Two weeks ago my mom died. I’m sharing this because she was, in hindsight, an important part of why I got interested in gaming.
When the original Game Boy came out my parents made the brilliant decision to have my brother and I share it. Because that’s what brothers do.
No it wasn’t.
Obviously, after just a week of us arguing whose turn it was, our mother promptly confiscated the device and kept it in the drawer of her night stand. And there it stayed for a few days, then weeks and then months. All the while, we wondered why we weren’t allowed to have it back.
Turns out our dear mother had gotten hooked on Tetris. To be exact, each night before goING to sleep she’d complete three rounds on B-Type game at the highest level.
Huh?
Of course, true to her generation (yeah, I’m talking about you Biden), my mom always had a hard time understanding why I had chosen to first pursue a doctorate and later became an industry analyst. Video games are for kids, after all.
But that was the thing: her infatuation for Tetris had shown me that games weren’t just for kids. Despite the lousy marketing and the overabundance of males both on the demand and supply side, seeing her play, and the level that she played on, proved to me that games were for everyone.
Even so, she never quite understood what it is that I do all day. “So you play video games for a living?” “Oh so you advise companies that make video games?” She struggled to understand.
Nevertheless we reconciled. We didn’t quite understand each other but we found common ground in aesthetics. She was a gifted seamstress and loved embroidery. One summer a few years ago, the business was growing and we needed something to spruce up our growing empire. We both recognized the similarities between the 8-bit visuals of the original NES games and cross-stitching. I asked her to make us something to put on the wall.
She did. After scouring the internet for designs, she created a large embroidered poster, despite having no understanding how any of the icons and characters fit together. But it didn’t matter. She loved her kid and figured, oh well, he’s into it so why not? Parental love isn’t some coherent perfection; it’s a powerful sense of direction.
Thank you for everything, mom.
On to this week’s update.
NEWS
Thoughts on Stadia and Verizon partnership
Despite my earlier reservations on Stadia, I’m a fan. Cloud gaming is going to change the industry as we know it and, even though Stadia should currently still just be considered a soft launch, it works perfectly fine for me. After ditching my crappy Spectrum provider and installing FiOS, I’ve been testing Stadia in Brooklyn with much success. There’s a clear future here for people that have outgrown the need to have the latest and greatest PC rig at home or have grown tired of their man-cave (person-cave?). Having universal, seamless access to blockbuster content irrespective of device is the future we deserve and need.
Increasingly, large billion-dollar firms are eagerly investing in this new future. But there are a few to consider. The most prominent one is whether cloud gaming via your in-home router is really going to be the go-to solution long-term, or whether 5G will soon replace it. Phil Spencer said as much at a conference late last-year, arguing that a direct mobile connection will remove the inefficiencies associated with routers.
Next, partnerships like Stadia/Verizon are promising but I doubt that this will be hugely disruptive. Content remains king, as the video streaming wars are showing us. xCloud now has Destiny 2, too, so Google will have to go spend some more money to keep its first-mover momentum. To boot, Microsoft’s recent announcement on advancing its partnership with SK Telecom in South Korea indicates that this is a competition that will be won on a global level, and not just by cornering a segment of high-spending (Verizon FiOS) early adopters (Stadia) in North America.
Finally, the litmus test for cloud gaming is mobile. By this I’m not referring to smartphone gaming but the ability to play at a decent level anywhere within my network. With more than my fair share of air travel each year, I’m currently deeply unconvinced that cloud gaming will be at a mainstream level any time soon. I realize how entitled it sounds when I say that in-flight internet connectivity is currently in beta, at best. It’s a miracle, I know. But for widespread consumer adoption it’ll have do better.
Verizon’s partnership with Stadia will be good for both (compare: T-Mobile’s cloud gaming deal with HATCH), and undoubtedly lead to greater early adoption among consumers than if they were to go it alone. Now show us the games! Link
FTC releases guidelines for influencers
The 80s called. They want their instructional video back. I jest, of course. In fact, the FTC released a remarkably clear and concise explanation of how streamers can mitigate any legal risks. Influencers have a history of not disclosing sponsored content. The notion that traditional guidelines around consumer protection wouldn’t apply to a relatively new phenomenon like online influencers is naive at best. The FTC guidelines will weed out the fakers and improve the degree of credibility among influencers that are conscientious in deciding what brands they do and don’t endorse. As the social media and influencer market has started to professionalize, guidelines also create greater transparency for viewers and consumers.
Nevertheless, endorsements and sponsorship deals are a reaction to the insecurity that many professional influencers have around the whimsical guidelines held by platforms around monetization. Many creators of gaming video content know not to feature shooter games because YouTube will immediately de-monetize them. In fact, most of the titles announced at E3 this year (e.g., Borderlands 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Cyberpunk 2077, DOOM Eternal) would be instantly de-monetized. This forces creatives to rely on secondary income sources, including sponsorships.
After a period during which there was a lack of clear rules, the influencer industrial complex has grown large enough to require its own guidelines. This will benefit consumers and create more transparency. But it also fritters away some of the seemingly uncut honesty that has characterized this business. Advertising tends to do that. Link
Golden mountains remain despite esports turmoil
The believe that competitive gaming will be a multi-billion dollar business soon is by and large based on the irrational exuberance of, well, investors themselves. Consider the mayhem in recent weeks: the termination of talks between Huya and MTG resulting in a dive of the latter’s share price, the exodus of casters from OWL, and Twitch's struggle to make ad dollars despite being the biggest platform in the biz. It’s been only recently that the first, reliable data set on esports has popped up but I don’t believe that warrants the lofty “4+ billion” forecast.
2020 blockbuster line-up starting to shape up
It is better for consumers and therefore better for game makers to wait and finish a game before releasing it. Just ask Ubisoft. And so this week we see a string of delay announcements. Most prominently among them is Cyberpunk 2077, which is on everyone’s mind. The game is expected to outperform the publisher’s previous hit game The Witcher III and take a bite out of the incumbent titles. Its delay gives everyone a bit of breathing room. Rumor has it that the performance on the current console generation is part of the reason why CD Projekt Red pushed back the date. If that’s the case, the Polish publisher is going to miss out on a substantial number of sales among current console owners, and will be competing with the latest and greatest for prominence on the PS5 and Xbox Series X. (This is how GTA V made a mint back in 2013.) Nevertheless, Wall Street seems to agree on about 22MM units sold by end of 2021.
It will be a crowded holiday season with Ubisoft promising us two games from its “biggest franchises” and another three we already (i.e., Watch Dogs: Legions, Gods & Monsters, and Rainbow Six Quarantine). Sony has The Last of US 2 lined up, and Microsoft is coming out with Halo Infinite. Interestingly, it’s a lot more quiet around ATVI and EA.
Tencent is going to eat the world
Here’s my 2020 write-up, including a piece on how Tencent is going to spend 2020. It’s already offered $138MM for Funcom, and with a healthy stake in Ubisoft, it may yet become even bigger than it already is.
Epic’s strategy around exclusives is working out
We’ve seen an increase in timed exclusives, and far less platform-specific commitments from publishers, because, well, it doesn’t make sense anymore. Bundling content with consoles is where it’s at in the traditional business. In the digital marketplace, however, Epic has started to claim significant territory. After Valve’s Steam has dominated as the incumbent behemoth for years, Sweeney’s decision to lower its take from sales has allowed the Epic Game Store to develop into a credible rival to Steam. Finally. Here’s Sweeney musing on what happened and how smart they are.
PLAY/PASS
Play. Untitled Goose Game, for its historical accuracy of geese being sh!t animals.
Play. The crew at SuperData just released its Year in Review.
Play. This article on gender representation and androgynous masculinity in the Legend of Zelda series.