I’m no business graduate but you’d think Nintendo and Xbox who have closed their marketplaces on specific consoles I.e. 3DS market and 360 market.
There are some absolute bangers on there and old games in their possession as well. Since some of those games are still cherished, you’d think they would be helluva easy to profit by re selling or making a super duper old game free!
That would up both their PR and Profit.
I mean sure, there IS emulation, but we’ve all seen Nintendos stance on that clearly and their own product is a bit shoddy at best, subscription seems half baked and the mini consoles were overpriced pi zeros. Looking at you PlayStation Classic.
So how the hell are these giant firms not realising this despite the retro aesthetic of games going up these days?
Games companies don’t make products for your enjoyment, they make value for shareholders. Hope that clears it up.
In fact, you can copy and paste this for pretty much any business large enough to have shareholders.
except valve
Valves shareholders are Gabe, right? So valve does what he wants
Your day has 24 hours, and they care about how you spend it.
Do you spend your day playing old + free games? They call you worthless.
Do you spend your day playing the very newest shit? They call you precious.
They want you to buy their new games. They also want you to be more likely to buy the old games again when they eventually do a sloppy re-release of the old games or tie it to increase the value of their subscription offerings. Basically to make more money.
This is the biggest one. Why buy a new game if you are continually playing old ones?
When dealing with for profit comapnies, the answer ALWAYS comes down to money. Money for who might change, but it will never not be about money in some way.
Companies don’t want you to play games already out it’s about controlling what you do play and breaking an old game from running is a feature not a bug. If I could develop a game where customers get nothing and you are required to pay them money. It would be the top funded game by every AAA publisher. Remember the people at the top and especially the shareholders don’t care about games.
They care about money and vendor lock in and planned obsolescence is how they get it. Because enough people have yet to say enough is enough. They do that with Legacy IPs because most people say well I bought the first one I wouldn’t be a real fan if I didn’t buy the next one.
They do that with Legacy IPs because most people say well I bought the first one I wouldn’t be a real fan if I didn’t buy the next one.
I hate how accurate this is. However, it can also hurt them because there have been many franchises I’ve refused to buy because I never played the first games and I don’t want to jump into the middle of a story I’m unfamiliar with. I’m a bit of a completionist like that.
I wonder if this is why a lot of games are no longer numbering their new releases and just giving them unique titles. So people don’t think of them as a series and are more willing to buy the latest releases.
On a related topic, I HATE how Call of Duty just made a totally new game and called it Modem Warfare, then started up a new franchise with MWII, MWII, etc. We already had Modern Warfare 1-3! It’s like they’re trying to erase/overwrite their old franchise so when people look them up, they just find the latest games. Very sneaky!
EDIT:
If I could develop a game where customers get nothing and you are required to pay them money. It would be the top funded game by every AAA publisher. Remember the people at the top and especially the shareholders don’t care about games.
This is where microtransactions and DLC (like useless character/weapon skins) come from. The customer gets practically nothing, but they pay the company so much money for it. There are tons of games that thrive on this model (especially mobile games) because selling microtransactions and extra downloadable content that’s just a recoloring of a skin makes way more money than just selling the base game.
oh it will definitely hurt them long term but shareholders and therefore leadership bonuses only think in terms of quarter by quarter. So any long term sustainably gets thrown out the window. Same goes for energy companies and the planet.
Nintendo is the worst at this. What do they lose by releasing wind Waker HD on switch? They have so many games like that, just let me buy them off your estore and I gladly will
easy to profit by re selling
This was exactly the reason they shut down the 3DS marketplace: re-selling old games is more profitable via Switch Online than it was through the 3DS marketplace!
They want you to buy their new games.
Rereleasing an old game has costs. Doing it for free has costs but no profit. It’s simple math.
Record label companies. Various licensing and IP contracts that they never write to be indefinite because of greed.
Riven, a game from 1997, just got an official re-release. Probably one of the best video games of all time.
No way, that game terrorized my childhood and is basically just a picture book click adventure
Why would they release it for free if it still had value to you?
Did you read the entire post? They clearly state multiple times that re-releasing would be fine too. They’re saying if the companies aren’t planning to do anything why not just set stuff to free there’s no harm on the older consoles for doing so. If they release them on say the switch or Xbox we can atleast purchase them to have fun. Look at pokemon the entire community wants to play the old games but aren’t able to unless they buy from a private seller.
Reeeeee
Have you looked at the Nintendo store? It’s got tons of old games in there for the switch from various old consoles.
Playstation often has old games in its store, over half the psx library was for sale on the PSP and ps Vita.
You won’t buy the new one if you’re still playing the old one.
They simply hate us.
