AMZN wanted into gaming. They bought Twitch.
Now they have a AAA game engine, Lumberjack, and so can drag dependent large 3rd party studios away from MS and Sony.
Before any meaningful talk of exclusivity or official support for Twitch ramps up... What does Twitch mean to gamers?
And what does Twitch mean to independent developers that get shafted by MS and Sony?
First I think AMZN needs to address platform exclusivity and address Twitch itself.
Instead of streaming video.. Is it possible for Twitch/Lumberjack to be a platform agnostic viewer.
Being able to control what you see starting with AAA games would significantly change everything.
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For me.. a gamer first and wannabe developer.. I've always wanted to know why there aren't any freelancer studios that take fan suggestions and turn them into games. Or why certain gamers never become developers. Why is it hard or impossible for me to get my game made?
Games should be experiences which are paid for by players and advertisers and other sources not just directly from the pocket of each individual player. And why am I paying Microsoft for anything again? The console I can understand by why do I pay them so much for a shitty black box which isn't anything compared to gaming PC? Why can't I pay MSFT a few hundred dollars over time 5 years, and they can give me a gaming PC equivalent for my living room instead of this shoe box with a raccoon in it that doesn't even support 4K?
I've always wanted to know about Game Development As a Service. So that more people can be involved in making games. Games can be funded as they are made instead of after a shitty game is released. Why pay for shit? All that dev time is blown and people lose their jobs! Nonsense!
Over the years the recurring answer to this game development as a service question no one wanted to ask which should have been offered by Sega because they understood and started to push for online and were almost forced away from proprietary hardware.. but never amounted to anything. EA could have done it and many other larger concerns could have gone development as a service at some point.. Not just licensing, but actually putting tools AND developers into the hands of a community. But they all want to get their billions out of the game's industry. Like television, music, sports etc. It all has to get super massive.. there have to be so many failures and loses before some of the really talent people just say they've had enough. Example Chris Roberts. We won't play by your rules. They aren't open like a service but CIG is not a typical studio or publisher either. They are committed to the game and community.
It's hard to argue it but its still something like Porn and Games.. very often linked in this type of argument.. but less so in recent years... it's about instant gratification and more importantly NEW experiences. EA and Activision both have franchises they treat like fax machines.. but why can't that work by letting players say what changes they want instead of burning out good developers like Criterion?
Where porn is more about the creativity of the content producer driving a product.. there's such quantity and creativity... very often games designed to be boring and repetitive require players to entertain themselves.. we have to find experiences in the games that justify wasting the time grinding away in someone else's game world, which we PAID for and had no say about how it was made and what we can do.. but sometimes or too often players end up having to be more creative than the developers that designed these games. The engineering behind it all seems wasted when players have to make their own fun or bend or break the rules to have fun. Give us that option before releasing shit, like Sims and the most recent Sim City. Are we done with funnel gaming into this meat grinder tunnel to extra maximum profit?
Often its up to players to make our own fun because the game is broken or skewed, or just intended to be enjoyed a certain way. Why?! I'm paying for a product that I don't have to struggle at to have fun. Or at least the fun from that struggle comes from enjoying that struggle. IF the struggle is reigning in my imagination because I can't change what a game is... how is this fun?! I'd rather not beat my head against a broken game or a game that wants me to do something, or the same bloody thing 10000 times before I have had the required amount of fun before being forced to pay more to have more fun in the next version. But then maddeningly some games won't even tell me what that extremely specific thing is and calls that process of discovering what a demented developer's inscrutable desire consists of. I call that fuck this shit I'm going to gamefaqs or youtube.. or Twitch so I can watch or ASK a real people what the fuck this demented dev actually wants me to do.
Since we're apparently through that funnel though, where it got too expense to engineer shit games and have no one buy them because we've finally discovered they are shit before buying them.. what's on the open end of that funnel?
Crowdsourcing idea and money and inviting the crowd to play. So.. Twitch and where does it fit?
I've always thought that it is gaming as a service.. that should have been next but next never came. Instead its services Xbox Live, PSN.
Or specifically ID@Xbox
Or game development services. The idea being you can make the game and play it.. The selling it portion so that MS makes billions what does that have to do with gamers? or game developers? Why is MS in the middle anyway if they suck at providing adequate software development tools, an open development platform that allows creative people to find each other and help each other to make interesting experiences.. and then to open that product up so that it is available to the world. With the money MS alone could have made charging more for Xbox Live.. and subsidizing more powerful hardware.. which could have allowed for better games.. that independent games market could have been making what are considered AAA games. While the bigger billion dollar earning franchises could be making cinematic games. Franchises worthy of billions because they push technologies used in Film. There's NO reason why games have reached a point where they call Hollywood actors and have such incredibly inflated budgets... but are so shit!
WHY aren't they taken seriously? compared to film.. given the budget and money they earn. I'm not even getting into competitive multiplayer being the driving force behind all those profits.. because I've already stated my point. It's a meat grinder.
I'm not knocking Xbox, Xbox Live, MS, MGS or anything that has been accomplished... except...
Look at Bungie. Fractured and broken.. Look at 343, making more than Bungie did.. but They aren't Bungie.. Why was Halo 5 not that game everyone HAD to own. Why aren't there more movies made from games based on their popularity and profit being generated?
I'm asking if you have a platform, here's where's I'm looking at Lumberjack, AWS, Amazon.com and Twitch etc.. something that's designed to give devs more to work with, gamers more access.. and Twitch.. as in the community.. What could Bungie if they didn't have their agreement with Activision, or 343 if they could go independent, what could they do with lets say Halo or Destiny (lets pretend Destiny's engine wasn't utter garbage.. or rather WAS actually based on Cryengine so it could be updated in realtime like Halo's Forge)... who wins?
Gamers get the games they want to play because they get everything the developer offers, they can add their own shit.. there are fewer moronic limitations imposed by a parent company that needs billions in cash flow that's all about supporting the parent company.. not the games and gaming platform itself.. because without that monopolistic parent leech there's more to go into content and fewer bullshit constraints like time gated content and whatever other limiting factors like waiting for the holidays to drop the next version. If the content is available now.. release it now! Am I not willing to pay now? Of course I am! I need instant gratification! that's what games are about!
Mods and expansions and upgrades could come from any source. Amazon doesn't care if you're a player or developer. Use our services so we can make money! Simple!
The funnel was great for AAA gaming in terms of creating these billion dollar franchises.. but hardware, in terms of consoles, and the control that MS and Sony and bigger publishers exert made it possible for these franchises to last so long... but entire genres have all but died out. Why would a game developer even want to pay to have a game on competing systems that aren't as powerful and a third platform they have to support.. PC.
Independent games could really benefit from Lumberjack as well as any self funded or publically funded projects that can get enough talent to make something into a product that AMZN can host. Use our services so we can make money! Simple!
If the game development allows for people to actually interact with that process we have a service that allow customers to make their own products.
Shit like Sim City just would not happen!
Now that this finally exists I'm wondering where's the actual pot.. the one that goes on the stove.. the one we're putting these game development ingredients into and all of these players, who are the water.. with developer being the cook and Spoon. Amazon server as the pot, the stove and the fire. The cost is probably significantly lower than what it would cost to make an Xbox One game.. or PS4 game.. but I'm not talking about games anymore. I'm not talking about billion dollar franchises anymore.. and never really have been.
I'm talking about the soup.. the actual player and developer and community interaction. Twitch is a community of viewers who are players and developers. Give both more tools and the gaming industry will explode all over again.
What's the single most important tool? Twitch JoinIn. Involvement. Taking a passive viewer that has already been empowered with a voice.. and give that player a controller.
More than that if you're giving that person the ability to affect the game.. that's above and beyond. You aren't talking games anymore.
The feature itself makes me ask how? The Twitch app is available on both Xbox and PS4 AND yes it does integrate chat.
What more do Lumberjack do to make Xbox Live and PSN actually behave better than MS or Sony intended.
How can someone go from watching a game on Xbox or PS4 (if people actually do that versus in a browser window or on mobile) to being in a game, traditional .. or in a game in open development that they can help to create and play on the fly.
As far as the example of GTA or Destiny.. both classic multiplayer experiences... Xbox Live and game session are fucking garbage to navigate. Starting a session.. switch a session.. modifying a session.. all that garbage is VERY hard to control such that SO much of our time is wasted setting up. Not enough of it is actually playing.
Can that all change. I've always wanted to and think this Amazon stuff might be disruptive enough to make that happen.
But lets not kid ourselves.. Twitch viewers are comparable to a television audience. They aren't about to be pulled into a game if what they intended was to be entertained by watching a game broadcast.
They are on browsers and mobile. That doesn't stop Lumberjack because even Cryengine like Unity and Unreal.. they aren't limited to the top of the line PC or even home consoles. Everyone should be able to play.
Some games even integrate Mobile and Tablet as after thoughts. I can't really name any where mobile isn't just a second screen.
I've been asking for decades at this point why we even stream compressed video of games instead of adding viewers as spectators to games so that they can join and be playing the same game as people PC and console.
IF MS would get off their asses and make a mobile Xbox console it would be much easier to get Sony to take the next step with remote play and get them join the fun of dumping streaming video in favor letting people play games on mobile. Accessing Twitch on any other capable platform is the height of nonsense... but people do it.
Basically how can you watch a game and not desire play? It has taken quite a long time to understand Twitch as an entertainment medium beside games.. one where the Broadcaster is center stage and not the game.. tens of thousands of viewers.. who might as well be watching YouTube or television.
Thankfully.. the basic thing I've expected to be there is there.. Hey can I play? Sure do you have the game and a compatible platform? Today that means console X and a 60 game, and a 60 per year online subscription to play games online.
Amazon running Twitch.. and the possibility of AAA games not needing a console or the other.. with a dedicated JoinIn function.. might change things.
If you mobile phone or tablet or another generation from now can run a 3D engine like Cryengine, Unity, Unreal.. then why can't you load up a game and spectate? It would all be connected to Amazon anyway. Presumably you're a game and have an Xbox account, and PSN etc so pushing just enough of the games assets to that Twitch app+Lumberjack so you can watch AND play
But If Twitch is on mobile that app should be able to pull people into games. Not just viewing and chatting but pull them into the game. As mobile becomes more capable of running 3D games.. or any experience.. there will be cunning players and developers that will bridge that gap and be able to have mobile be part of the fun.
That's what Twitch should be. More than Xbox Live or PSN, or a game engine.. Twitch should be that central nexus to playing games and game development AND more importantly the community.
Viewing and chatting, and now dragging people into the game session to play and build.. Why do you need Xbox Live or PSN in the way?