Posted by BlueBerry2001 2 hours ago
Firstly, yes PC is mostly digital only, but there is at least competition between PC gaming marketplaces, which helps to restrict anti-consumer practices like deleting content that gamers have paid for.
Secondly, some of the competitors in the PC gaming space allow for physical backups of installation media, which helps with game preservation. For example, if a game is bought on GOG, the installer is mostly/always one that can be backed up onto physical media.
Thirdly, while it's true most gamers have moved away from physical media, it still has value. For example, second hand games allow for more people to take part in gaming than could otherwise (legally) do so. Taking away physical games won't stop people on low incomes from wanting to game, and is likely to lead to a resurgence in game piracy. Not exactly the outcome game industry leaders are likely to welcome.
Microsoft buys something great, optimizes all the good out of it, and then pulls the plug.
Skype, Nokia, GitHub...
Now it's happening to video games.
The thing everyone needs to realize is that Microsoft fundamentally doesn't make anything, they never have.
All they can do is buy low and sell high. Or buy high and sell higher.
They certainly can't lovingly craft games, the way gamers expect.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that executives hate artists. Go out of their way to fire them.
Look at what's happening to Blizzard & Bethesda under Microsoft. Arguably Blizzard was ruined the moment Activision sunk their claws in. Quality went down, creativity went down, and all so Bobby could buy a new yacht and sail to Epstein's Island.
"Do you guys not have phones?" That's something a manager who was totally out of touch with his audience would say. Not of an artist creating experiences for gamers.
Microsoft wedge micro-transactions into everything, changes game play to emulate games like Candy Crush where gamers have to pay every 30 seconds. Really more slot machines than video games, but to the ghouls running the show they can't tell the difference.
Players like to be amazed, entertained, and it's not a formulaic process. A gamer will never say, "Oh good, I love feeling pressure and being rushed and all I wanted to do was put in more money all along!"
Microsoft has killed support for all these games. Which kills community.
They add things that nobody wants, because they saw someone else doing it. And they keep adding more of these pay to win and collection "buy a new skin" type mechanics.
Anyway this is a straight up rant at this point, but Microsoft buying something is always a sign doom will follow. Just a matter of time. Xbox held out pretty well. But in the last year or three Microsoft has set its sights on ruining every game it has, so it's just a matter of time now before gamers abandon it. I have zero faith Microsoft will find a way to bring an audience back, because they have no idea how to connect with said audience. It's always just going to be, "How much ARR does that game produce? Wow what a great game!"
M2 expansion is the prime driver of prices, after supply & demand. Normalize SPX, gold/silver, etc, to M2 and see that they all run in fairly horizontal channels. You can even see nominal GDP normalized to M2 having been flat initially and then transitioning into a downward sloped curve for the last few decades.
By normalizing, I mean [in TradingView] doing SYMBOL*23.16*10^12/M2SL (conceptually SYMBOL*M2SL[0]/M2SL). Most important items track close to M2's roughly 6.5%-7% annualized force of interest inflation rate (the quotient of the natural log of the ratio of price now to historical price, over the elapsed time between the prices).
7% inflation (FoI) -> wealth halflife of cash ≈ 10 years.
Also implying that inflation is under-measured, perhaps deliberately. Which definitely seems true for anyone who's experienced inflation.
"Prices double every 10 years" is a fairly standard economics benchmark.
Rule 72 is nominal prices.
Inflation accounts for a 2026 xbox being significantly more advanced technology than a PS1