Random News II

[Sly Reflex]

Yeah, I don't think it's worth paying for journalism that is basically rumour, tweets and reddit posts.

 

They need to sort the website out as well, it's old as fuck and trying to find anything on it is impossible once it passes a few weeks old.

[mfnick]

Basically same as Sly.

 

Plus £4+ a month is ridiculous for access to a few features on 1 gaming focused site. Who the fuck came up with that price model? 

[one-armed dwarf]

There's too many subscriptions for stuff, all that passive expenditure really adds up. Which reminds me I should cancel a ton of stuff I signed up for, disney+ etc. People act like that shit is cheap but they count on you forgetting you're paying for it

 

What eurogamer could do is go all Giantbomb, their video staff are all really entertaining. But don't paygate the whole lot of it.

[Sly Reflex]

You look at something that's very similar, like The Athletic for football, if I'm going to pay for something like that that specialises in it deep then I'm going to give someone like them money over someone like Eurogamer.

 

And again there's just so many of them, it reminds me of this, except with websites.

 

[mfnick]

Yea I’ve got far too many too. Every company just wants in on that monthly sub. I need to trim mine down, I’ve got 6 monthly Subs I can think of straight away & PS+ and XB Gold yearly. It’s ridiculous. 
 

On the Giantbombcast they have mentioned a few times that as more TV and film subs came about there’s been a link to growing piracy again too. Don’t know how accurate that is but it’s totally believable and understandable. That’s onw of the worrying things about Gamepass, amazing at the moment but will end up being just as shit if more companies start their own. I mean we already have EA Access/Play and that Ubisoft one. Fucking pack it in. 

[DisturbedSwan]

I don't think £4 a month is too egregious if you read a shit load of Eurogamer stuff, I'd definitely take it over the godawful full page ads they've got on their site. 

 

Also, as always fuck piracy.

[one-armed dwarf]

On it's own it might not be much but when there's so many other subscription services out there vying for attention is when it gets to be too much

 

It all adds up into a spectacular waste of money if you're not on every service all the time, is the main point of that piracy image imo. Not all these services can capture market mindshare, it's getting too fragmented.

 

Right now I've got: FFXIV, PS Plus, netflix that I hardly use, Amazon Prime which is rubbish post brexit, some patreon stuff, giantbomb, discord, youtube premium (this one I have to have because fuck youtube adverts), like all of that is on me for being a bit spendthrift but it gets harder and harder to justify another service. It's a huge waste.

 

edit Also I just read that eurogamer deleted their forums? Come on, if you're launching a premium site and you do that like what's going on. Seems like a thing you shouldn't do

[Maryokutai]

The thing that disgusts me a bit about that image is the implied entitlement. I mean, sure, it's anoying how many streaming services there are. But I'm okay with just subscribing to one of them and then simply not watching the other's shows. Do I miss some interesting stuff? Sure. But does that really matter?

 

For things like Gamepass I found that drop in/drop out is a very good way of using that service. That fact that they only tell you a month in advance when a game is being removed means that I'd never start something like Dragon Quest on Gamepass, but buying three months the moment you see a couple of interesting indies appear on the service is usually a good deal.

 

I have no idea about eurogamer as I never visit that site. The big internet issue is that people expect everything for free, but on the flipside if you sell your content you should make sure it has a certain quality to it. I'm subscribed to two paper magazines like the good late 80's/early 90's kid that I am, so it's not like I'm against paying for some written text about videogames. Not sure if eurogamer is that kind of outlet though.

[mfnick]

If you want to stop piracy you make it easier for customers not harder. Fragmenting content across a load of different services makes it harder which = more piracy. 
 

As for EG, their content is nowhere near as good as a magazines so asking around the same money for lesser quality is shit. They also quite often just report on Reddit and Twitter posts and copy and paste them basically. I’m not expecting that to be the stuff behind the paywall but their features aren’t that much better. 
 

2 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

I'd definitely take it over the godawful full page ads they've got on their site. 

The other problem this creates. Make the adverts as horrible as possible to push people into paying. Great… No reason their adverts couldn’t be less egregious. 

[mfnick]

Edit - just to clarify, I don’t pirate btw. More out of laziness searching and downloading stuff than anything. I actually buy a lot of stuff on iTunes in an attempt to remove the services I barely use and so I have it in one place instead of having 10 different apps to swap between. But I totally understand it when every company is splintering the content. 
 

What’d even help there would be one app you link all the services to, which would allow you to access all of the content you subscribe to without having to check between them all to find stuff. 

[DANGERMAN]

1 hour ago, Maryokutai said:

I have no idea about eurogamer as I never visit that site. The big internet issue is that people expect everything for free, but on the flipside if you sell your content you should make sure it has a certain quality to it. I'm subscribed to two paper magazines like the good late 80's/early 90's kid that I am, so it's not like I'm against paying for some written text about videogames. Not sure if eurogamer is that kind of outlet though.

 

can't blame users for that expectation, that's been how the internet has worked since the beginning. 

 

people can get high and mighty about piracy all they like, and I do think people should pay for what they can. I still buy music, have subscriptions, buy as many games as anyone here, but I still stream football, films and tv outside of that 🤷‍♂️  It's an ugly truth, and it's always been there, if people are priced out, or just locked out, they'll just find ways around that.

[Maryokutai]

I don't blame anyone, I've been formed by the same experiences. I was a loyal subscriber to gamesMT for years until the end for example but if it had been a website instead of a magazine they wouldn't have seen a penny from me. It's irrational and a bit dumb but it is what it is. 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DANGERMAN]

Good for Rab. I've had my issues with his stuff here and there but Video Gaiden was great, he should be good as a host

 

[Nag]

It's weird how people's childhoods sometimes cease to exist when something more modern happens.🤔

[OCH]

Didn't they try a Gamesmaster reboot a few years ago, too? I've always found it fascinating how games related shows really don't last very long. Cybernet is the only one I remember now.

[HandsomeDead]

No, I think it was a documentary and/or book about it that came out a year ago or something.  Maybe there were plans to bring it back too, I think this may even be it.

[Nag]

Even back in the day GamesMaster was car crash tv, you can't replicate that now (if they're even attempting that approach... which they probably arent)

 

Dominik Diamond was great though.

[Sly Reflex]

3 hours ago, mfnick said:

What’d even help there would be one app you link all the services to, which would allow you to access all of the content you subscribe to without having to check between them all to find stuff. 

 

Get a chromecast, it collates all the stuff you watch into one page. Costs about £60, it's nice. I wouldn't want to go back. You can even stream files from your PC. One click and it's done, very nice for what I'm about to talk about in the rest of this post.

 

Also piracy is great. Dude, I'll pirate anything they take the piss over. When stuff went to Sky after being on terrestrial tv? Guess what gets pirated. When games I've bought run like shit because they've been tied to a client or some other stupid DRM that cripples it? Pirate it. Stuff that's not available in my country?, Yep, you guessed it. I'll pirate stuff before I buy it too. Boxing matches, football games that aren't broadcast anywhere I can get them, even the wrestling I'll do. Sure, if it's bound for Amazon Prime of Netflix I'll wait unless it's a very time specific thing, it's not like I don't have a glut of stuff to consume already, but in the instances where they've decided to be cunts at it, well two can play at that game.

 

You get me invested in something and then pull a switcheroo, then fuck you. I'm taking that. TWD being exclusive to Disney+ for example. I've put up with a lot of shit with that show and I'll be damned if I'm not going to finish it, and it'll have the added bonus of me giving Disney the middle finger while I'm at it, because fuck them.

 

In the circumstances where I really enjoy something, I'll buy merchandise. The amount of tshirts, posters and other miscellaneous items I've bought to chuck the company that did the actual thing some brass. I'm not rewarding them for fragmenting the access to the things that should have never have been cut up piecemeal in the first place.

[mfnick]

5 minutes ago, Sly Reflex said:

Get a chromecast, it collates all the stuff you watch into one page. Costs about £60, it's nice. I wouldn't want to go back.

So, just to be clear. If I had a Chromecast, logged into Netflix, Prime & Disney+ it would show content from them all on one screen without swapping between apps?