The logical conclusion of piracy and AI reverse engineering is that mire and more games will become streaming exclusives
But we've got 4-5 decades of games to enjoy.
Part of the reason that the games industry is struggling is that there's been no real generational leaps for a long time. Gaming used to be driven by those technological leaps, but these days we just get incremental improvements. 10-15yr old games are just as entertaining as brand new releases and often don't look too dated.
Also, ever more people are getting into retro gaming, enjoying the classics from the 80s and 90s, from well before microtransactions and hyper-competitive online multiplayer.
I've had better luck finding great games I didn't know about from the 1990s than from the past twenty years.
If you like 2d platforming exploration types, try Hollowknight, Celeste, VVVVVV, Ori, Animal Well. Each one is fantastic.
So far, only Rusted Moss and Silksong were worth my time among the platformers I tried, which included the original Hollow Knight (platforming is too easy), Celeste (too easy A-sides, unfun B-sides) and Animal Well (too easy base game, too cryptic post game).
I'll have to give Rusted Moss a try. Silksong is kicking my ass right now.
Piracy has been present since the advent of the personal computer and I think it's accepted by most that some people will pay, and others just won't. I'm not sure that AI reverse engineering changes this picture.
I think both, I would argue that right now, giving hardware into the hands of your customer presents a much bigger risk nowadays. Streaming is obviously the better option for margins, and now it is basically the only option to keep the product under control. Also now that consumer GPU/memory is getting more and more expensive, I think it has become realistically the only way forward.
Given they're moving to digital-only future I fully expect them to sell a "50$ + monthly subscription" dongle-like version of ps6 and xbox where you can play the game you buy as a streaming solution, or pay the aforementioned price for a "locally hosted" device on a console.
And I'm not sure we're ever going to see cheap RAM or GPUs again. There's clearly more money to be made at current price levels, and not much potential for competition to fix the market.
Why did you have to phrase it like this, instead of just bringing up your own counterpoint?
Also, I'd see the concern here as where the code runs: if there is a dependency on the server to pull down code/assets, but it still runs it locally, then there is still an opportunity to pirate it locally - So this isn't a point about cloud-dependence, but AI/piracy specifically pushing execution to the server side.
What does this have to do with this? I'm not sure you understand the point being made..
>What does this have to do with this? I'm not sure you understand the point being made..
Chris, buddy. We probably should not talk on this platform again. Have a great day!