There’s been a raging debate about the meaning of first-party, second-party, and so on among gaming enthusiasts for eons.
For the longest time, it was assumed first-party games were those published by the platform holder and made by internally owned studios, while second-party titles were those titles still published by the platform holder but made by non-owned studios.
With the launch of Call of Duty Season 4, Activision quietly put adverts inside loadouts for Black Ops 6 and Warzone, sparking a backlash in the process.
Putting Ads in a pay-to-play Premium title? Well done Microsoft. Well done /s This is really scummy.
The first direct and natively supported comparison between identical Windows 11 and SteamOS gaming hardware is here. And it's pretty much a bloodbath for Microsoft.
"And it's pretty much a bloodbath for Microsoft."
OOOKAY! ..Interesting choice of words for that topic lol
Should we be surprised?
Steam OS is built solely for gaming, whereas Windows 11 is packed with numerous security features and various overall processes.
I switched to Mint couple months back and it was the best decision I made. Turns out my laptop isn't a complete POS, Windows is. Windows has been a complete headache since I got my laptops a few years back and Linux fixes all those problems. I don't even game on my laptop, I just use it for basic stuff and I cannot recommend switching enough.
'If the big companies dictate what games can be created, I don't think that will advance the industry.' -Shihei Yoshida
🙄 same guy who said 80$ is a steal lol and according to him M$ shouldnt put good on a services🤣 wtf
Subscription services have f***ed the movie industry and it's work force, caused massive studio buyups by companies like Disney consolidating huge parts of the industry under one roof and have creatively sterilised the IP's they've gobbled up. The same thing is happening to gaming, MS being the main greedy piggy.
I get what he's saying, but I don’t think we need subscription services to see a lot of the problems he's pointing out. All we really have to do is look at the gaming industry over the last two console generations. Even without subscriptions, the big AAA publishers have already been moving in a direction where almost every game feels like it's built from the same template. It’s all about streamlined, safe design choices that are meant to appeal to the widest possible audience. At this point, you could probably ask an AI to make a AAA game from a certain publisher and it would spit out something pretty close to what they’re actually making.
Now, about the whole “walled garden” thing... that’s not some future problem, it’s already here. Consoles have always worked like that. Their entire business model is based on controlling what gets released on their platforms. Sure, maybe they’re not as locked down as the extreme examples people bring up, but the end result is similar. If you’re not making the kind of game the platform holder wants, you’re probably not getting through the door. We’ve seen it with Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, even Valve does this in its own way with Steam. So yeah, the issue isn’t new or exclusive to subscription services.
Would a subscription-only future make that problem worse? Sure, it definitely could. But I don’t think we’re heading in that direction anytime soon. Unless physical hardware truly becomes a thing of the past and everyone switches to streaming games, I just don’t see subscriptions becoming the dominant model. They’ll stick around as an option, but I doubt they’ll take over completely.
Now, what will take over completely is digital media, and that’s a whole different issue that’s going to hit us a lot sooner. PC and mobile are already basically 100% digital, and that makes up around 70% of the gaming market. The remaining 30% is consoles, and even there we’re seeing the shift. Sony’s removing the disc drive from boxed consoles, Nintendo is releasing just one super expensive 64GB cartridge for their new system, which means almost all third-party publishers will end up going digital and Microsoft is mostly digital already. You either get a digital-only or a physical box with disc that only acts as a activation key. So yeah, that future’s already knocking on the door and the damage will be enormous.
Right, because then you can’t sell individual games at $80, which is an incredible value for the consumer!
First party = Internal studio.
Second party = External studio. Platform holder has funded the games development and owns the IP, but not the studio.
Third party = External studio. Game is not initiated, managed or funded by the platform holder.
I though Second Party meant Nintendo is having Bandai Namco making a Donkey Kong or a Starfox game