We will implement reduction of various fixed expenses at several group companies in relevant region, centered on the Creative Assembly Ltd. We expect to incur one-time expenses related to reduction of fixed expenses.
The only "reduction of fixed expense" necessary here is whoever was supposed to keep their finger on the pulse of the industry, yet still decided to greenlight such an obviously late-to-the-party pitch in such an oversaturated part of the market, and chose to waste the time of a studio that has a successful monopoly in an underserved niche and could have been contributing to that kind of project instead.
You are not wrong, but I feel that the way that so many users have stayed active on Twitter despite all the controversies under Musk proves that a non-authoritarian audience can potentially sleepwalk itself into a super-app with a mixture of user complacency, shortsightedness, and unwillingness to deal with even a bit of inconvenience to support a competitor.
It's a really small chance, but I think that it is there.
I mean have you seen the guy, he looks exactly like the kind of boring grandpa that has meals with his grandkids every other weekend, I don't know what they expected
Nah, even then that guy is still right. Go check out what Microsoft makes in a quarter, Q22023 for example.
They can afford that loss. Remember, Microsoft is stupid big and makes stupid money, if you go to any world index fund, Microsoft is like 3% of it. It is titanic.
Anybody who's ever played a classic Resident Evil-style game knows the feeling of getting to the final monster with all the hoarded ammo for your ultimate weapon (magnum/hunting rifle/flare gun/whatever)... Only for the monster to die in like at most a single-stack of shots because it turns out that the "ultimate lifeform" is weaker than a moderately sized car --
Yeah, I know a Sims player and Sims 4 is literally the only game she plays. The way you or me would buy a new game, she buys a DLC. It's like it is its own gaming ecosystem for most of its players.
There've been some cases of remastering projects being affected by the loss of some of the source material, such as the Silent Hill HD Project
Which is why I find the negative attitude of so many of these companies toward emulation and fan conservation of abandonware so frustrating, there's a proven track record that they cannot be trusted with the task.
The fact that the same user reinstalling the game counts as 2 installs makes this doubly absurd. The decision is already baffling by itself but the idea that you could take a financial hit for an install that didn't net you any additional income is... Jesus.
Yeah... A new store would need to have a handful of killer apps and significant feature superiority over Steam, all on release, just to have a chance at being a successful competitor. And it would probably need to maintain that momentum for a decent amount of time, and it would probably also need a fuckup on Valve's part.
Freakin EA didn't achieve it, freakin Sony didn't bother trying it, Epic dropped a fuckton of cash just to barely move the needle. I can't imagine what it would take.
A 100%, some of the things that you hear from the industry are crazy. If you offered me twice my current salary to be a developer in the AAA videogame industry, I wouldn't take it.
I think a handful apply for me, but the biggest case is probably WoW Classic. It felt like a can't miss, lightning in a bottle kind of moment, so I absolutely had to be there. I'm glad I did, as it reminded me both why I love the game so much, as well as why I don't play it anymore.
The only "reduction of fixed expense" necessary here is whoever was supposed to keep their finger on the pulse of the industry, yet still decided to greenlight such an obviously late-to-the-party pitch in such an oversaturated part of the market, and chose to waste the time of a studio that has a successful monopoly in an underserved niche and could have been contributing to that kind of project instead.