Blade and Sorcery is a game about perspective.
Course correcting the video game industry is at times literally the easiest job in the world. The narrative is so easy to manipulate all you have to do is listen to what people say they want, give them the complete opposite, and then tell them that what has been provided is what they really needed all along.
Case in point, this new "PC platform war" that is totally necessary and totally heating up.
Prior to the launch of Epic's new launcher, the problem with digital delivery platforms from the public was that there were too many of them. Forums full of people complaining about having to launch through Battle.net, and Uplay, and Steam, and everywhere else. People wanted a unified library for their games and a unified platform to shop on.
Prior to the launch of Epic's new launcher, the problem with digital delivery platforms from small developers was curation. Steam became an open fire hose and no amount of marketing was going to get them noticed. Revenue share means nothing if the game isn't pulling in revenue.
Prior to the launch of Epic's new launcher, the problem with digital delivery platforms from large developers was greed. Why work through a unified launcher on a company who is putting out a competing product? Why share the money with my rival? Why work together with anyone at all?
Post launch of Epic's new launcher none of these seem to be problems anymore. Turns out the real problem was that there were not enough digital delivery platforms fighting for market share? Go figure.
Epic's talking points won. Shout's to Epic PR for convincing every journalist in the gaming industry to lockstep with the idea that its launcher is not only necessary but that the idea of its existence should not be challenged as possibly a bad, destabilizing, troubling step back for the industry at all. I know it's not a hard job. Just send out the press kit, sauce up the wording, and wait for a couple established chains to push the agenda and the rest of the industry will fall in line.
Then it is just a matter of paying for a really loud bullhorn and screaming about how cool the games are and how much golden wheat and honey developers are going to get. Loud enough to make sure no one notices curation on the platform has not only not been addressed, but it is also demonstrably worse than the industry standard.
That revenue share has been paid lip service but there are no bullet points on how small developers will get more people to see their game in order to benefit from the share, or how any large developers would benefit from jumping ship to the platform en masse to work with Epic on an enterprise level for the benefit of growing the gaming community, not just Tencent's YoY.
Because at the beginning when there was literally not this industry in existence and Valve went hat in hand to developers begging them to take a chance on unity, risk and all, that is what they needed to have in the deck. The entitlement this industry displays at times is staggering.
Anyway, Blade and Sorcery is lit, you should pull the VR rig out of the attic and dust it off. Then put it back up there till another VR title worth your time comes out in 2024. Also, rest in peace TB (who disagreed with me vehemently on this issue), rest in peace TC, rest in peace Tall-T. Love is smaht, hate dum. Do great things, I believe in you. Also Jerbz.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : Games : Stilted
