There have already been casualties among the brick and mortar giants from that revolution, with Borders shutting its doors, while Barnes & Noble launched the copycat Nook and managed to survive… for now.
This and penny used books pretty much killed brick and mortar book stores
Shaking Up The Game Industry
Vaporware… or still coming?
New World is described as a massively multiplayer, open-ended sandbox that “allows you to carve your own destiny with other players in a living, hostile, cursed land” and players can decide to ”live on your own amidst the supernatural terrors or join with others to build thriving civilizations.”
A magical rendition of a pristine North America sounds like a fun place to set an MMO, although whether it can actually deliver on the premise and be worth playing over any of the horde of existing massively multiplayer games remains to be seen.
New World
Breakaway meanwhile is a “mythological sport brawler built for fast action, teamwork, and live streaming” which I’m assuming means MOBA. We’ve already got a ton of iterations on that, from League Of Legends to SMITE and Heroes of the Storm.
Breakaway
Last up (until the next crop of games is announced) is Crucible, a 6 vs. 6 team deathmatch with a twist: there’s a 13th player who “heightens the drama by triggering events, live-streaming the battles, and interacting with viewers.”
Apparently this neutral player will be able to drastically change the gameplay for both sides and throw in obstacles for them to overcome based on feedback from people watching match streams.
Crucible
Merging Gaming Directly With Streaming
It probably shouldn’t be surprising considering the Twitch acquisition that all three of these new games are set to merge streaming directly into the gameplay. It would also appear that the new game studio is entirely ignoring consoles, at least for the moment, and focusing exclusively on Windows PCs.
Those are expected to involve the new Stream+ system, which is based around placing wagers on matches while through Twitch. Yes, this appears to be a new kind of online gambling directly integrated into the games themselves.
Basing the monetization on match wagers is an interesting idea, but there’s some big question marks: how will they handle issues like players dropping out and unbalancing the matches? What about Twitch outages? Will there be a system to prevent teams from betting against themselves and “throwing” a match?
Just as FAA rules over drones are likely causing major hurdles for drone delivery, so too are online gaming laws going to bring potential headaches here.
All those potential problems aside, if this crop of new titles end up basically the big-budget, AAA version of any given freemium mobile title trying to get your money through microtransactions, they seem destined for a big launch as players get hooked – followed by a giant drop in player base.
It’s always watching… because you’re always broadcasting
Implications For Gaming
If these games catch on, the merging of streaming into each game is something that many other development teams might decide to start getting in on, and there’s some unpleasant implications here. Not just with all that free focus group data going straight to the giant corporation, but in also in how it might change game development.
With the focus on profit, live streaming, and esports, it seems like we might be headed away from the practice of starting with a great base story idea and developing it into a work of digital art through mechanics. Instead, developers may be headed into the trap of constantly tweaking established multiplayer genres to keep players hooked (and gambling Stream+ currency) for longer periods.
