Stephen Totilo on his excellent Game File newsletter (paywalled):

I might have the games-movies-TV comparison on my mind because of Arranger’s Netflix connection.

The new game is available on Switch and PlayStation for a price, but is also offered on mobile at no added cost to anyone with a Netflix subscription.

It’s one of many excellent games offered via Netflix on mobile (see also: Kentucky Route Zero, Oxenfree, Poinpy, The Case of the Golden Idol, Storyteller, Immortality, Into the Breach and more).

But it’s not quite the kind of game that Netflix execs were hyping to investors last week as they made clear they’re still bullish on being a big player in gaming. They kept focusing on games that spin off of Netflix shows, and salivated over how a tie-in game can let Netflix “take a show and give the super fan a place to be in between seasons.” That’s the kind of synergy talk that investors like. It makes sense the way it makes sense to extend a brand by selling official t-shirts and coffee mugs. It might even result in some delightful games tied to TV shows.

It’s just not what Arranger is.

Arranger is something only possible in games that only needs to be a game and have nothing to do with anything else.

My wife and I resubscribed to Netflix the night before the above newsletter went out (July 26, 2024 — I’m a bit late to posting this). She’s been wanting to watch Live to 100 and is excited about the upcoming Emily in Paris season.

After starting our new Netflix subscription, the first thing I saw when launching the app was a row of mobile games, leading with Arranger. I had no intention of playing anything that night, but had heard a lot of good buzz about Arranger, so I launched it not 30 seconds after becoming a subscriber.

Then I had an epiphany: Netflix feels like the new Blockbuster.

Blockbuster is most fondly remembered as a movie rental store — truly, Netflix/streaming has been seen as the new Blockbuster for decades — but after seeing Netflix’s programming layout of movies/TV and games, I was teleported back to browsing the shelves of Blockbuster on a Friday night — my parents looking for movies while I looked for video games.

Movies/TV and games are complementary — the former is passive and latter is participatory. This often comes up on my podcast Y-Button. As a child, it was such a treat to browse both movies/TV and games under one roof, asking, “What am I in the mood for tonight?” I doubt Netflix is looking to Blockbuster as a model. And it’s not to say one can’t experience any piece of media or medium at any given time on their smartphone, or movies/TV and games on their console. But one curated location (the Netflix app) offering two types of experiences feels right.

Kyle Orland, Ars Technica:

A 16-year-old who was sinking all their free time into Diablo II when it launched in 2000 is pushing 40 these days. That means the core, nostalgic audience for the series is now very likely to have a career, family, and/or other responsibilities eating into their playtime. There’s nothing like a few decades of aging to make the prospect of sinking hundreds of hours into a loot grind seem less appealing.

I was 15 years old when Diablo II released. I’m pushing 40 these days. What is true of Diablo’s grind is true of video games in general.

As a teenager, I would dream of playing video games all day. The desire propelled my career ambitions. If I could make enough money to buy any game whenever I wanted, I had made it. (This motivation still lingers…) But it’s in the past five or so years that I’ve had to face the reality that time is scarce. Free time: Scarcer. I’ll spare you a write-up on the increased thoughts of mortality that sink in after you have a child, but that’s part of it too. Choosing what you do with your ever-decreasing free time becomes paramount.

And while decreased leisure time is not a new phenomenon, decreased time for video games is. Video games were a construct of the ‘50s–‘70s, but they did not become ubiquitous until the ‘80s. Add 10 to 20 years to that for the first player base, and you get people now in their late 50s/early 60s who grew up with games. But it’s likely the Millennials in their 30s and 40s who have the most profound attachment to the medium as they grew up alongside it. Video games are Millennials too.

The fact that we have yet to uncover the full spectrum of age demographics that are native to gaming is exciting but continues to throw wrenches in business models. As people age, how they choose to spend their time changes. In a few decades, we’ll understand how to meet every age demographic and their native technological culture where they are, with wider varieties of gaming genres and experiences. Until then, expect the old way of doing things to die on the vine.

Matt and the Evil Empire team announcing a delayed release date for Ubisoft’s upcoming The Rogue Prince of Persia:

So it’s been a bit of a crazy week for us! It all started when a little game called Hades 2 released - you might have heard of it?

Seeing as everyone and their mum is playing that game (including our entire team… and their mums), we have decided to let people have their fun with it before we release The Rogue Prince of Persia.

We will still be releasing in May and will be back with a precise date on Monday.

While we have every confidence in The Rogue Prince of Persia, it’s not every day that a game in the same genre as you, which is one of the most anticipated upcoming games of 2024, will release into Early Access a week before you plan to do the same.

Years ago, I wrote about self-competing and time blocking. While I’m not sold on the conspiracy, it remains true that the year-by-year, month-by-month deluge of amazing games has titles eating each others’ lunch. Hades 2 — the sequel to one of best and most hooking games ever made — is certain to eat everyone’s lunch. This announcement from Evil Empire is the sort I’ve been yearning to see.

As calendars become packed with incredible releases, many developers and publishers have found their highly anticipated game gets overshadowed by an even more highly anticipated game releasing in the same window. More often than not, it’s impossible for release dates to shift due to in-flight marketing campaigns, resource forecasts, and release management on various platforms.

Seeing as this delay is specifically for the Early Access (beta, more or less) version of The Rogue Prince of Persia, Evil Empire and Ubisoft have the benefit of a much smaller impact for delaying. Still, it’s a small step in the right direction. Even more shocking that this is an Ubisoft title. Maybe I’m naive, but I didn’t have “Ubisoft approved game delay” on my bingo card.

My favorite part:

This also lets us keep polishing up the game, add even more cool things and kick some stubborn bugs out before release. The Day 1 patch was getting pretty hefty, so gaining more time to test it and add more stuff before launch day has considerably lowered the stress levels of our producer and game director already!

Wonderful move for both players and the team.

Bobby Allyn, NPR:

“There is a herding effect in tech,” said Jeff Shulman, a professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, who follows the tech industry. “The layoffs seem to be helping their stock prices, so these companies see no reason to stop.”

Some smaller tech startups are running out of cash and facing fundraising struggles with the era of easy money now over, which has prompted workforce reductions. But experts say for most large and publicly-traded tech firms, the layoff trend this month is aimed at satisfying investors.

Shulman adds: “They’re getting away with it because everybody is doing it. And they’re getting away with it because now it’s the new normal,” he said. “Workers are more comfortable with it, stock investors are appreciating it, and so I think we’ll see it continue for some time.”

Gita Jackson, episode 2 of the new Aftermath Hours podcast (edited for clarity):

Microsoft is beginning to gear up for their first financial meeting where they’re discussing the impact of the Blizzard Activision acquisition. As sort of a runway up to that, they laid off a huge number of roles…

What really drives me wild about the Microsoft one [compared to Riot] is that Microsoft is a company that makes profit at a level that if they eliminated their gaming division tomorrow, it would have a minimal impact on their bottom line. By that same token, they could keep their gaming division at exactly the same size and those 2,000 jobs would not actually impact their bottom line all that much.

Think about how big Microsoft is. Because of the way that the economy works and the way that I’ve learned that most of economic projections are just sort of guesstimates and lies, video games for a company like Sony or Microsoft that do other things, that do consumer electronics and software, video games are not even a secondary revenue stream. They’re like a tertiary revenue stream. They’re like third in priority. They don’t need to do this. They really don’t need to do this. And by that same token, it doesn’t make sense when they have layoffs this huge. This is like a show of force for their investors more than anything else, right? To say that they’ve identified the profit centers and are trimming the fat in their new acquisition. “So don’t get worried and sell all your shares.”

In years past, I would have written extensively about the insane amount of gaming industry layoffs occurring right now. This is exactly the thing I want people paying attention to. Thankfully, there are loads of outlets covering this madness. I also haven’t had time to put my thoughts together. My jaw hasn’t left the floor. I’m flabbergasted by the current state of things, keep seeing more bad news, and frankly, I’m out of practice of research and reporting. Plus, there are much more informed people dropping insightful takes about this atrocious time, like the folks at Aftermath. (I’m really enjoying the Aftermath Hours podcast. Highly recommend.)

That said, if I had written something, I would have wanted it to echo what Gita has said here. It isn’t a coincidence that Microsoft’s layoffs came one week before their shareholder meeting. That’s not to say these layoffs wouldn’t have happened regardless, but this timing does away with any facade.

(Also, if I’m reading this correctly, Gaming accounted for about 7% of Microsoft’s FY24 Q1 revenue. I wouldn’t say it has “minimal impact on their bottom line”, but it certainly isn’t their moneymaker.)