• TheSlad@sh.itjust.works
    5·
    4 months ago

    IP hoarding.

    1. Buy studio that already made successful game

    2. Delete studio

    3. People still buy game

    4. Profit

  • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    It’s called “monopolize gaming without paying for developers”. The beauty of it is, if you ruin all of modern gaming and buy out all the existing hits, you can shove in monetization and project insane profits

    At least until indie gaming takes over, your stock price will go to the moon

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
        2·
        4 months ago

        And there’s thankfully usually a popular indie darling of the season to do that. Valheim, Vampire Survivors, Lethal Company, Among Us, Dave the Diver, etc. etc.

        Something unique that can be easily streamed in most cases.

  • Yeller_king@reddthat.com
    2·
    4 months ago

    Everyone seems to think there is some master evil plan behind all this, but I think there’s a simpler explanation. They fucked up.

    • sickhack@lemmy.world
      2·
      4 months ago

      Microsoft made $158b gross profit year, which was a 14% increase over the previous year.

      As a comparison, General Motors’ revenue was $170b. Microsoft made almost as much in profit as GM took in totality.

      Closing the studios maybe will save Microsoft $0.1b, so potentially increase their profit line by 0.05%.

      So hard to think of it as anything other than a middle finger to the devs. Even if it were a mistake, they could afford to let it cook longer like with Rare and redeem the “mistake”.

  • thesporkeffect@lemmy.world
    2·
    4 months ago

    Eliminating the competition

    When there are no other games at all, the company with one shitty live service game will be king!

    • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
      2·
      4 months ago

      It’s also a tried and true strategy that brought Microsoft to the spot it is now. Evil and corrupt, but very effective. Only eee (embrace, extend, extinguish) is even more insidious because it requires companies to play the long con.

      Then again in 2024, I automatically assume “con” first until I see evidence to the contrary.

  • tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de
    2·
    4 months ago

    The reasons you’d ever want an Xbox used to be Halo and Fable. Now it’s, uh, I dunno, does anyone care about Starfield?

      • agegamon@beehaw.org
        1·
        4 months ago

        “Too broke to play PC” is a vanishing argument IMO. People have been saying that forever, to be fair, but given how bad Xbox and Playstation have gotten I don’t anyone who’s actually into gaming purchasing a new one today. Maybe used, that might make sense if it was really cheap.

        A budget gaming PC can check out at slightly over 600 now. PcPartPicker has two recommended builds priced right at 600, though honestly there might be even cheaper ways to arrive at that level of perfromance. Compared to 300-400 for the less garbage Xbox, and there’s not much argument to lock someone into the xbox’s ecosystem vs something you can upgrade for much less.

        Now I think it’s a different matter if it’s a hand-me-down or given for free. There’s no reason not to do that.

        I gave my last console away and got a friend of mine into gaming, then helped them build a decent PC when they actually wanted something new.