14 votes

Apple Plans Gaming Subscription Service: Sources

Tags: apple

28 comments

  1. [24]
    tiz
    Link
    So many streaming services is getting really tiresome. Both gaming and movies/shows.

    So many streaming services is getting really tiresome. Both gaming and movies/shows.

    13 votes
    1. [12]
      onyxleopard
      Link Parent
      We're seeing a lot of rent seekers staking out claims on the digital landscape. I'm not sure if there is room for so many middlemen and so many different walled gardens. Netflix was an intriguing...

      We're seeing a lot of rent seekers staking out claims on the digital landscape.

      I'm not sure if there is room for so many middlemen and so many different walled gardens. Netflix was an intriguing prospect when they could essentially claim to be the only walled garden that housed whatever the movie studios were willing allow you to stream. But, there's only so much mindshare that can be rented out. If consumers have to choose between HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Apple, Amazon, Spotify, Steam, Nintendo, Microsoft, etc., people who have money and time to spend on entertainment are not going to shell out for subscriptions to all of these services. And the draw of exclusive content only goes so far. If it's too difficult to get the content, I'd bet we'll see a resurgence in digital piracy. Netflix, Apple, and to a degree Spotify saw great success in the early adoption of digital content and subscription sales because they made accessing digital content libraries both easier and higher quality than what an average user could find for free. If too many rent seekers end up reducing the ease and quality, market demand will be fulfilled by other means (such as peer-to-peer sharing in the form of torrents and newsgroups).

      18 votes
      1. [12]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. [10]
          onyxleopard
          Link Parent
          It definitely didn’t go away, but a lot of private torrent trackers have evaporated and public trackers like The Pirate Bay still struggle to stay afloat (most public trackers’ sites are infested...

          Honestly now, did piracy ever go away, or even take a dip?

          It definitely didn’t go away, but a lot of private torrent trackers have evaporated and public trackers like The Pirate Bay still struggle to stay afloat (most public trackers’ sites are infested with malicious ads, or are non-functional). Someone even created an API to check which TPB proxies are accessible because it is so unreliable. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I personally have seen an inverse correlation between quality torrent trackers and the rise of Netflix and Spotify over the past 10 years or so.

          9 votes
          1. [3]
            Comment deleted by author
            Link Parent
            1. [2]
              onyxleopard
              Link Parent
              Yeah I don’t have any hard data to back up my anecdotal experience here. I also don’t have any interest in digging around to see what data is available. I imagine it’s a hard problem to find...

              Yeah I don’t have any hard data to back up my anecdotal experience here. I also don’t have any interest in digging around to see what data is available. I imagine it’s a hard problem to find accurate data on this—something like swarm size over time for the N most popular torrents normalized by the size of the largest swarm might be a decent barometer?

              3 votes
              1. [2]
                Comment deleted by author
                Link Parent
                1. Deimos
                  (edited )
                  Link Parent
                  Not sure if it'll be similar to what you're hoping to find, but I read this article earlier today on Techdirt that discusses a new study related to piracy and its effects (and has links to some...

                  Not sure if it'll be similar to what you're hoping to find, but I read this article earlier today on Techdirt that discusses a new study related to piracy and its effects (and has links to some others): Study Shows Piracy Can Sometimes Be Beneficial To Markets & Consumers Alike

                  3 votes
          2. [7]
            frickindeal
            Link Parent
            How is one expected to use that API? Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with JSON. Is it just to check the online status? Also, most of those are terrible proxies, loaded with malware and redirects, and seem...

            How is one expected to use that API? Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with JSON. Is it just to check the online status? Also, most of those are terrible proxies, loaded with malware and redirects, and seem to be older scrapes of the PB site.

            1 vote
            1. Emerald_Knight
              Link Parent
              Unfortunately there are a lot of problems with e.g. Content Security Policy settings that prevent me from giving you a one-click solution to this problem. That being said, if you know how to open...

              Unfortunately there are a lot of problems with e.g. Content Security Policy settings that prevent me from giving you a one-click solution to this problem. That being said, if you know how to open your browser console and run some JavaScript, try running this while you're on the API page:

              (function() {
                var regex = /"(\w+\.\w+)"/g;
                var proxies = [];
                var match;
                
                while(match = regex.exec(document.body.innerHTML)) {
                  proxies.push(match[1]);
                }
                
                var proxy_html = '<div>' + proxies.map(function(proxy) {
                  return '<div><a href="https://' + proxy + '">' + proxy + '</a></div>';
                }).reduce(function(html, row) {
                  return html + row;
                }) + '</div>';
                
                document.body.innerHTML = proxy_html;
              })()
              

              It's just a stupid, quick script that snags the JSON (actually its HTML representation, but whatever), finds anything that's "sort of URL-like"--literally just any number of word characters followed by a single dot followed by any number of word characters--and replaces the contents of the page with a bunch of clickable links to those URLs.

              Note: Not guaranteed to run in all browsers, but appears to work in Firefox and Chrome for me. Your mileage may vary.

              2 votes
            2. [5]
              onyxleopard
              Link Parent
              You check which proxies are available with the API? It’s pretty self explanatory… When the real thing is totally unreliable, and constantly hopping domains, this is what we’re left with.

              How is one expected to use that API?

              You check which proxies are available with the API? It’s pretty self explanatory…

              Also, most of those are terrible proxies, loaded with malware and redirects, and seem to be older scrapes of the PB site.

              When the real thing is totally unreliable, and constantly hopping domains, this is what we’re left with.

              1 vote
              1. [4]
                frickindeal
                Link Parent
                I meant is there a better way to use it than copy/pasting the URLs. It's just raw text? And agreed, I haven't used TPB for quite a while because it's always down. Others are far superior to these...

                I meant is there a better way to use it than copy/pasting the URLs. It's just raw text?

                And agreed, I haven't used TPB for quite a while because it's always down. Others are far superior to these out-of-date proxies, though.

                1. onyxleopard
                  Link Parent
                  It’s an API (application programming interface); you’d use it in a program, not by hand.

                  I meant is there a better way to use it than copy/pasting the URLs

                  It’s an API (application programming interface); you’d use it in a program, not by hand.

                  4 votes
                2. [2]
                  Diff
                  Link Parent
                  It's meant for automated systems to be able to digest easily, copy/pasting the URLs is what us non-automated folk have to do.

                  It's meant for automated systems to be able to digest easily, copy/pasting the URLs is what us non-automated folk have to do.

                  3 votes
                  1. frickindeal
                    Link Parent
                    Thanks. It's very clean, something you didn't see with data forms in my ancient programming experience with companies unused to even providing data.

                    Thanks. It's very clean, something you didn't see with data forms in my ancient programming experience with companies unused to even providing data.

        2. Amarok
          Link Parent
          Music piracy definitely dipped with the advent of streaming services, and also with sites like bandcamp and cdbaby making it even easier for artists to self-publish and sell on their own terms....

          Music piracy definitely dipped with the advent of streaming services, and also with sites like bandcamp and cdbaby making it even easier for artists to self-publish and sell on their own terms. Sometime around 2012 it reached the point where you could find a legal streaming link for everything you wanted to hear even without paying for a subscription service. The other largest win against piracy I'm aware of was when Steam went into the Russian market and upended games piracy there just by being more convenient.

          I fully expect a resurgence in piracy with so many crummy streaming services all trying to get us to spend as much on streaming as we used to spend on cable. That's simply never going to happen.

          We need a reckoning for copyright law reform. Ten years gratis protection, and then every subsequent ten years the price to renew the copyright goes up by large percentages of the total net revenue until it's no longer profitable to maintain, then all the IP goes into the public domain. This life plus 75 years nonsense is outright theft.

          3 votes
    2. nothis
      Link Parent
      IMO it's the only business model that makes sense for large libraries of media. Their primary feature is variety. You want to watch some weird show you never would have payed for in advance,...
      • Exemplary

      IMO it's the only business model that makes sense for large libraries of media. Their primary feature is variety. You want to watch some weird show you never would have payed for in advance, listen to lots of new music to find something you really like and why not play a bunch of strange indies and see what gets you hooked. People don't like the move from individual purchases with Virtual Console to the NES Online flat-rate model that comes with the Nintendo Switch, but to me it makes way more sense since 30 year old NES games are best played as a multi-course tasting menu than a $5 commitment to each individual game.

      Also, this is an alternative to microtransactions, loot boxes and whatnot, which is something we desperately need.

      Too early to judge but IMO there's reasons to be optimistic about this.

      2 votes
    3. [10]
      NaraVara
      Link Parent
      As long as there aren't too many exclusive content deals I think it's fine. Having more choices is preferable to fewer. A streaming game service would basically eliminate my only incentive to have...

      As long as there aren't too many exclusive content deals I think it's fine. Having more choices is preferable to fewer.

      A streaming game service would basically eliminate my only incentive to have a Windows PC. It would even cut down the cost of Macs I buy by hundreds of dollars, if not close to $1,000. It would be great if I could skip the GPU.

      1. [8]
        elcuello
        Link Parent
        What are you talking about? Exclusive content is the reason every fucking company is getting their own service. You're saying that you'd rather have twelve services instead of two with the exact...

        As long as there aren't too many exclusive content deals I think it's fine. Having more choices is preferable to fewer.

        What are you talking about? Exclusive content is the reason every fucking company is getting their own service. You're saying that you'd rather have twelve services instead of two with the exact same content.

        4 votes
        1. [7]
          NaraVara
          Link Parent
          A handful of exclusive or timed-exclusive shows amidst a bunch of standard, generally available syndicated fare is what I'm talking about. Analogous to how game consoles work. I think people...

          Exclusive content is the reason every fucking company is getting their own service.

          A handful of exclusive or timed-exclusive shows amidst a bunch of standard, generally available syndicated fare is what I'm talking about. Analogous to how game consoles work.

          I think people generally have an entertainment budget and it probably gets right around how much cable TV packages cost. As more folks cord-cut, the streaming services will start to eat up the rest of the budget.

          3 votes
          1. [2]
            Gaywallet
            Link Parent
            Until someone invents the equivalent of a cable service but for the internet. For only $99 a month you get access to netflix, hulu, amazon prime now, etc. and we will have come full circle.

            As more folks cord-cut, the streaming services will start to eat up the rest of the budget.

            Until someone invents the equivalent of a cable service but for the internet. For only $99 a month you get access to netflix, hulu, amazon prime now, etc. and we will have come full circle.

            1 vote
            1. NaraVara
              Link Parent
              The Daring Fireball podcast had a bit about how when Tivo came out the entire premise of putting computers into our TV viewing was to skip ads and control the time-table of when shows air. But...

              The Daring Fireball podcast had a bit about how when Tivo came out the entire premise of putting computers into our TV viewing was to skip ads and control the time-table of when shows air. But then content and IP regs came down and now the computers are used specifically to force ads on us (that are more invasive than ever) and decide what we get to watch and when.

              3 votes
          2. [4]
            elcuello
            Link Parent
            Isn't that how Netflix and HBO streaming services works now or am I missing something? I don't know a lot about how game consoles work. I just think you overestimate peoples willingness to pay for...

            A handful of exclusive or timed-exclusive shows amidst a bunch of standard, generally available syndicated fare is what I'm talking about. Analogous to how game consoles work.

            Isn't that how Netflix and HBO streaming services works now or am I missing something? I don't know a lot about how game consoles work.

            I just think you overestimate peoples willingness to pay for a lot of different services with a lack new and original content to gain. I'm not that young anymore and I don't know any at my age that haven't cut the cord yet (not US).

            1 vote
            1. [3]
              NaraVara
              Link Parent
              Yes and no. They're actually kind of polar opposite business models. HBO started as an entertainment company that began evolving into tech. Netflix started as a tech company (well, started as a...

              Isn't that how Netflix and HBO streaming services works now or am I missing something? I don't know a lot about how game consoles work.

              Yes and no. They're actually kind of polar opposite business models. HBO started as an entertainment company that began evolving into tech. Netflix started as a tech company (well, started as a logistics company that evolved into a tech company) and is trying to evolve into production and entertainment. Netflix's CEO said at some point that his company's fortunes depend on getting good at what HBO does before HBO can get good at what Netflix does.

              HBO leans much more heavily on a handful of "prestige" original series and early released of box office films before they hit syndication on other services, like Netflix.

              Netflix focuses more on having a large volume of stuff available for you to watch. They're pulling more and more original series in, but they don't put as much money and talent behind them as HBO does.

              You can basically think of HBO as sort of "higher end" and Netflix as the volume seller that occasionally has good stuff. The two companies are kind of in a race to figure out what the middle ground is.

              Amazon kind of splits the difference with the Prime Video, but they focus a bit more on digital rentals.

              I just think you overestimate peoples willingness to pay for a lot of different services with a lack new and original content to gain.

              People pay, like, $150-$200 a month for cable and only watch a handful of channels. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the general standard amount of TV viewing is going to converge on around $150-$200 worth of streaming bundle subscriptions.

              Don't get me wrong, I think this is bad and wish we could decouple content from platform and delivery mechanism. But I think this is where we're heading.

              2 votes
              1. [2]
                elcuello
                Link Parent
                Ahh OK you were talking about business models and where they came from and where they are going. Thanks for the thorough breakdown and I get what you're saying. People paid that in the past and...

                Ahh OK you were talking about business models and where they came from and where they are going. Thanks for the thorough breakdown and I get what you're saying.

                People pay, like, $150-$200 a month for cable and only watch a handful of channels. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the general standard amount of TV viewing is going to converge on around $150-$200 worth of streaming bundle subscriptions.

                People paid that in the past and that was just how it was. Considering the unwillingness historically among a large portion of the internet to pay for anything I don't think you can just equal those things...especially when the content seems to vary a lot in quality since it exploded.

                1. NaraVara
                  Link Parent
                  I think the proportion of the internet that's averse to paying for things is just the loud minority. The percentage of people actually engaged in piracy was always pretty small, they just tended...

                  Considering the unwillingness historically among a large portion of the internet to pay for anything I don't think you can just equal those things...especially when the content seems to vary a lot in quality since it exploded.

                  I think the proportion of the internet that's averse to paying for things is just the loud minority. The percentage of people actually engaged in piracy was always pretty small, they just tended to share the wealth with their friends so lots of people indirectly benefited. Once those people lose their connection to their pirate friends or people willing to let them borrow their accounts, they tend to either do without or "go legit" and start paying.

                  Also, Netflix doesn't consider themselves in competition primarily with other TV and film content providers. They see themselves as being in competition with any media that absorbs your attention. So even if you don't equal it out to $200 worth of video content, from Netflix's perspective you playing a video game instead of watching a show is competition for them. So this isn't just your streaming services that your $X per month entertainment budget go to, it's also the $60 you might have spent on Spider-Man for your PS4 (amortized over however many months a game lasts you).

                  1 vote
      2. Diff
        Link Parent
        Problem is it seems the only way some of these new stores are clawing any inch forward is through exclusivity deals.

        Problem is it seems the only way some of these new stores are clawing any inch forward is through exclusivity deals.

        3 votes
  2. Gaywallet
    Link
    Apple isn't the only big player looking into this. Google's recent project stream and Microsoft are two other tech giants that we know are looking into this as a model. You might even argue that...

    Apple isn't the only big player looking into this. Google's recent project stream and Microsoft are two other tech giants that we know are looking into this as a model. You might even argue that origin/EA access and other subscription library services are looking into being the next "Netflix" of gaming.

    It makes sense - there's a big demand and there's a lot of money to be made by whomever claims stake to the market first. I don't think the technology is there yet for a pure streaming service (Google did a good job, but there were still some pretty bad input lag issues that would invalidate playing certain genres of games) but a rotating library or something similar? I'm honestly surprised EA is one of the few companies out there doing this.

    5 votes
  3. [3]
    heady
    Link
    Why drop vulkan if they are entering the games market?

    Why drop vulkan if they are entering the games market?

    3 votes
    1. actionscripted
      Link Parent
      This story is speculation from from "five people familiar with the matter" but I would not be surprised if they decided to give it a shot. Your point about Vulkan is where I feel like the whole...

      An Apple spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

      This story is speculation from from "five people familiar with the matter" but I would not be surprised if they decided to give it a shot.

      Your point about Vulkan is where I feel like the whole thing should come to a screeching halt. Vulkan is supported on Windows, Linux, Android, Nintendo Switch...but not macOS. Open GL and Metal still seem to be the official way to do things.

      That said, it sounds like Valve and some other folks have been working with the MoltenVK runtime which would allow Vulkan-based software to run on macOS/iOS. So maybe the workaround for now is MoltenVK?

      I think if Apple is serious about gaming at all it has to get it together with regards to GPUs, drivers and frameworks. Maybe some success as a subscription games service would push them in that direction.

      Anecdotally, what I love to share, is that I have a MacBook with macOS and Windows 10 (via Bootcamp). Both have Steam and I've tried cross-platform games like TF2 and L4D2 on both. I get a huge FPS boost on the exact same machine under Windows for these games (also no mouse/smoothing issues, etc.).

      Sure, they're legacy games and there might be great reasons for the performance disparity. But as it is I have Win10 around for when I want to game or do GPU-heavy stuff because under macOS it's a much different experience.

      5 votes
    2. nothis
      Link Parent
      I assume this is mostly a mobile gaming thing.

      I assume this is mostly a mobile gaming thing.

      1 vote