The Deadly Spiral Of Live Services (The Jimquisition)

[@Accursed_Farms]

I'm glad you gave a mention as to what happens once they decide these "services" aren't profitable anymore. They're gone forever, as is your money. This entire practice is a nightmare for anyone who wants to play existing games in the future.

[@jmurray1110]

The only worse gage is stadia games since at least with the live service games that’s physically there you can create a ROM and host private servers

[@Strakester]

Every time someone says "They're corporations, their purpose is to make money!" I respond with "We're customers, our purpose is to stick up for ourselves!"

[@joesjoeys]

I hope you're not subscribed to Extra Credits then XD

[@jakesampson8472]

Strakester it's possible for a business to be both highly profitable and consumer friendly however these companies seem to disagree

[@Knights_of_the_Nine]

The customer criticizes the practices, the customers stop cucking themselves, the products change. The system is working.

[@Whinterfell]

Extra Credits can be an idiot at times. And sorely under informed when it comes to many things.

[@TheDurid1]

More accurate, 'We're customers, we don't have to give you our money!" Then both statements are true. There are honorable ways of making money, and when a company forgets that they are quickly lose their customers.

[@Gredddfe]

I'm already having to explain to my 10 year old the difference between DLC, microtransactions and lootboxes. Explaining the concepts of limited vs unlimited ceiling prices, and whether it's a definite transaction or gambling. When he asks to buy premium currency and I say no, he says "But I'll only buy it once". Not the sort of psychological pummeling that a 10 year old should have to deal with.

[@ToaKoran]

We can only hope that shit like this will be PR nightmares for publishers, and cause them to be ridiculed, targeted, and scared shitless by what may come from the mobs of reporters, and customers alike.

[@chaosinc.382]

Yeah my girlfriend has that issue as well...

[@CidGuerreiro1234]

Gredddfe That's parenting done right. Well done, sir.

[@Vicous528]

Truly sorry. Innocent fun is becoming anything but.

[@soupalex]

I try not to ever be all "things were better back in my day", but considering the point to which "microtransactions" etc. etc. have proliferated in the "AAA" industry, it's hard to think of a time in the past when consumers were worse off

[@sirgoatson4472]

I had an assignment in College to do where we were supposed to bring up a topic, pick a side, and debate for it. I picked the game industry and triple A publishers as the topic, and used stuff you mentioned and source material you used across different videos, and got an A. I got an Aon my assignment thanks to Jim Sterling videos, thank god for you.

[@cooper8898]

Did you not get a "Tripple Aaaaaaeee"

[@RemixedVoice]

Gratz. Good for you

[@sebas8225]

cooper8898 Triple A games are gonna end up having a hard time.

[@TheAsvarduilProject]

I'd give you a B+. You should've ended it with "Thank God for Jim Sterling."

[@TheAsvarduilProject]

This is true Codiekitty. My bad. :(

[@AgentRedShirt]

Sadly. It’s not just the individual games life service that’s an issue. Remember when PSN got hacked and was offline for upwards of 2 months? All those live services games were fucked. Great video Jim.

[@JakeMR2]

Oh my how could I forget about that in 2011. I had to play offline for around a couple of months, but GT5 kept me occupied for me. A lot of players were definitely angry and that's understood after so many years.

[@Shamino1]

How could I forget? After PSN was hacked, I never logged into my PS3's online services ever again. All of my save games, attached to a compromised and deleted email, gone forever. I haven't bought a PS4 either, I simply don't trust the company.

[@AgentRedShirt]

Jakei's Productions at least you u could play gta offline though. If these nations have their way tho. Offline would be a bad word.

[@JakeMR2]

GTA V didn't release when Anonymous hacked into Sony's servers, what I meant was Gran Turismo 5, which came out in 2010, but I had the worst luck in 2011 because Sony's servers were off.

[@AgentRedShirt]

Jakei's Productions I was gonna say. But I never owned it so I didn’t want to say :). Point tho is back then at least there was some offline stuff. Nowadays tho. Even offline require online :/

[@Mgranadosv]

Jim Sterling keeps traveling to the future and back to warn us, but we don't listen. We never listen.

[@MathewHaswell]

No need for a time-machine. This chicanery has been visible for ages. Many of us simply stuck our heads in the sand, hoping it would go away if we ignored it.

[@Sundaydish1]

We listen and some of us know already and those that can make the changes know. It's just they don't want to because they are too scared it will drop their market share. You need balls to create something good and these pencil necks at EA and Ubisoft have no balls.

[@joncross9264]

Jim is the last Penelope

[@cockbreath01]

Guys not telling me anything new.Seen this coming a long time ago.

[@jedediahcoulbourne1791]

Fun fact: the term Whale comes from casinos and it's used in much the same way. A casino whale is given free food and a free room having upwards of thousands of dollars spent on them because they will drop twice as much on the games

[@TheSchaef47]

Just in case anyone thought the developers' intentions were subtle...

[@mimielleuse]

for real ? wasn't aware of that. fucking pachinkos

[@jedediahcoulbourne1791]

Jeremie very real I used to work in a restaurant in a casino and we had a little German man that came in with a gorgeous woman, before I even spoke to him my boss told me "give him what ever he wants" security later told me he was a whale that would lose almost 30 grand every visit

[@JPhillyyyyy]

Too bad F2P games don't even bother to give their whales the royal treatment lol.

[@kingwilson2399]

I played over 900 hours of the original Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii, a majority of them spent online. Now with the online service disconnected, all that remains is a haunting screen that says “Online service is over. Thanks for playing!”. There were some monsters you could only experience connected online, and to think anyone who picks it up now won’t be able to see them is... strange. You’d think the internet would make things immortal, but the truth is, digital media only lasts as long as the mechines that run it. I don’t like the idea of that sort of ephemeral nature accelerating in gaming. Like what if I only have a year to beat a game before it’s gone forever? That’d suck.

[@ElBribri]

thats a perfect example, I got my example and experience as well and the reason why im totally against always online "services" thankfully it was a mobile game, Im usually against or not pro-mobile gaming because of the stupid microT...I ended up spending A LOT of time and just a tiny bit (but still) money on one of those cards games taht had gorgeous graphics...serves shut down one day, eveything was erased...I felt empty and was actually empty handed...not even the pictures of the game are available now....FUCK microtransactions and always online and all that bullcrap

[@johnsullivan937]

well said, i dont like my games losing huge chunks of content because the servers got turned off either. as me growing up i always thought games WERE immortal, as long as you took care of them you could play them to your adulthood (hell my mom even had her old nintindo from when she was a kid) but now we are lucky if games last 10 years! This huge push to get rid of split screen and make everything online is HORRIBLE. its ruining the longevity of games. I just booted up my n64 emulator on my pc and played conker split screen with my friend. had a BLAST. its such a shame games like battlefront from this generation are going to be completely useless after a few years.

[@weaverquest]

Demon Souls servers are getting shutdown tomorrow after 8 years. I only got the chance to start the game a few days ago for the first time and it is quite nice to have all the helpful messages, bloodstains that show the last few second of how a player died for hints and the wandering apparitions around. It is ingenious how the online functionality works in souls games. I am only halfway through the game and it seems like the rest of the journey will be quite lonely :(

[@ChaosCorpse4tube]

Excellent example to which I agree completely. My personal experiences were not as devoted to one game as was your experience, but as you've said there have been times that I finally pick up a game in my backlog (mostly single player mind you) only to find that a portion of the game no longer exists due to server closure. One of the Nintendo DS Dragon Quest games had a small town you could build up via online connections with people added onto the base game, but with the servers offline that portion of the map will forever remain as ruins instead. And then there are silly examples like Darksiders 2 having 1 trophy related to online services that basically added nothing to begin with, but now blocks anyone from getting the Platinum trophy for no real reason. Ironically enough, now and days I double check single player game's trophy lists for anything online based before playing. If I got it from PSN+ and would not have otherwise cared to try it, that is my affirmative no to downloading it in the first place. If I just want to have fun regardless, I'll play it on an alternative account. Hell, even the PSN+ itself is an addiction based service with it's games. Have a backlog? Better finish that before you consider stopping giving us your money. Lastly, addiction sucks. It doesn't just go away when you no longer have disposable income...

[@fluidthought42]

I never got a chance to play PT...

[@Yazu13Z]

Jim's a showman that not everybody takes seriously, but he also knows the industry better than most. I feel like a lot of the things he talks about should be common sense, like businesses are out to make money and they're not your friends, but maybe It's just because I've been following him for awhile and I've done my own research into this industry that I love. Despite the dark age gaming seems to be in, I'm more passionate about it and the industry itself than most tend to be still. I wish more people had the thirst for knowledge that people like Jim have, but I guess that's an uphill battle. One of the reasons why I respect Jim so much though, is that he knows that in order to reach people, his videos can't just be educational, they have to be entertaining. That's why he's a showman too, because the simple joy of learning isn't as universal as we would like to think. This way he reaches more people, and his larger than life personality gives people the hook they sometimes need to break into industry news and analysis. He's a success story in this regard and gets a lot of support on Patreon, and thankfully, he deserves it. He pulls no punches and calls industry shit like a veteran journalist, though these companies he lambasts tend to be predictably greedy these days and deserve every jab. Fight the good fight Jim.

[@kevinwilson455]

Good post - My thought exactly.

[@Kultsound]

Your are spot on! Only that with anywhere closer to 500k views per video, that being 500k potential game buyers, I bet you that in every publishing company there is a poorly paid soul who spends his entire time watching every single of Jim's videos closely and then reports back to management. ^^

[@gingersonnyboy]

Yeah, for a (comparitively to some others) 'small' channel you can bet the industry notices when he speaks, more than some of the bigger more 'popular' shills out here in YT land

[@muhammedabdul-ghaffar8765]

You're exactly right my friend. We're brought up in a culture that doesn't promote critical thinking which is the process of learning. Corporations, governments, and secret groups thrive on a population that can't think for themselves because that gives them the opportunity to twist and concoct any story, and feed it to people. Beyond the world of videogames lies many things about our world that these institutions would rather want us to not know. Sometimes you gotta create that hook or get on someone's level like Jim Sterling does. He probably wouldn't be as popular on YT if not for his larger-than-life persona.

[@SahnigReingeloetet]

Yazu13Z It's almost as if we should thank god for him :)

[@darkrain491]

All very important Jim, but what about the droid attack on the wookies? Its a system we cannot afford to lose. Why aren't you talking about that?

[@JimSterling]

For some reason this has be laughing my head off.

[@Sinnum]

hate that i can see the meme as i read this

[@xmm-cf5eg]

Wookies will be fine, they're stronger than B1's. That and they've got a Wall, I wonder if Naboo paid for it though.

[@inkblotCrisis]

Thoughts and prayers go out to Wookies, yes. (Yoda has temporarily changed his profile picture)

[@dvklaveren]

inkblotCrisis I can't, my prayer quota is filled by me thanking God for Jim.

[@ferdinandavila-soto7233]

"And that's what games are looking to become now. Less hobbies, less free time activities, but work." That's an interesting way to put it. It reminds me of limited-time events in online-focused games. Want to get cool stuff? Better beat the quest while it's available. Want to get banner heroes? Better get summoning orbs before it's too late. What to fight the new Arch-Tempered Elder Dragon? Better do it before month's end. So on and so forth. It makes me feel like these games are giving me deadlines. I get enough of those from work. I don't want them from my games. I'd rather play on my own schedule.

[@alabamajrb5534]

There is a 'perfect game' for me. It's the one that you only buy once, and can get everything available in the game, just by playing the damn thing.

[@Daniel6254]

Where do you get a game like this? I want one

[@alabamajrb5534]

Nintendo NES, Sega Genesis, Dreamcast etc. Their once was a time, when every game was like this.

[@Daniel6254]

Yeah i know that, because im still playing on my Gamecube/Nintendo 64. The question is where do i get games like this that arent over a couple years old and aren't Indie?

[@Daniel6254]

Like i said im still playing on my Gamecube/Nintendo 64 alone or with friends. I just want to know if there are any new games that have those features or if all of them are just shovelware/filled with lootboxes and DLC.

[@lakamokolaka]

So lots of games on steam like a hat in time

[@BigHeadWinter]

As someone who works 40+ hour weeks, I only have time for games I can pick up and play for a bit. With all these “””live services””” I don’t understand how people are going to have the time. Gaming is a hobby and a pastime for me, not something I want to be dragged back to day after day when I have a life as well.

[@CthulhuChow]

i don't think these things are aimed at adults who are working and living an actual life. maybe more kids who can milk parents for the cash to get them to shut up.

[@Bill_Bo]

You can just pay them more and then you don't have to play the game as much.

[@josh885]

Exactly! The average age of gamers is 35. Most people in that age range have jobs and families. As yesterdays kids continue to play games into their 30's and beyond the average age of gamers will continue to be in the 30s-40s. People who don't' have time or money for more than maybe one "live service" game and even then only if the time investment is not too much and daily engagement is not necessary. The live service model can only work as part of the revenue generation for a publisher not the only thing as it seems they are pushing for. There simply won't be enough "payers" to go around if every franchise tries to go the fully live service route.

[@YouDonkeyfu]

which is why i end up playing rogue like games instead, those tends to be small chunks of time considering how shit i am at runs and at the same time, progression :D

[@YokiDokiPanic]

I'm disabled so I have fuck all to do all day but playing games. But even then I don't think these games are worth my time.

[@JinzoTK]

You know what, I still have a backlog of great previous gen games to play and finish. I think I can wait out this live service phase.

[@MathewHaswell]

I was playing the bootleg NES version of FF 7 as I first watched this.

[@jonathanaustin9158]

Then stop thinking about it and just do it then. Expect not to hear a single complaint because you don't want to play this gen anymore.

[@Texelion]

Me too. Every time I'm going to buy a new game I think a bit and say "naaaah I have 200 other games to finish first".

[@MathewHaswell]

I was actually close to finishing FF 7 NES, with Lugia2009's hack applied. Not long after my first reply, I did indeed finish it.

[@johnsullivan937]

thats exactly what I am doing man, ps2 wii gamecube n64 emulators here i come! back to the real games!

[@HiddenGemsReviews]

Another fact to add on top of your stellar points, Jim: This recent trend of "live service" titles also takes away one other important aspect of video games, and arguable any other media: lasting power. I can plug in my SNES and play Link to the Past, or my Dreamcast and pop in the Grandia II disc, but there's no legacy for these titles far off into the future. Eventually the player bases die down, the company decides it's not worth keeping the servers around, and it's lights out. More and more games are going down this route too. You think you'll be able to play the original Destiny 5 years from now? I guarantee you it'll shut down, with no patches to play it single player or P2P with friends, and that's it. Maybe someone 10 years from now will be looking into the series and going, "Hey! Wouldn't it be neat to play the game that started it all?", buy it for $0.25 at a local GameStop and realize they can't do anything with it. And sure, there's videos, reviews for if you want to watch it in action, but playing it? You'd better hope there's a fan made server, and that's not always a sure thing. Publishers are selling the integrity of their long running franchises to turn the fastest dollars they can, and it's only going to hurt them more in the long run while a company like Nintendo or indie devs push their GAMES first, and their services second.

[@blank.e5plus]

>implying there will still be game stop in 5 years >feel.jpg

[@seacliff217]

He kind of makes that point in the end when he mentions Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5. Its servers are down, yet it's still on sale. Regardless, even older console MMOs like Phantasy Star Online are perfectly playable single player. It's like the developers had foresight or something.

[@baatinagawo1207]

This is an important point. And this is where the developer will have to see ahead of the publisher. If they have the capacity to make the game they want

[@gateauxq4604]

Seacliff PSO HIGH FIVE!!! It’s so sad that their attempts at more robust extensions of PSO like PSU fell so flat. The same 3-4 maps on an MMO was revolutionary in 1999. Now not so much.

[@Levitz9]

I'd go one step further. Look at Dark Spore. Every last copy of that game is now a very shiny coaster, because there's no way to play that game in any capacity: with its servers down, the game just *won't run*. Even Nintendo isn't immune to this. Dragon Quest IX and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon have a lot of optional content locked off because the only way to access it was via Nintendo's now-defunct WiFi channel for the DS. HOURS of content in DQIX is now only accessible via cheating.

[@combobreaker0201]

Live services work well, look at destiny 2 and how it captivated people for an entire 4 months before 90% of its player base decided to go play something else. It lasted the entire lifespan of a dragonfly.

[@bigmol1633]

Corgi Wargi their first problem was destiny 2. They got greedy. Destiny 1 was a good game that got better over time. By the end it was a great game..... Now if they had just kept iterating and growing it they could've been onto a winner. Instead they wanted to press the reset button to drag in as many casuals as possible and ram loot boxes down our throats...... And it has fucked them hard. They literally took 3 years of hard work on their own part, and flushed it away because they thought they were smarter than everyone that played the game, could slip a digit inside us and ask us to pay for the privilege. Edit: some typos

[@jamaly77]

Neil Mollison destiny 1 a good game? after spending 200+ dollars? :D glad I didn't fall for that in the first place. great game he says :D

[@lordythegreat88]

Especially after Destiny 1 was meant to be a "10 year experience". I feel other publishers haven't learned the lessons from that yet

[@bigmol1633]

Jamaly - Log Horizon different strokes for different folks. I loved it and make no apologies. Sank 1500 plus hours into that so 200 dollars was cheap as chips over 3 years. People spend more than that on COD over a 3 year cycle but don't let actual facts get in the way of a good trolling. If you feel it makes you special to belittle other people's experiences more power to you but that's not how I live my life.

[@GGamersUnited]

lol great comment! #Truth Even the free to test tactics didn't work.

[@mitori]

That "Live Service" warning sign is brilliant: subtle but unsettling.

[@iandakariann]

So basically, just like how blizzard made bank on the mmo market and everyone copied them only to fail and Activision banked on the fps market and everyone copied and failed.. Now Activision\blizzard made bank on the service model... And everyone is about to copy that and fail yet again.

[@iron1349]

1.Actiblizz makes a license to print money 2. Everyone else copies Actiblizz. 3. Return to 1

[@RioDragoon]

Also relevant to this 'Live Services' topic. Publishers under the umbrella of the ESA are now fighting against museums/historical societies based on games and tech because gaming museums want to showcase games with histoical significance in some sort of playable format to demonstrate said games in action. The ESA is fighting this because they don't want museums to make money off of the games that publishers abandoned. Apparently not realizing that having a game preserved for historical significance is a pretty high honor, and if we wish to hold games as art, well, there you fucking go. Recognition you're shfting simply because it doesn't make you money. The times we live in.

[@NZBigfoot]

Theres only one thing these people understand and its $$$... anything outside of that they have literally no concept of... if they arent getting $$$ its like your speaking greek to them. Every aspect of their waking life and how they deal with the world and the people and places within it is based on $$$. It would be sad if it wasn't also mind numbingly infuriating. Its like a 5 year old getting irrationally pissed their 2 year old brother was given their old crib toy they no longer play with or even want. its not that they like or care about it any more (because a child of that age has no concept of nostalgia or sentiment for the most part) its simply the act of something of theirs or was theirs being given or being used by someone else that triggers the response.

[@F1ghteR41]

I'm surprised that Jim haven't brought up this story for it supports his point greatly.

[@tomsnider9213]

Well Jim has mentioned a couple times that games industries don’t like to leave money on the table. “It’s not enough for them to make SOME money if they can’t make ALL the money.”

[@RioDragoon]

And yet, so many of them do leave money on the table in regards to not providing digital copies of older games or methods of extending the lifespans of said older games themselves, at least by allowing people to make their own servers once the games are formally dead. Not that it is a lot of money, keeping niche games alive in some fashion to be preserved for the future, but some extra money they aren't getting now.

[@baatinagawo1207]

Hopefully Nintendo is ok with LoZ 1 and 2 being in a museum. It needs to be

[@Caphalem]

It's funny to me how at first when I discovered this channel I thought that the "Thank god for ME" was extremely arrogant but now I actually feel like thanking God for Jim fucking Sterling, son, because there's so much shit in the game industry and he's our best chance at fighting it.

[@LATEXXJUGGERNUT]

That was his goal all along, and by God he achieved it

[@justin.m5872]

9NecroW9 YongYea is another good channel i watch regularly that covers similar topics as Jim ... I recommend you watch them

[@NJHS92]

the jimquisition is literally him being as arrogant and evil he can be, he is more like a villain than a hero and it was his goal he talked about this earlier in an interview. when he tried to be the good guy and just talk about the explotation of people in game industry people trashed those videos ripping him apart, but when he tried to be as arrogant and self-centered as possible people loved it and thus the jimquisition as we know it was born. he isnt like this in real life, its just a character like avgn and nostalgia critic and its pretty damn funny

[@666Tomato666]

+NJHS92 most likely because it brought a bit of comedy to the show, and people like their news with a laugh at the side (see the popularity of late night shows)

[@summonerstripclub4840]

ditto him & Yong are like...the only ones regularly talking about this that I know of & it's disturbing when half of youtube & most of twitch make their living from videogames

[@phoenixofthechorus]

The biggest issue with this whole "games as prolonged services" idea is that it falls prey to one of the biggest issues in gaming: aging. When a game is fresh and new, it's looked at more favorably. However, it can only continue to be seen as such as it ages if the game holds up over time. This still applies to games which are continually updated; World of Warcraft, for example, is so damn old that they've had to completely update every single model in the game, and it was long overdue, and that's saying nothing of the continually-outdated older content which is still in the game and frankly required for leveling a character. The issue with Ubisoft is that they just do not give a shit about quality, aside from expense/return maximization. And so once their game stops being relevant, once it falls out of favor, people will stop playing it, and Ubisoft likely won't have a different game lined up to compensate for that.

[@DarkinPunk]

I like how Dynasty Warriors 9 has taken the place of Aliens: Colonial Marines in the trash can next to the porta-potty.

[@JimSterling]

It had to be done.

[@IamCrusaderRUS]

I think taking place in trash NEXT TO Aliens: Colonial Marines would do them more justice.

[@JimSterling]

I've considered having them together in there for future ones.

[@SuprSaiyanRockr]

Yeah, I reckon both would be better.

[@WEIRDxGRIM]

Well you got a whole wall there, why not put some extra trash cans there, then at least you can put Star Wars BF2 and Destiny 2 in them too.

[@Shimamon27]

So, they are sort of making games with an expiration date now? With live services... The game dies after a while. At least old games can last forever... Even totally forgotten bad old games still hold a place around the web.

[@mitchellalexander9162]

This is why when I first heard about things like iPhone apps with Microtransactions and thing of that sort I said to myself: Why can't this game be programmed as a Single Player experience so it can last forever even after the Servers that support it go offline? Example: I never gave a spit about Puzzle and Dragons for the iPhone but a solid 3DS game I can play through to the end at my own pace without being forced to stop or buy things with my own money that I could spend on better things in my life (especially in an age thats swimming with nigh unlimited ways to spend your time that are freer and cheaper by comparison). Never got the initial pitch of that game model myself.

[@holdtehmayo]

Destiny 1 & 2 will be totally lost to history once the servers go down.

[@exantiuse497]

Tbh this is the issue with every multiplayer focused game, it isn't exactly a new thing. Like, how many players do you think play for example Call of Duty games' multiplayer on the last gen consoles, or are the servers even up? Or Battlefield's? Sometimes you have to accept the thing isn't going to last forever, and online play in general is one of those

[@Nikke-nn5mn]

If an online game is good, it doesn't die easily. BF2 had it's servers closed, but it was revived by the community. After that was shut down another similiar project popped up and it's alive again.

[@drweegee1337]

Unlike the road to Hell, the road to Live Services is most certainly never paved with good intentions.

[@Vicous528]

Underrated comment, m8!

[@markusmccloud]

Heh, isn't that ironic? But then again, did you expect anything moral from the TrIpLe A gAmE iNdUsTrY?

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

We're trending in to a world where indie games will be the only "games" left.

[@RooksGamingCorner]

Endyo Honestly I'd be fine with that. Indie games are typically cheaper than AAA, and have loads more charm and vision than the focused tested sludge the big companies pump out for $60.

[@dennett316]

I'm fine with that. That's where all the imagination goes anyway. Indies have grown from strength to strength in the last couple of generations, and I can only see that trend continuing as AAA games keep driving people away with their bullshit.

[@qty1315]

Pretty much just like the music industry.

[@alfredong6850]

Let it be. Embrace the indie movement, it is the gaming that we deserve. Triple Ayyyy is dead, long live the indies.

[@stefan1360]

Indies aren't that much better, for every original good indie there tons of shit ones with no creativity. Really people should stop sucking indies or AAA games dick and focus on good games regardless of who made them.

[@aaayu1]

Now i know what face Jim makes when he says "Triple A"

[@aethertoast4320]

Honestly this is why a lot of games I play has gradually shifted to more obscure Japanese titles and indie games. Those groups are still willing to create new and interesting games that have far fewer examples of predatory practices.

[@RacingSnails64]

"That circle is a spiral." damn.

[@halsaufschneider1446]

It was a 100% spot on, and accurate anal ogy...

[@WushuKnight19]

"So what if I spent $1000 on Microtransactions. It's my choice. It was WORTH IT. *Servers turned off* "FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

[@Blacknight8850]

Players have actually sued over that sort of thing, especially when the servers shut down early, for example _Marvel Heroes_ and a guy who sued EA for selling games listed as having online services that had already shut down.

[@exantiuse497]

Lol no sympathy from me for anyone who supports the microtransaction crap, in fact I'd love to laugh at the face of someone who got fucked like that, because there really are, unfortunately, people who spend thousands of $ on them

[@Scyths1]

This happened very recentry with Marvel Heroes, yet people somlehow forgot about that. A lot of people paid hundreds of dollars for that game and now it doesn't exist be it online or offline.

[@NoJusticeNoPeace]

That's exactly what happened with City of Heroes. I paid full price for the game, paid for each of the two subsequent DLCs, paid $10 a month for years on top, and sunk hundreds and hundreds into microtransactions for extra cosmetic items, extra server space for my own adventure areas, and so on. Then NCSoft decided it wasn't making enough profit -- it was still turning a profit, just not a _big enough_ profit for their shareholders -- and just turned off the servers and stole everyone's money. They were still selling in-game currency and microtransactions right up to the minute they announced they were shutting the game down. Well, fool me once and all that. Since City of Heroes shut down, I haven't paid one single thin dime to an MMO or paid for a microtransaction. And I would agree to be gang-raped raw and dry by horny, syphilitic mountain gorillas before I'd put money in the pocket of NCSoft again.

[@114418514]

add a "Buy next game, repeat same cycle" for Destiny2 players

[@QseftJohn]

I'm glad Warframe jumped onto this service market before all the hyper greedy and uncreative publishers got to it first. I hope the AAA publishers drown in the sea of mediocre garbage that they will create.

[@SpirallingOut]

*"They're jobs! Except these are jobs where you're the one paying [the company] to do the work."* - The perfect description of games with a deliberately engineered excessive "grind", designed to manipulate frustration in order to drive recurrent transaction (let's face it, there's nothing "micro" about them anymore except for maybe the penis size of the corporate triple aaaaay publishers putting them in our games) sales, Jim. Bloody perfect! How laughably & yet tragically similar the playing (and paying) defenders of some of these games and their corporate masters resemble ant/bee colonies...or cattle being raised & fattened just enough to be led to the slaughter house. "Welcome to the Rockstar farm ladies, gentlemen, children of suspiciously high pitch voices...Welcome! (Disclaimer: Entry fee of $60 US dollars. Entry fee is not a guarantee of the complete experience. Some experiences may vary. Accessories sold separately. Battery is what you'll feel has been done to you after we've got you firmly by the Shark Cards.)"

[@wyrmoffastring]

One note on login rewards in Warframe - they don't reset at any point, so you don't have to log in EVERY day, whereas in some shitty fee 2 pay games they will reset if you log in even a second too late and you forfeit any useful rewards. Also let's face it, -75% on platinum is really neat to get.

[@NZBigfoot]

Was gonna point that out too, cumulative logins instead of consecutive login rewards... nothing worse than playing a game like Smite, logging in each day to keep the weekly reward meter going and accidentally missing it and getting reset to nothing one step from the premium currency reward... its at that moment i tend to go, F it not logging in for a few months.

[@iwillsurvive7370]

I love Smite but, the chest, login rewards, and balance changes make it hard to love it more.

[@tuskat]

I don't see how it's "punishing" to get a free weapon with a pre-installed catalyst. It would be punishing if they reset the counter to nothing. You have a guarantee that'll it'll come, just focus on something else in the meantime.

[@liamaspinall6906]

been playing wframe since 2013... play every 3rd day, havent seen anything higher then a 50% off and only saw that 50% off once in the last year

[@MetaKaios]

I've been playing since update 7 and have only ever seen one 75% off. Also, Warframe's login rewards used to reset if you missed a day. Though there wasn't much decent to get out of them anyway.

[@ozxander619]

I don't know what you call that glitter slap, but you should totally call it "Seeing Sters"

[@foxokon94]

I can say 1 thing about the “perfect” game. It is not a live service.

[@gramursowanfaborden5820]

unless it's Runescape.

[@patchmoulton5438]

Selling 2k addy in GE

[@Alpha1598753]

It would be closer to a game wich can be played offline, a polished game core, interesting story good mechanics, expansion largely worth its money, modding possibility and a good community, no microtransaction BS with a bonus if its innovative

[@Bluecho4]

Hell, Ross Scott over at Accursed Farms (the Freeman's Mind guy) has been talking about always online games being screwed for years. He saw all this coming, and is saddened. Because when a publisher decides that their always online game - their "Live Service" - has made all the money it'll make for them, they have every incentive to shut the servers down. Which, for a game that _relies_ on a central server to keep running, means that the game just dies. Can't play it anymore. Doesn't matter if you get nostalgic for the title five, ten years down the line, and still have it installed. The servers are down, which means the game is dead. If for whatever weird reason you happened to like Metal Gear Survive, I hope you get all the enjoyment out of it you can _now_ , because you can bet your ass it won't still be playable five years from now. And all that money you sunk into it - including for its additional save slots - will be wasted. At least in the old days, when you bought a game, you owned a fucking game.

[@BackwardsPancake]

Was gonna mention this myself. Stupid, greedy shit like the live service model as a business practice is already bad, but the "always online" situation leading to games being gone forever once the official servers get shut down is a massive issue all by itself. I believe that games, even shitty ones, are a part of our global cultural heritage, and the fact that they are becoming utterly un-archivable is a tragic loss.

[@budakbaongsiah]

LGR talked about it several years ago as well (in his Darkspore video).

[@TheRogueWolf]

That's part of their ideal scenario. "Well, you loved Classic FPS Game, but we had to shut down its servers. Why not spend $60 for Classic FPS Game Remastered?"

[@lordythegreat88]

I bought Demons Souls (as my first Souls game) for a discount price. It literally was at the point where the servers had a week left so as a special gift to longtime gamers they pushed the difficulty all the way to max. I literally killed two bosses and then traded it, for a noob it was fucking impossible (and I do ok with the other games)

[@TheGrayMysterious]

Imagine going to an art museum that only had 3 or 4 paintings, but to keep you coming back, said paintings were constantly being added to from an unfinished state, and once the canvas was filled, the painting was left up for a week before being taken down and chopped into pieces, with a fresh canvas put up with minimal paint added to it and then added on to with a mixture of new paint and simply gluing pieces of the old painting back onto the new painting. That's what this system is.

[@cekobidonq]

Very good point there. What happens when you've spent $1000 on loot boxes for a game that inevitably dies and is no longer supported? I guess you can say even physical things you buy can break eventually and that value is lost, but it still feels like a waste when it's just pixels that were there one moment and gone in the next.

[@WastelandSeven]

I agree. I've been telling people the same thing for a while now. AAA is flying high....for now, but, as you noted Jim, its not a sustainable system. It looks like a speculation bubble in that the market is artificially inflated for the sake of short term profits. These things ALL burst eventually.

[@WastelandSeven]

I don't know. Some of us already have started saying no more. I haven't bought a game with MTX in it, and I don't intend to ever do so. I simply refuse to play their money milking game. I'll stop buying games and simply replay my library of old games. (or buy indie) Others can do as they wish, but, I'm making my stand.

[@OverZaEast]

But you're only seeing the big market. There is still the small market that is still awesome though. I don't think it won't burst if we just ignore the big AAA that is not our market and instead we just buy the small industry that is our market.

[@bfrehksdhf]

The revolution will not be televised. Nor blogged or featured on a youtube video. It will definitely not come out of a chain of internet comments either. You are the resistance.

[@WastelandSeven]

The King Cow Show ~ that is true. But, where there is risk, there is also opportunity as the saying goes. Yes, indies might have to find new platforms to sell on, but, with a collapse of the AAA scene something will come up farily quickly because that vacuum in the market will want to be filled. So, indies and AA studios that didn't join AAA in being douche bags will find a huge opportunity to find large new markets for their games. Hopefully the new system will have a better vetting system than Steam does.

[@WastelandSeven]

Rad Dudesman ~ I know, I'm one of them.

[@screeno42]

I feel "games as a service" could work if companies didn't treat it as their primary money maker. In my mind, Having a service game under your company's belt should allow you to be more experimental with anything else you want to make, since if it bombs you'll have the GAS money(now there's a term) to absorb the sunk cost. There are definitely the points of "there are game companies that are doing fine without a GAS" and the one Jim brought up of "only so many lifetime games can be successful at one time", but I think if a publisher manages to get a successful GAS, they could be routing the spare dosh into their other studios and saying "Show us something new." Sadly, as Jim also mentioned, these companies seem too shortsighted and greedy to think of this.

[@Khepriem]

I'll take as much of _STERDUST_ and his attitude as I can get, thank you very much ;).

[@Khepriem]

Senpai noticed me, I can die happily now.

[@darkwonderzz]

I need more sterdust in my life :P pls............

[@OrangeyChocolate]

You can never have enough Sterdust! * chomp! *

[@surgeeo1406]

Am I weird for wanting finished, finite games, that I can buy and complete, and then... DONE?!? I'm only in my thirties, I can't be too old for this age already... And I HATE gambling.

[@christinehede7578]

Sur-Gee-O I am older than you and still love playing games but this current gen of games are fast killing me. I have saved a lot of money in the past 18 months by not buying games that I thought looked interesting but when I found out about all the mt I decided not to buy. I am not interested in being always online and I certainly do not want games as a service shoved down my throat. Ah for the days when you bought a complete game that you could play on day one without the large day one patch that takes hours to get.

[@sneakyskunk1]

Sur-Gee-O You aren't old, that idea is the notion you are being sold. Every entertainment medium has tried this stupid nickle and dime bull before. Video games are going through the same thing now. Eventually it will all level out. We watch Jim F. Sterlingson (thank Blob for him) because he argues against the future no one wants. History will bear him out.

[@beastvicious8672]

Sur-Gee-O This is why i don't get people who wants single-player dlc. Wouldn't it be better for developers to use their time and resouces on other games or a sequel instead? There's still many games that goes from start to finish, but even those games has a little extra for you to buy. There's always some cosmetics you can't get in-game. It just takes a little away from the satisfaction you get when 100% completing a game, even if it's just useless cosmetics.

[@Ckoz2829]

Hell, I’m only 21 and I feel the same way. I go to school and have a part time job, so I’m not busy all the time. That being said, I don’t want to waste what time I do have on exploitative grind fests with Microtransactions, loot boxes, live services, etc. Give me a solid, tight, single player game, and I will gladly give you my money. And if you happen to release an expansion or DLC later on, I may buy that too. Maybe.

[@gingersonnyboy]

Honestly nowadays I save the cash I would have wasted on AAA shit for things I actually enjoy, like drugs

[@RoverStorm]

I said it before, but I shall repeat myself: what law are they trying to dodge by re-branding games as "Live Services"?

[@seacliff217]

Gambling ones, of course. I don't think it's just a coincidence that this is cropping up after the dust settled regarding Battlefront 2.

[@crystalsoulslayer]

None, to my knowledge. They dodge gambling laws by arguing that, since you get _something_ from the loot box, you're not "losing" your money. That seems to be enough. Intellectual property law with software is really weird -- you don't actually _own_ any software you've ever bought, whether it's a game or an OS or productivity software. You purchase a license to use that software for as long as the people who own the rights to it decide you should be allowed to. When you accept the EULA, you're basically just agreeing to whatever bullshit they decide to pull. I can't imagine they'd need to rebrand as a "live service" for legal reasons, it's just a way to impress their shareholders and try to justify monetization tactics to the player base.

[@iselalatol735]

aaa game companys are trying to legally get away with gambling. lazyness.uncreative and thieving just to get the real money. even if it takes to using the media to brainwash the stupid into believing its ok. for game developers to do bullshit stuff like what konami is doing. but you know. everyones favorite. nentendo is least to what i know. is not doing that bullshittery.

[@Dryniel]

This is EXACTLY what Extra Credits got wrong. They argued life services were a result of rising dev costs, while it's actually the other way around. Publishers start at the life services and build the entire game around them, resulting in a giant, expensive game meant to last for months if not years. They justify these prices by telling themselves all the money will be made back through life services. The result is fewer games are being made, and more money is spend per game. This model will fail! There is only so much time a gamer has and if every game is fighting for it we will see 3 failures for every success

[@dynostretch9215]

Why am I not surprised Extra Credits is defending this crap? I used to watch their videos back when they first started out, and I loved their Other M breakdown. But those guys have become complete sellouts.

[@shropshirec]

Not entirely. Extra Credits does realize that the way the microtransactions are being used is wrong, it's just that I don't think they fully realize why companies do this.

[@Dryniel]

Codysir I think it's just because of their background. Now, I like EC, even if I don't always agree with them. When it comes to stuff like this I think it's important to remember EC are NOT consumers. The main writer for the show, James, has done his fair share of work in game development. So it shouldn't be surprising they are coming at this from a different point of view.

[@ilikeceral3]

Daniël Dekkers I would love to see them collab with Sterling.

[@TranscenGopher]

3 for one is VERY generous. I'd give it more like 20 to one. Also don't forget, AAA has proven that selling millions of copies can still be a "failure to meet expectations", so even 50 to one might be generous.

[@johntrellston9514]

People are gonna get sick of the grind and this model eventually. And thats when tehy will cry and their goddamn stocks are gonan crash to the pits of hell where they came from.

[@Poever]

The drones unconditionally playing Ghost Recon Wildlands sure won’t

[@MMGuy]

Money makes money/the rich will get only richer. It's the dev studios and players who will face the chopping block, like always. Your live service failed? Fire couple hundred people, cut wages here, invest into some bs PR there. Voila, crisis averted and that another diamond-encrusted yacht safely secured for our poor exec Bobby.

[@Tipsythomas]

I got sick of this a while ago. I just want games I can actually complete these days not every game a open world with thousands of side quests & collectables. I'm a working adault who can't commit the time needed unlike when I was a student.

[@jonathanaustin9158]

Michael M either support capitalism or don't. This is the way it is not just video games. Not really directing this at you(just usimg your comment) but anyone who hates this system but turns around and loves capitalism is delusional. Pick one. Gamers can't have it both way.

[@john6372]

Boycotting thankfully works, not in the grand scheme of things... but alteast you save your money and can spend it on something else. Sad part i actually want to spend money on games, but i can't bring myself to accept these business practices.

[@InAUGral]

I definitely don't have enough time for an MMO let alone a "live service" game that requires boring grinding (not unlike an MMO). I have better things to do now I am an "adult". Ahhh what it was like to have enough free time to play WoW.

[@Pughausen]

I've grown to despise the industry. it is very difficult to feel at all passionate about anything in gaming anymore.

[@plufim]

RedArmyRockstar it has to be said though that while AAA have gone off the deep end, we're in an indie games boon.

[@kelp7060]

Yeah, I reckon indie games are reaching an era like the 70s music scene, where anything is possible.

[@lordythegreat88]

Yeah makes it sad reflecting on my youth during the Ps1/2 era :( RIP split screen gaming

[@plufim]

Michael Lord split screen gaming is basically just mario kart now. Everything else dropped it. :(

[@lordythegreat88]

Yeah only real ones I play now are sports games and Rocket League. My childhood memories of Timesplitters 2 and even later Guitar Hero are all I really have now. (New guitar hero is a live service so doesn't count haha)

[@1093zashimi]

"We will be turning the servers off next month". " but I am still busy with it, what about all the stuff I bought with real Money". "*shrug"

[@holdtehmayo]

Konami did that with “Yu-Gi-Oh Online” an online version of their TCG where you bough digital cards. Anyway the game was only up for about 2 years, and they announced they were shutting it all down. Gave people a few months warning and discounted the price of new cards purchases 😂😂 But what about the $100s people spent on their card collections? Oh. Yeah. You’re SOL mate, thanks for playing.

[@grandam67yt24]

Here from the future, a bunch of services have been recently announced to shut down... thank God for Jim Sterling.

[@MisterNightfish]

I don't care if EA, Ubisoft, Activision and their AAA ilk move to live services. Their games haven't been for me for years. Thankfully, there's plenty of other devs out there that do make games that are for me. Make a good game, sell it at a fair price and you'll have me as a customer in the future. That is lifetime value, too. Well, until my lifetime expires, I guess.

[@blank.e5plus]

id say go for nioh

[@joerichmar6041]

Damn jim. Such a brilliant analysis. I never really thought about it but as a gamer that works 55hrs a week, I've FELT every point you made

[@baatinagawo1207]

Joseph Martin im with you dawg

[@jsrfmaster]

I think this just reinforces #SavePlayer1 - all those multiplayer-only games in 10 years? Gone.

[@AtrociousNightmare]

When Jim calls it you know it's true ;) A grim-looking future indeed. Good thing indie devs are not giving up.

[@ChunkNinja]

In the grim darkness of the near future there is only microtransactions.

[@Ckoz2829]

The whole time I was thinking thank God for indie devs. They really are getting bigger and better.

[@tincano-beans2114]

today's indie devs are tomorrows Triple A heads

[@Ckoz2829]

Alex Kerley Then new indie devs will take their place and the cycle continues.

[@DevilJeff35]

Atrocious Nightmare So paid dlc is a thing. *whines* Now all dlcs are free. You just have to support post launch content by buying cosmetics, like jim sterling is funding his content with patreon. *whines again* What is it do you want exactly ?

[@Dreska_]

If I was a parent I'd be seriously fucking concerned about how my child is being trained into being a whale in the future. When I was young my parents could just think of games like movies, a finite product, and not have to worry about it being a mechanism to addict & extract further money from the player

[@LATEXXJUGGERNUT]

Turning players into payers! Hit the Lever!

[@lordythegreat88]

Yeah its kinda like how toys went from being something you kept all year to something that after a week you will get bored of due to a cereal add for something new. Kids are born and bred to feed the system

[@portal4ever257]

Michael Lord and that right there is why I don’t do live services, short attention span. Thanks ADHD

[@amberbaum4079]

It's not just the gaming industry that feeds that cancerous behavior in our societies. It started with the planned obsolescence of electronics and machinery. Then it went on to infect the clothing world(Primark effect). It all says: "Buy more stuff. Then throw away your half year old stuff, either because it's out of vogue or it's broken, to buy the newest stuff. Which will break shortly, will be out of vogue or will simply not be able to keep you entertained anymore without buying new stuff."

[@barrag3463]

The solution is easy; just have your kid play the old classics instead; then when they complain about wanting a "new" game, give them a boring "live service" (and no extra money) and see how long they'll be engaged with that.

[@AltimeterAlligator]

6:20 Whoa, that slide! Increased profit means higher development time, which means increased profit, which means higher development time, which means increased profit?! Hot damn, I gotta invest!

[@Self-replicating_whatnot]

I call this slide "AAA developmend circling the drain"

[@maxmueller4576]

i fear that thats actually the only thing they are aiming for... an increase in investments which will increase their stock price and the value of their company shares which will then in turn,.... you know get more investors on board which will increase their "earnings" (atleast on paper) which they can then boast about inorder to get more sponsoring deals which will again increase their earnings as the sponsoring will lower their recurring monetary obligations which they can then boast about again to attract more investors which will let the stock prise rise and the whole circle starts again. ... i for one dont want to be around on the reciveing end when the bubble bursts and i fear that the ceo''s share my sentiment....... if you get my drift....

[@SmaMan]

I saw something similar when one of my friends was trying to get me to join their MLM. "We don't call ourselves a pyramid scheme, it's really more of a cycle! You get product, sell to people, recruit some of them, and use their commissions to buy more product..."

[@AshenElk]

It's scary (and insulting) that some people are paid a lot of money to come up with these fallacies and peddle them.

[@Naterkix]

EA, Ubisoft and all the rest seem to all have the same calculator that secretly can only add things.

[@DasMerkel95]

The craze for live services actually reminds me way more of 2012/13 where so many publishers declared that they only want to make F2P games now. EA and Crytek especially went all the way on this F2P train. 5 years after that failure, they all try it again without the "free" part.

[@starwolf7365]

I very much agree to this and when publishers started talking about live service I rolled my eyes at the obvious problem. I used to play World of Tanks, Wargaming broke it over the course of a year and a bit. So, I stopped playing that live service title because I wasnno longer having fun and I guess I got burnt out. Next was World of Warships. Then World of Warplanes got patched to become a brilliant game. But, there was no way I could play all 3 live services at once. And I noticed this years ago when Destiny 1 was released. I only play one live service, the rest are fun story single player games. I have no interest in another game that will consume my life. I'd rather pay for a short and sweet content filled game. I have no time for another bland, slowly updating title that could be a lot of fun! But can also screw me over some time in the future. If any game developer reads this, if you make a really good, but quick game. You'll get my money if it's to my liking, filled with content, priced correctly and brings me join and entertainment.

[@lukakapanadze6179]

Michael Cartwright Path of Exile and Warframe are two excellent free2play games with tons of content and fair monetization practices. On the subject of world of tanks the same happened to me also. The game is great but the development is going too damn slow.

[@boxheadfred3475]

The problem is these games have content but the content is so stretched out that you literally have to sell your life to complete everything in a game. So yeah I agree, I'll never get into these f2p games as THERE IS NO END and sometimes that's a good thing.

[@jacksonlefteye]

Japan's got you covered boy-o...i never used to care for them, but i've found myself buying a lot more japanese games lately because i'm tired of money-hungry western games myself the AAA industry in japan either doesn't "get" microtransactions or they're already 10 steps ahead and just ignoring them altogether, either way they're basically not there and the games are great though it has re-introduced me to the quirks of japanese games: weird PC ports (but they're quickly getting better), complex controls and menus/UI's, time sinks, goofy and over-the-top stories and voice acting, and rarely do they go on sale for less than list price though maybe this is a good thing since they know they're giving you a full-bodied experience without microtransactions

[@boxheadfred3475]

jacksonlefteye Yeah same, Japan is always doing it own thing. Some are trying to do the things US companies do. The diversity, toning down sexual portrayal and trying hard to please every crowd. While Japan still going at everything without any care of the feminists and shit. For example Dead or Alive they embraced the sexual pervertedness in the game but NRS in injustice 2 tried to cover most woman up even tho their comic counterpart aren't.

[@starwolf7365]

jacksonlefteye I mainly play JRPGS jacksonlefteye. Such as the Tales of Series. They at least know how to make a game that's enjoyable. Unless they put Denuvo on it... :/

[@enzmondo]

4 years in and countless live service are dropping support like flies.

[@MillieMaeStar]

Most hilarious and recent being concord lasting only 2 weeks.

[@zanyraccoon6361]

Wow, the music game craze! I remember that!! I feel so old now. Anyone else remember those ancient times?

[@portal4ever257]

Zany Raccoon I do, I still have a guitar hero guitar and a poster from 2007 in my basement. Great now I feel old😢

[@johnsullivan937]

a part of me actually wishes that fad stuck around longer. I regret selling my guitar hero/rockband setup so much!

[@SchwerMetall154]

Elder Scrolls Online 2014 - $15/month, mediocre game, game suffers to stay afloat. ESO 2017 - One time payment of $40, game is actively updated and introduces events, third healthiest MMORPG currently online. See the difference? When you make a game that semi-punishes your player base, your game dies. When you actually give a shit and treat your game as 'a game', you actually make bank.

[@TheNN]

And yet still legions of haters calling it a 'dead game'.

[@stefan1360]

TheNN What that game is still alive? Huuhh... Not hating the game but didn't heard about it in a long time, never knew it dropped the subscription fee.

[@Crystion]

Technically there's still a sub. If you do sub to 'ESO Plus', you get all the DLC and multiple other bonuses. Not too bad if you don't mind the cost, but it's still very easy to pay and play, and if you don't want the monthly fee then you can just buy the DLC separately.

[@TheNN]

And if you didn't that's alright. I was more referring to the legions of dumb fanboys that make stupid ass comments about ESO anytime Bethesda puts a video or announcement out, especially on their KZbin channel. But it really is a much better experience from the early days, and while I'd argue the sub isn't quite so optional, I'm also gonna point out in advance that it's because it DOES offer just SO many extras, bonuses, and conveniences that it's really hard to lose em once you have them.

[@MasouShizuka]

Personally I hate mmorpgs but I get the point here.

[@spongebobby7675]

gaming is a hobby and to you play games to have fun! DO NOT LET GAMES PLAY YOU, YOU PLAY THEM!

[@SunchaserKandri]

The sad thing is that there are actually people unironically defending the $10 save slots. "Hurr, it's optional! Why do you need more than one save anyway?" they say, as spittle dribbles from their slack-jawed mouths.

[@Arella17]

Max Miller Or the people who call gamers entitled brats.

[@ManOutofTime913]

There are idiots that'll defend any bullshit. Wading through this trash heap of an industry has certainly taught me that.

[@PancakemonsterFO4]

Arella17 you mean Fox News?

[@WhoPutsThisStuffHere]

"Honestly it isn't even a big deal... I think the people complaining are just younger gamers who hasn't experienced many games." That is what someone defending the micro-transactions of Metal Gear Survive said. Yes, he's saying those who complain about microtransations must be the young and inexperienced gamers. The disillusion is real sad.

[@SunchaserKandri]

Brainbot Jezebel Nah, places like 4chan's video games board, among others. /v/ is admittedly full of contrarians who base their opinions on whether or not the normies like a thing.

[@besthsq]

A spiral you say? Well look at Ubisoft's logo.

[@seacliff217]

The only 'craze' that publishers chased after that probably had any positive effect on the industry was the 3D platformer craze in the later 90s. A new genre was created, and everyone wanted to give their own spin on it, leading to a lot of variants of just a single core concept. Much different from the mascot platformer craze before it. But that was cashing in for the sake of art. This is cashing in for the sake of cashing in.

[@sp4cepigz174]

Games are not and should never be a service

[@dochmbi]

Indeed. Thanks to Jim I just uninstalled Hearthstone after playing it for 3 years.

[@theoutsider8745]

Couldn't agree more. The same should be said for Photoshop and the Adobe suite...grumble...

[@CorrosiveCitrus]

So what your saying is you want games to be like warframe? where they continue to expand and update game over a long period of time. That sounds like a really good idea! Why not? But, how about this, instead of making a game like warframe, why don't we have our cake and eat it too. Why don't we make a full retail priced game, and THEN shove in microtransactions?! omg that's the best idea ever. Oh wait the AAA industry is already doing that and people hate it... oops.

[@theoutsider8745]

SirEvilesDeath there are heaps of "indie" games that continue to patch the bugs and issues without going the "live services" route. I mean heck, Stardew Valley is getting a huge multiplayer update without charging anything else but the initial sales price. Get real, we all know when AAA publishers and big corps say "live services" they only mean more insidious and addictive ways to get people to pay them more money.

[@JustaGuy_Gaming]

The funniest part of live services combined with digital downloads is they could put the end to publishers. After all the point of a publisher is to promote your product when you release it. To build up hype and get awareness out there in addition to manufacturing the product for retail. Well digital distribution removes the production aspect of publishers and soon with live services a company might only release one game a year or less. Who needs a publisher if your not making new games?

[@rickcode13]

talking about digging their own grave :D but seriously... they'll still get billions before that happens

[@RAFMnBgaming]

Who needs a developer if you're not making new games either? I thought going into this industry that at least my job is never going to be automated out but now that they're not even making any games anymore i might as well get an anorak and a paper coffee cup and set up on some street corner somewhere.

[@mwperk02]

they need someone to make updates and DLC still.

[@EagleGamer15]

That might almost make live services worth it.

[@entitledOne]

Actually this is bad for the devs, not the publisher. Even before a big chunk of the dev team would lose their job because they were hired only to help out during the project. And that was when a dev would always work on a game. Done with one? Keep it updated and work on another. What do you think will happen when the same dev team now makes a game and only need to update it while not working on a new game for a year? Everyone except the core of the team is a waste of money for the publisher. Why pay them when you only need a handful of them to create the new "content" for the existing game. So they will get laid off. This move is bad for literally everyone except the people on top of the publishing companies.

[@eurosonly]

Jim is literally a fortune teller for video game controversies

[@Veolynn13]

“Dead MMOs” rolls off the tongue really well. It’s almost as fun of a word to say as “Lesbians.” Which is odd because Lesbians make the world a better place while Dead MMOs reminds me of my dead childhood. rip lego universe ;_;

[@Bred0nSch00lV2]

This reinforces my MO of playing old as hell games and indies.

[@ToriKo_]

Hal Motley what's a MO?

[@Bred0nSch00lV2]

Modus operandi. Latin for method of operation. Awesome word.

[@DragonWistArt]

^this. I have a backlog of old games, and I've just been systematically going through them. "AAA" games don't really appeal to me any more, what with the rampant anti-customer practices.

[@Yal_Rathol]

Hal Motley it's also just fun to say "mo-dus op-air-anne-die", which is a rarity, because latin often sounds good, but is harsh on the tongue.

[@ToriKo_]

Hal Motley thanks for answering, I find that a lot of my friends look for the best games coming out right now, and due to this mentality (and their low standards) they often buy games that get forgotten in a few years. I find myself trying to play the best games of all time - with this mentality I've had he benefit of playing games I otherwise wouldn't have, such as Persona 4, ChronoTrigger, and Bioshock.

[@vengerofthelight]

It's so pleasant going back and watching these older videos. I know the "Cassandra of Video Games" thing is used cheekily -- but *YE GODS* the actual, prophetic levels of accuracy.

[@Citadel_Of_My_Thoughts]

I've got a backlog that will last me years. I will not be participating.

[@nathanclark2424]

I'm with you. Hell, I could play many of my games multiple times without getting bored quickly.

[@lunarvania8073]

Haha same here man! And all the games ive put in my backlog are bangers without any of that junk.

[@crunchychips8123]

If you're going to make a 'live service' and have me log in every day, do it for the right reasons. Even MMOs pull this trick of promising a 'living breathing world' but everything is automated. Been playing ESO for 3 years and I have never seen a dungeon master/game master, not once. They aren't in zone chat, they aren't playing referee in PvP, there's no hand-picked daily content, and I don't think they even have the ability to do shit like spawn in hostile mobs in funny places, or change game rules on the fly. They didn't even want to do seasonal events until they found a way to tie it in to microtransactions, and a good 3/4ths of the official news channel updates are about microtransactions. If you kick enough of a stink about a bug on the forums, you may occasionally get a boilerplate dev/'community manager' reply; that's the extent of the dev's engagement with their playerbase.

[@Leubast]

Ahh... I remember running into GMs in WoW and GW2. Something fun always happens because they also like to have fun with what they helped create.

[@BrinIoca]

GMs are still around in gw2. I would usually see them during events and in the newest maps, doing the same stuff that everyone else does. Some of them weren't even super fancy looking, but the icon next to their name made it obvious who they were.

[@cattrucker8257]

I remember the times when game masters being an actual presence in the game's world and community was a thing. When they could indeed act like admins in a chat - say, spawn monsters, move players and themselves around and generally play with the rules where it was harmless. Heck, I remember the last case being as late as '09 or thereabouts, when a WoW game master actually spawned himself into the raid we were having issues with and had his character dance while he helped solve a code hiccup locking an encounter - and yes, that was live support within minutes of an issue cropping up. It just felt so nice, like the game maintenance is actually there and cares about you, the player. That is already a lot - not even asking for the glory of earlier MMOs when a GM could legitimately act as a "moderator" of the game world both for player-related and game-related issues and was indeed present in it. Now... everything is just automated script response forms and, at most, chats over tickets that don't fit the templates, if you even get that much in most MMOs at all. I'm not sure how GW2 has things, as I have no updates on it, but everywhere else I've seen, MMOs lost that old feeling of "live game" they once hooked me with, one where I felt I actually sort of joined a community with the game runners themselves in it - and became "live services" instead, with a corporate lawyer-tastic face presented to the player at every turn and everything as devoid of human interaction as possible.

[@Obscuredinsight]

WOW vanilla days is the pinnacle of MMO gaming. I was so excited when blizzard said they will be bringing back vanilla servers but with gaming in the state it is today im pretty sure their will be a monitization scheme put in instead of having to grind it out with your guild.

[@athath2010]

+Cat Trucker This might seem like an odd suggestion... But have you tried Space Station 13? At least on /tg/station, the admins there are quite active and will generally respond to adminhelps and occasionally introduce a gimmick for a round. If you don't know what Space Station 13 is, Mandalore Gaming did a pretty good review of it (it doesn't really mention the High RP servers much, though, preferring to focus on the Low RP ones): kzbin.info/www/bejne/pH2keXWbra-rqKc And here's a link to the Starter Guide on /tg/station's wiki: tgstation13.org/wiki/Starter_guide

[@PunnyFuzz]

Monster Hunter World is my live game of choice since the team running it aren't charging me more to hunt more monsters down the line. Crazy huh?

[@akaimizu1]

PunnyFuzz and like most other Monster Hunter releases. You disconnect from the “Live services”, the hunt can continue.

[@Vicous528]

Really, it's golden how that game made a huge profit and was absolute untainted fun. I still haven't completed most of my armor sets, though. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[@ThePhantomSafetyPin]

MergeDragons, a puzzle game, does this too. You really *don't* need to pay anything to play it, although you *can* get more impressive things if you do. It's purely cosmetic and not necessary at all. You can also turn microtransactions off, a thing more mobile games need to do that. I'm glad other games are also finally getting this point; they're going to be the ones that help fix this issue and make microtransaction games actual, valid options for players.

[@joncarey6121]

except, you know, MHW is still playable offline

[@jacksonlefteye]

why are there so many people defending metal gear survive on steam? are there really that many people who are still into these babysitting simulators?

[@surgeeo1406]

jacksonlefteye Apparently... It's in their right, if they like it, good for them...

[@KoloXD]

Sur-Gee-O I fucking hate this argunent. No, if they like it it doesn't fucking matter, stop promoting trash practices and screwing up future games for the rest of us who has actual taste.

[@surgeeo1406]

Kolo You missed my point, and I don't care to explain. Learn humility, for your own sake.

[@troin3925]

Kolo I can’t take you seriously with your whiny attitude and that little typo. What if it involves liking a game or movie that _doesn’t_ have terrible business practices surrounding it but was still a controversial opinion?

[@w1mark275]

A few days ago, the most popular twitch stream for metal gear survive was titled "fuck everything about this" and had roughly 2000 viewers, the second most popular was lucky to get 300. There's currently less than 1000 people watching metal gear survive.

[@KirkFetkovic]

metal gear survive survive wasnt released, it escaped

[@bificommander7472]

Wanted: Dead or really dead. Reward: 10000 Konami Gold Credits.

[@MrStath1986]

Still here.. Just to suffers. The director it lost, the developers it lost... won't stop hurting.

[@tomaspavlik3810]

Kirk Fetkovic jhjhokj

[@Gormathius]

1:45 I thought he was gonna say the circle has no entry or exit point. Because that's how circles work - everything loops together and goes round and round with anything caught inside growing more and more stagnant.

[@dabagonsmith]

Even as glitchy as kindgom come is I am so happy it came out finally. Good single player games with no dlc bullshit are just about the only games I play anymore.

[@budakbaongsiah]

dabagonsmith And willing to put away magic and dragons for historical fiction.

[@Rocknoob49]

Im lucky enough that it runs very stable at acceptable framerates (35-50) on my dated system. Horse got stuck once but came back down from the fence. Thats it. I was shocked at what others are experiencing!

[@KaiserAfini]

The video on the Pasta Sauce and Muskowitz's breakthrough is one of my all time favorite Jimquisitions. Wish the industry actually learned from the past, they are heading towards the same greed bubble crash as all these get rich quick schemes.

[@HadesWTF]

The Jimquisition has become so exhausting to even watch, but we totally need you now more than ever Jim. Thanks for not being exhausted as me, Jim. You keep fighting the good fight where others can't.

[@ragzaugustus]

Remember Sim City? I sure does, that was the last time EA tried Live Services, and hey, IT DIDN'T FUCKING WORK!!!

[@Darkagedd]

And eventually it got cracked and the pirates "enjoyed" the game more than the paying customers.

[@nomobobby]

IKR, not only did they screw over the player with their little wimpy servers. They destroyed the regions too, with one road a city, and footprints demanding the player build up multiple cities to keep it all running (or play on said servers). I would've enjoyed it much more if they kept it single player with SC 4's regions- So I can send dozens of roads, railroads, and a power cable over to my new suburb, and build a great bedroom city. Thankfully Cities: Skylines is a great substitute.

[@lordythegreat88]

Yeah they finally have it offline but it is still vastly inferior to Cities and even as a Casual experience it is not particularly enjoyable. Back to Simcity 3 I go lol

[@alfredong6850]

Thank god for the indies to save the day!

[@joshthompson7936]

Jim always makes me thing of a benevolent Eggman. He may want to rule over us all, but it would be a nice rule with more wrestling and less AAA industry bollocks

[@iami3rian394]

Robotnik*

[@TranscenGopher]

They say "games" are a thing of the past, yet they insist on calling their consumers players still. I don't see how one can play a "service".

[@piratafrustrado]

*Glitterslap*

[@sharpweasel2]

That guy got Sterstruck

[@013wolfwarrior]

Milkyway slap

[@justjuniorjaw]

Sterucked

[@onlycorndog6322]

Sterdust's signature move: the GLITTERSLAP!

[@MeMoshRocks]

The legend of vengeful mosquito.

[@tomsnider9213]

And for the price of unlocking all three save slots in Metal Gear Sickening, you could have bought a Hat In Time instead.

[@stuartcaffrey2949]

In my opinion, nothing will ever beat getting a game, putting it into the machine and just playing without any monetization or 20gb patches. Call me old fashioned.

[@manishrenegade8271]

Stuart Caffrey You are old fashioned and I love you for it. Never change

[@thatjillgirl]

Yep. And if you like it, you can play it again years later. No internet connectivity required, no patches, no downloads, no additional costs beyond the upfront cost of the game.

[@patchmoulton5438]

Remember the days wherein you didnt have to install a game that was on a physical disk? Or you didnt have to connect to at least two or three different servers at the same time? Those were good days

[@holdtehmayo]

A lot of games are going to be lost when online servers shut down. Even purchasing a physical copy of a game now means nothing .. factor in the day one patch. The inevitable expansions and DLC. Once the servers go. Assuming you can still make your console work without logging in to an account ... you’re stuck with the base code. So for something like FFXV. You have an incomplete story. I think there are going to be a lot of games lost to history. Like P.T.

[@form4li7y]

If your old fashioned then so am I. If Live Services are the future then I will be dreaming of a market crash while enjoying retro games and working my way through my backlog.

[@angeloffish]

They have lost it even more 🤦🏻‍♀️. Sorry EA and Ubisoft, but I think I will stick to my older games thank you, as they are still fun and don’t feel like cash grabs. If Jim plays a game for us to see and I like it I’ll get it. Got about 5 already. Thanks Jim.

[@JoViljarHaugstulen]

Older games are often more completed (well new games *should* also be complete but all the day one patches and the need for such says otherwise) and they often have less micro-transaction bullshit and they are often cheaper

[@013wolfwarrior]

If Ea hadn't had Red alert 2 free on the house that one time I'd probrably wouldnt have an origin account

[@The_Real_DCT]

Well I can see the retro game market surging again. Joy, just when I thought prices were going to start coming down on the non-rare stuff. Well the non PC non-rare stuff, at least old PC games are generally cheap unless it's a Nightdive re-release they had been getting a bit silly with what they want for stuff like 15 bucks for Turok? Seriously?

[@lordythegreat88]

Love how much fun you are having with Sterdust Jim! Back in the day I would've loved to play the same role but with Undertaker, blowing soot into a persons eyes so he can get behind and spin around for a Tombstone Piledriver

[@jedediahcoulbourne1791]

Can someone please link me to Jim's wrestling work or at least which promotion he is featured in. I'm loving his heel work it makes me laugh in a great way

[@JimSterling]

Check out Pro Wrestling Ego!

[@ianjohnston5205]

AAA Industry: We're offering you lies so you can serve us... I mean live services.

[@Morriganhailey]

I love this guy. He's the perfect gaming critique. Intelligent, not emotional Reasonable, not biased KNOWS about both the MACHINE (industry) and the HEART (players & games) of gaming

[@portal4ever257]

Persephone Rothlion I know it’s like “having your cake and fucking it too”

[@ldallas8315]

Actually I'd say the great thing about Jim is that he is both intelligent/well-researched as well as emotional. You can feel his intense passion for creating a better games industry in every word he says, especially when that word is TRIPLE-AYYY

[@antonsokolov4622]

Triple EHHHH

[@MajkaSrajka]

His deep knowledge and vast research of swears definetely makes him the best gaming/industry critique around :P

[@princesstamika]

emotions are a form of intelligence and if you think jim lacks emotion you really don't understand emotions very well. i'm tired of people co-signing this "emotions are not intelligent/ emotions have no place" in logic bullshit. it's just something detached observers made up to disenfranchise and discard the feelings of people who have actual stakes in an argument. it's from the same school as that "i'm just being the devil's advocated" bullshit, the devil doesn't need any advocates and emotions are a form of intelligence.

[@omnibusprimephd7914]

Thank god for you, sir. Getting everything you can out of life, and doing good for the video game consumers. Keep at it and good luck in your wrestling career.

[@colepuryear2271]

As Ive gotten older I feel like im less and less inclined to buy new games. All these new cash grab 'games' have lost what made me get into videogames in the first place: Amazing stories, unique worlds and mechanics, replayability, and some damn polish. Im more inclined, now more than ever, to go back and play a lot of REALLY good games that I never picked up as a kid. I could get by the rest of my life on older games without touching anything developers are trying to push nowadays. I swear the list of developers I can trust is constantly dwindling. I feel like Atlus, Nintendo, and Platinum (despite their flaws) are the only developers im interested in these days...

[@Intrinsion]

CD Projekt Red too

[@chr1srugby]

Bethesda are pretty good too. While not perfect they still commit to great single player games and stories.

[@lordythegreat88]

Yeah they are getting a little dodgy with creation club and stuff like that, but they at least focus on solo experiences still, which is not what these bigger companies want anymore. Screw other people ruining the immersion, I wanna quest by myself lol

[@theevilbroom2093]

Except for the fact that ESO was Zenimax, not Bethesda. Their own in-house studio made that. The only connection it had to Bethesda was using the Elder Scrolls license.

[@OverZaEast]

Than don't play the thing that is not your market. Buy the game that is your market. I really don't mind games as live services because i am one of their market. But i also don't mind expanding my horizon to also try and support the game that i also want on either indie, AA, or good AAA games. It's market if we just balance it for us gamer by expanding our horizon and try different variation games the game market is balance. Games are now better in term of variation if we stop looking only at face value, why not just make our taste varied also.

[@sovereignviper]

Seeing you crack the bottle over that dude's head was amazing. The kid screaming "OHHH!!!!" makes it

[@indieslayer16]

This is all too true. As a person with a regular hours day job, I only really have time for one "live service" game, in addition to my story-based games. Right now, and for a long while, that will be Monster Hunter World. I do not see developers being successful with this in the long run with so many options. People will pick one and stick with it, so as to follow all the content of one game, rather than a tiny bit of many. Goddamn "live services".

[@malbhet]

LOL did he just smack him with confete:D

[@jimmylang101]

Yes!

[@barrag3463]

In order to "help" him, I think

[@gateauxq4604]

Confeve

[@aortaplatinum]

The thing with online-only games is that once servers are inevitably shut down, unless there is a ridiculously dedicated and loving following, the game eventually becomes lost media. Gone forever.

[@sandwich2473]

Software as a service is minging. I hated it when Adobe switched to it, I hated it when Microsoft moved to it, and I hate it now that games are moving to it. I guess i don't have the choice to buy a triple A, offline, microtransaction-free game that I can just play. No faffing around with countless patches, or constant badgering for me to hand over more cash. Just something I can sit down, and play. Can't stand it.

[@ouroldhouse3674]

Same here. Autodesk too now. I spent £3,500 for a perpetual license in 2013, so that I would not ever need to subsribe to their future "service" model. Perpetual licenses where you buy it and own it forever, are no longer available.

[@cattrucker8257]

It's bloody hilarious, really. I guess their fleecing tactics get them enough cash from businesses who dgaf, but to personal-use amateurs and fringe users like myself, it's just impossibly unsustainable, so they basically go "here, we only cater to big companies, we want to price the plebs out". Leaving everyone else with little resort but piracy. And then they complain about their software being pirated, after withdrawing supply despite massive demand. That's the most painful part about it all. When it's all said and done, we, the customers, just want to make a fair deal where we fork over cash and get our software for good, be it a game or another application. One transaction, cash from us, goods from them, happy customers, paid sellers. But they simply don't want that, they're allergic to fair deals, and for sure they have a phobia of customers paying just once and using what they bought without having their stuff arbitrarily expired and forcing them to keep paying for the same shit forever.

[@spacejunk2186]

I pirated photoshop once and have since switched to open source software.

[@cattrucker8257]

Seriously, thank fuck for open source.

[@TastyRedCrayons]

Thank God For You Sterling

[@etaxalo]

Personally i never understood why should i buy games that needs a server to play single player. And i stay clear of online only games. Just looking trough my steam list i found 2 games that needs always on servers to play (on the inter-webs) and that is Counter-Strike and Rocket league, so im safe (for now) with the "Live services".

[@TheLastKeyblade]

I'm gonna say it once more as I always do nowadays, MONSTER MOTHAFUCKIN HUNTER WORLD. It's a shining gem among the cancer predatory service based games. This game is the total winner of the early 2018 and, if you ask me a more than worthy GoTY contender.

[@iami3rian394]

Is it actually good, or is it just done the way games should be done? I've been thinking of getting it.

[@TheLastKeyblade]

IamI3rian I honestly think it's both, and it has one of the friendliest, most welcoming community I've ever met.

[@AegixDrakan]

I seriously can't wait for it to come to PC. :(

[@Knights_of_the_Nine]

It has a daily login bonus and micro dlc :/ It is a genuinely good game and I played for 160 hours before I even KNEW you could purchase additional content.

[@555spank]

IamI3rian I'm loving it and I'm not a monster hunter fanboy.