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Another week, another load of Activision Blizzard King drama.
There are a couple of companies that Smith didn’t talk about, though.
The top 10 games companies by revenue (viaNewzoo), Q3 2022.
Predating on our psychological weaknesses is par for the course on mobile, to the detriment of core gaming.
And for Apple and Google, that is by design.
As a duopoly, their mobile storefront practices have been felt quite cataclysmically at times in the console industry.
The top 10 games companies by revenue (viaNewzoo), Q3 2022.
Mobile gaming didn’t quite kill traditional gaming as some predicted in the early days.
Console developers have stepped carefully around building some of these kinds of mechanics into traditional games.
A Sea of Thieves or Fortnite battle pass looksa lotdifferent from a Diablo Immortal battle pass, for example.
The top 10 games companies by revenue (viaNewzoo), Q3 2022.
We famously saw EA overstep with Battlefront II, with its pay-to-win cards system.
But as I said earlier, it’s a philosophical discussion.
Even if you’re fine with that, I think competition is healthy.
It would offer an alternative competition to what Apple and Google would prefer gaming to look like.
And it only works if those platform holders work together.
The Samsung Galaxy Store is quite telling.
Suicide Squad was revealed yesterday to lean heavily into “service” game elements complete with a persistent connection, gear score, and loot, to a cloud of negativity on social media. In my view, pressure from design practices pushed on mobile platforms is at least partially to blame.
Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo also levy a beefy cut for content hitting their respective platforms.
Google’s business also revolves around ads, more so than direct game purchases.
Sony has created an argument that revolves around Call of Duty on consoles, to its detriment.
From day zero, Microsoft has attempted to commit to the fact that Call of Duty will remain multiplatform.
Microsoft has attempted to explain that this deal was ultimately about mobility.
Sony is going to be doing itself a huge disservice to divest itself of that crucial fight.
Newzoo reports that mobile gaming has now crossed the 50% line, giving Apple and Google increasing influence over the direction of the industry.
Even Microsoft can’t manufacture its own servers, it relies on AMD.
NVIDIA GeForce Now can only exist because NVIDIA literally manufactures the chips that go into its servers.
Why do US and UK regulators act like there can be a small indie scene for cloud gaming?
All of this disregards how Apple and Google restrict how competing services can monetize.
This ideology aims to stamp out innovations like A.I.
and cloud gaming, which could only happen at great cost and via huge megacorps.
Apple in particular has cleverly avoided getting involved in this fight because it knows what is at stake.
In the short term, preserving the status quo will obviously serve Sony.
Sony’s business will grow if Xbox died.
I want to be clear that this isn’t an attack on mobile game devs and publishers.
This is ultimately about getting a better deal for mobile game developers as well.
What would it look like if more business models were viable?
What would it look like if user acquisition costs were lower?
If Sony, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Epic Games, Nintendo, quality mobile publishers, etc.
What happened to Microsoft and Sony working together on cloud gaming, as we sawpreviously announced?
Squabbling over a constrained home console industry is short-term thinking.
