests in mind.

 

You are correct.
The act of monopoly-splitting is indeed a regulatory act.

However, I was using the first definition of 'regulation' in my post — not the second.
I should have made that more explicit.

I dunno. The definition I get for 'monopoly' in google doesn't mention the word 'regulation' at all.
Not to mention I think the definition of any word is determined by what the word means (of which we, as humans, have agreed upon) — not regulation**.
**Unless you mean the regulation of the English dictionary, in which I may agree. (However that does not have to do with regulating the free market).

 

Yay semantic

 

We don't need any regulation, what we need is a government corporations to compete on a free market.
Yes even when they don't break even. It is just that their existence would put pressure on a monopoly.

 

But they do, free market + capture size = unbreakable monopoly because resources.

 

I think this is the main problem with streaming:

The only silver-lining I can hope for is that maybe a 'streaming service' will ditch the monthly subscription model and instead provide every game a 10-20 minute trial period to allow players to vet the game before they make the purchase (allowing it to be streamed forever).

Then, the streaming service takes a cut based on all revenue the game makes — if the game itself uses the monthly subscription model, the streaming service will get a continual stream of revenue.

It's win/win for everybody!

Obviously that's a video game developer utopia... but I can dream, right?

 

The shareware and demo era of the 90's was awesome

Anyway, I feel like a subscription model for games distorts the value of games in that all games are equal now? The only way I can pay the devs of one game more money is by playing their game more than another game? You have great games, bad games, average games, quick games, early access games, time sink games...

I tend to favour games with replayability, and I spend 95% of my play time in just a few games, but there are games that had very little replayability that I thought were good games and were worth the money I paid. If they are linking pay to playtime, that really sucks for those games and they might largely disappear, and it will probably introduce a lot of time wasting or unwanted padding.

 

Every approach has its flaws. Shareware's was that the player may decide the free content was sufficient and not buy the full release. Worse yet many shareware games included all of the mechanics in the free content with the full release being little more than a reskin of the free game.

 

I'm not sure games ever operated under the labor theory of value, so comparisons to it seem erroneous.

That aside, there's a reason we have child labor laws, and why even gamers are supporting impending regulation of lootboxes: the "invisible hand of the market" is blind to fairness and morality. That's a rabbit trail I could go down, but to keep to the main topic...

Don't think it's been linked but there's talk of Stadia also doing the "payment based on engagement" thing.

It's worth considering that a streaming service is not inherently the same as a subscription service. Consider nVidia's thing (GeForce Now). Though it's likely Netflix, being who they are, will go the subscription route.

I'm privileged enough that should I ever actually release anything, I'm comfortable financially and don't need to use a streaming service to bolster earnings--I can take a moral stand. The worry I have however (in the music space, and it might extend to games eventually) is how avoiding such will harm my reach and discoverability.

If the average consumer of music discovers it through their streaming service, it's not a matter of the consumer simply not wanting to pay $10 for a single album, it's a matter of them not even knowing about the album to make that choice.

 

It's also blind to long term consumer value. People generally do stuff because it seems good in the moment, with little or no consideration or understanding of long term impact.

 

yeah nevermind fairness and morality - the invisible hand of the market is blind to long term consequences. Hence every societal collapse, ever. Nobody can see beyond their nose (and until recently, didn't have the scientific data to backup any hunches even if they could).

so long as everybody is trying to get theirs at the expense of others (and of nature), the market will always be a force of destruction that must be regulated.

 

Who regulates the regulators?