Video Game Monopolies
Less than two weeks after we learned that Microsoft would be purchasing Activision Blizzard for $70 billion, today it was announced that PlayStation Studios (AKA Sony) is to buy Bungie for $3.6 billion. Both Microsoft and Sony have extolled the virtues of their respective acquisitions and claim that gamers will benefit. Game passes will become better value for money with new titles added to them. Accessibility and crossplay may well increase due to each company’s technological innovations. Console prices could even be reduced. And at a company level, restructuring and streamlining presents a potential opportunity to purge some developers of many of the toxicity issues that blight them. If you believe the press releases from both Sony and Microsoft, then the future of gaming is in safe hands and looking good. And so far there hasn’t been one mention of NFTs.
Less than two weeks after we learned that Microsoft would be purchasing Activision Blizzard for $70 billion, today it was announced that PlayStation Studios (AKA Sony) is to buy Bungie for $3.6 billion. Both Microsoft and Sony have extolled the virtues of their respective acquisitions and claim that gamers will benefit. Game passes will become better value for money with new titles added to them. Accessibility and crossplay may well increase due to each company’s technological innovations. Console prices could even be reduced. And at a company level, restructuring and streamlining presents a potential opportunity to purge some developers of many of the toxicity issues that blight them. If you believe the press releases from both Sony and Microsoft, then the future of gaming is in safe hands and looking good. And so far there hasn’t been one mention of NFTs.
However, if one steps back as a gamer and considers the nature of monopolies and their historical precedent, then things don’t look so great. Typical problems associated with monopolies are as follows. Higher prices than in competitive markets. A decline in consumer surplus. Monopolies have fewer incentives to be efficient. Possible diseconomies of scale. Monopolies often have monopsony power in paying a lower price to suppliers. All of which can lead to poor quality, unoriginal, expensive video games made by overworked developers in poorly paid and bad working conditions. And let us not forget the industry's ongoing and ever increasing infatuation with blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens. The days of paying once for a game are on the way out. The prospect of gaming being a second job is on the horizon.
I find my interest in gaming waning on a daily basis. Have I outgrown gaming? No. Not at all. I still enjoy many aspects of playing a well conceived and implemented video game. But I have outgrown the hype, the tribal and partisan nature of video game culture and I’m as tired as hell with many generic, uninspired and frankly unenjoyable titles. Like good quality films, you need to cast your net far and wide to find decent video games these days. Or defer to older classics. The prospect of large monopolies dominating the video game industry hardly assuages my concerns. However, monopolies are not bulletproof institutions. When reflecting upon successful companies like De Beers, do not forget the fate of Pan Am, IBM and AOL. And if contemplating the machinations of big business is too depressing for you, consider The Very Big Corporation of America from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.
A Year in Gaming
Usually in a post such as this, my primary focus would be writing about the games that I’ve played over the last twelve month and what it was about them that I specifically enjoyed. However, this year I feel that I must address the wider issues that have dominated the news regarding the video games industry. Simply put, several very high profile and successful triple A video game companies have been beset by scandals over the last twelve months. And these have been of such a nature that they have finally laid to rest the myth that some still cling to, that working “in video games” is somehow different from working in more traditional industries because it’s “cool”. It turns out that it has all the same failings as TV, music and film. The people at the top are abusive and broken and maltreat those at the coalface who do all the real work for precious little reward.
Usually in a post such as this, my primary focus would be writing about the games that I’ve played over the last twelve month and what it was about them that I specifically enjoyed. However, this year I feel that I must address the wider issues that have dominated the news regarding the video games industry. Simply put, several very high profile and successful triple A video game companies have been beset by scandals over the last twelve months. And these have been of such a nature that they have finally laid to rest the myth that some still cling to, that working “in video games” is somehow different from working in more traditional industries because it’s “cool”. It turns out that it has all the same failings as TV, music and film. The people at the top are abusive and broken and maltreat those at the coalface who do all the real work for precious little reward.
Hence, I feel that there is now a moral dilemma in buying games from certain companies and that their products are in a way “tainted”. The same way as there is shopping at certain stores that are known for their unethical practises. However, a consumer boycott is not always the most effective form of protest and on occasions can do more harm to those parties one wishes to demonstrate a degree of solidarity with. However, one can still voice one’s unhappiness with the situation and that is what seems to be happening at present. Negative PR seldom goes unnoticed and as and when it impacts upon share prices, the message eventually reaches the top of the food chain. Action gets taken sooner or later but what the Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft and Bungie scandals highlight are a wider societal malaise. The abhorrent behaviour that we’ve read about seems to be ingrained in specific socioeconomic stratas. Fixing that is a much harder issue than just replacing a few managers and CEOs.
Moving on from how shitty the video game industry seems to be, personally speaking this has not been the most exciting year for my relationship with video games. As 2021 draws to an end my PC’s hard drive is filled with games that I’ve abandoned and become bored with. Cyberpunk 2077, GreedFall and Days Gone are a few examples of games that showed promise but became somewhat routine and pedestrian. I did enjoy my first major foray into the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Black Flag proved to have an engaging story and an unusual setting, hence I completed the game. My gaming mainstays, the MMORPGs The Lord of the Rings Online and Star Trek Online, also kept me busy this year. This was mainly due to the way this genre lends itself to “quick fix” gaming. STO in particular continuously runs events that afford the player a reason to log in and undertake a quick task. Yet despite this engagement, I don’t feel I’ve done anything significant in either game.
The jury is still out as to whether my Nintendo Switch has been a good or bad investment. It gets used mainly when my granddaughters come to visit and then Mario Kart is a firm favourite. But personally I have yet to find a game that enthrals me. I think I’m just culturally conditioned to do my gaming on a PC. And in other news, my love hate relationship with Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout continues. There is fun to be had playing this game but the moment specific races and events appear, they instantly kill my passion. I have still yet to win a crown. This failure to achieve this particular goal bothers the heck out of me. I suspect that overall, my relationship with gaming is shifting. As a pastime it is becoming very much like mainstream cinema. There’s no shortage of content but it’s all rather generic, formulaic and mediocre.
As for 2022, well for the present I shall just continue to push on with LOTRO and STO. I have nearly finished the new expansion in LOTRO, Fate of Gundabad and have reached the current level cap of 140. I finally got on top of the new Legendary Item system and have managed to create a rather robust new weapon. I think I may soon make a return to The Elder Scrolls Online and see what content I have waiting for me. I usually enjoy playing for a few months continuously and feel that subscribing improves the overall experience. I shall also keep a weather eye on the video game industry to see if and how it bounces back from the recent scandals assailing it. It already looks like the player uptake of NFTs is not going to be as easy as some publishers have anticipated. Maybe I’ll chance upon some hidden video game gems in the next 12 months and my enthusiasm will be restored. Time will tell.
Destiny 2 Goes F2P
I bought Destiny 2 shortly after it originally launched in October 2017, mainly due to the positive word of mouth comments of friends and colleagues. I got a good deal at the time from an online CD key vendor. As I have enjoyed FPS titles in the past and Destiny 2 also has elements of the MMORPG genre, I spent some time in-game levelling my character. Certainly I had no complaints about the nuts and bolts of the game. The graphics are good and the games systems appropriate and responsive. Combat is fast and dynamic and there is always something to do if you just wanted to jump into some action. But after some time my interest in the game waned. The central story wasn’t exactly compelling and as I was playing solo, there wasn’t any strong social aspect keeping me logging in. So after a few months I stopped playing and moved on to something else.
I bought Destiny 2 shortly after it originally launched in October 2017, mainly due to the positive word of mouth comments of friends and colleagues. I got a good deal at the time from an online CD key vendor. As I have enjoyed FPS titles in the past and Destiny 2 also has elements of the MMORPG genre, I spent some time in-game levelling my character. Certainly I had no complaints about the nuts and bolts of the game. The graphics are good and the games systems appropriate and responsive. Combat is fast and dynamic and there is always something to do if you just wanted to jump into some action. But after some time my interest in the game waned. The central story wasn’t exactly compelling and as I was playing solo, there wasn’t any strong social aspect keeping me logging in. So after a few months I stopped playing and moved on to something else.
Because I try to keep up with the ongoing tsunami that is daily gaming news, it recently came to my attention that developer’s Bungie has ended its relationship with Activision and the game was no longer going to be available on the Battle.Net game launcher. I was therefore curious to see which platform the game migrated to. I even briefly harboured thoughts of trying the game again. However, my initial good humour upon learning that the game was to be available via Steam was quickly dispelled when I learned that Destiny 2 was also going “Free to Play”. I know it’s illogical and I am fully conversant with the “sunk cost fallacy” but I always get the feeling that I’m getting rooked when a game that I own goes F2P. Perhaps on some psychological leveI, I resent the fact that some bastard is getting something free that I had to pay for. On a more serious note, F2P transitions always come with issues.
If like me, you have previously bought Destiny 2 and wish to transfer your existing characters and paraphernalia, this can be done via your existing Bungie account. You simply have to link to your Steam account and then the game will appear in your library. However, at the time of doing this (mid-afternoon UK time on Tuesday October 1st), the system was under a great deal of strain due to the volume of players availing themselves of the service. It took me about three or four attempts before I got anything vaguely resembling a confirmation message. The game finally appeared in my Steam library about an hour later. At some point I’ll look into what sort of status my account has in the revised, post F2P hierarchy of Destiny 2. Will I be deemed a premium player or a VIP? Or does my previous custom count for nowt and for me to be a “good citizen” Bungie now expect me to buy the new Shadowkeep expansion?
Because of my age, I experienced the early days of PC gaming and the business model of those times. You bought a product and owned it. Sometimes you’d get some additional free DLC. But any significant additional content was chargeable, however not at the same price of the base game. I fully realise that times change and we now live in the era of games “as a service”. You don’t just buy something anymore. Content is gated behind pay walls and games are built from the ground up with monetisation determining their structure and form. Yet despite comprehending these things and realising that I can vote with both my wallet and my feet if I don’t like something, deep down on an emotional level, such changes really don’t sit well with me. I have an irrational resentment that someone is getting something free of charge, that I had to pay for. It’s an odd state of affairs. I don’t even play Destiny 2 anymore and have no strong attachment to the game. Yet I moved my account today and the only reason for doing this boils down to “I paid for this”. It can be odd at times being human.