Netflix is standing on top of the entertainment industry, but it is not a position that really has much artistic strength. There are some diamonds in the rough, but it isn’t enough. Netflix simply doesn’t have a unique direction to its productions.
Netflix seems to be more interested in remaking the greatest hits and not making anything new or surpassing what came before. Stranger Things remakes the Goonies or any teenage band of misfits movie from the 1980s. Ransom Canyon is basically many rural shows that were shown on various broadcast channels in previous eras. It seems that they want to be a facsimile rather something unique.
Considering that the company began as a way to deliver DVDs and collect your information while doing so, this isn’t surprising to me. Netflix is an information services company providing movies and tv shows in the form of data to your device here. They are still of Silicon Valley not Hollywood or any other studio city on the planet.
They may rent studios to shoot movies, but this is content not art.
Netflix has many subscribers, but does it have fans who like it for more than content?
Network effect really bolsters many of these companies, but Amazon is not Sears, neither is Netflix a new Hollywood which can capture the imaginations of Americans. These two companies have done great at capturing market share and making money but can they really sustain it? These companies are not really interested in America as nothing more than a place to sell their assets here.
Amazon has an easier time as their products are tangible. However, Netflix seems to be on shakier ground here. Their movies are not physical media but, in the cloud, here. Can they really create the same love for their movies as has remained for The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, even Metropolis? These are old movies now but the fact that Netflix is buying Warner Bros show that they understand the importance of these symbols of Americana.
Making money is one thing but having staying power is another.
Civilization VI vs Civilization VII in Peak Payer Count on Steam (Source: Steamcharts.com)
Civilization VII is still being outperformed by Civilization V and Civilization VI in player counts. Civilization V outperforming a game that is fifteen years younger than it is surprising, but I should probably be aware that it was possible within our context of the increasing global nature of gaming in our age. Gaming was always global to some extent but there many players uploading videos on YouTube from Vietnam or Egypt who actively play 20-year-old games on their computers as that is their interest and most importantly, their budget for their computers. This tech debt from the Windows XP era is quite noticeable now.
Civilization VII has had a slight increase in its player base over the past couple months. However, this is small increase and mostly because of its DLCs. The game does have a player base unlike some games that have thousands of players upon launch and then you check a couple months later and hardly anyone is playing it. However, this is a game which is still unable to surpass Civilization VI months after release.
What is quite noticeable is that Civilization VII was barely able to surpass the peak player count of Civilization VI in its launch month. Another issue is the week that it was Kingdom Come 2: Deliverance was taking its energy away. While the games are different genres, their player bases overlap more than say a platformer game. Kingdom Come 2 greatly surpassed the original game’s peak player count. Civilization VII had to contend with six different games that came out before it. This is quite the legacy you have to live up to. At some point, the Civilization series was going to reach its creative plateau because it had basically forgotten its player base.
The game is honestly not that good at giving the player a sense of scale. It’s not the realism which players crave but the scale and macro nature of the earlier games.
I have stated many times on here that Civilization VII is a game that does not have unique moments such as this on a macro scale. Playing as China in that game and having Persia launch a nuclear attack on my Communist nation was truly edge of your set material in an old game.
Another interesting moment are the text boxes in Civilization III. I had the Koreans attempting to manipulate my politics. Such little boxes help to flesh out the virtual history playing out on screen. That is what Civilization VII is missing here.
Civilization VI had a decline in player counts as well, but they were not the same. Civilization VII’s player base is smaller and has more competition from not just other games but older Civilization titles. This makes the act of getting the game to surpass both Civilization V and Civilization much tougher in comparison. Civilization VII is simply not better than Civilization VI as it is product of an age in the industry where style means more than substance.
Game Streaming is still a work in progress and has struggled to truly take off in the way that video streaming did slowly with RealPlayer and then solidifying with YouTube and Netflix.
The issue with Game Streaming vs Video Streaming
Video streaming is an easier concept to understand for most people. Simply have video delivered by digital information transmissions rather than analog signals. Even with the analog televisions, it is a simple concept. You turn on the television and switch to a channel which receives a signal. In many ways, it is still magical experience. You have a screen which puts people in a box and you hear their voices and see their movements. However, it is a concept which is simple to explain to the ordinary customers, especially in an age where tinkering isn’t a popular in our nation.
Video Games have been on the sidelines for many years, unable to break out its role as the strange cousin of the realizable standbys of television and earlier, radio shows. Another issue is that video games are not movies. They are interactive experiences which separates them from movies and puts them in the same place as the circus or sports. This comparison may make some gamers have an inferiority complex as they want to constantly have video games be taken seriously. Even with all the great stories, video games are still seen as a product of immature people even though many of the people making those statements belong to industries that exploit video games for content to make their movies and shows.
The way to change this is Game Streaming.
However, streaming a video game isn’t the same as streaming a movie. The difference in bandwidth is immense and video games began largely as physical objects, now mostly digital and now there needs to be a reliable to stream a video game from a server without requiring downloads or physical means. While some gamers may prefer physical copies, which I can agree with, most people will be satisfied with having a digital copy. However, the issue of storage is coming back one again. On my computer, I can only fit so many games and these huge games are making it tough to enjoy a variety of games, leaving me to play really old games or a single release. Such a situation leads players to concentrate their attention onto a few games or to not even pay attention to their backlog at all, making it tough for independents to make an impact on the industry when players all play the same game.
Game streaming can help bring gamers of all stripes together. Nvidia’s Geforce Now is a great compromise, allowing for a much larger library of games to be played as you have just add your game library and you can stream tons of games that would otherwise be unplayable on her computer. I have already explained how GeForce Now is a great service. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to play the Remastered version of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
However, I had to switch to Amazon Luna.
Why?
Simply because it’s already bundled with my Prime Subscription. That helps in reducing the cost of the service. With Nvidia GeForce Now, the premium option (the best option) costs $19.99 and it has the best graphics chips in the servers. However, it is not worth the price right now. You have to buy the games separately and this adds to the cost. Some games on GeForce Now are free to play games but other game services have free to play games, so this is not as exclusive or as important as it seems here.
Amazon Luna has less games, but it is already bundled with my prime subscription and that is very important. I do not have to add anymore subscriptions to my account here.
Amazon also provides a Premium subscription with more games which costs more but bundling it with the Prime account is a great move on their part here. They also have other premium subscription choices to link up with other stores. The real star of the show which made me use the service was the inclusion of Skyrim in the service. My steam copy of Skyrim was getting glitchy on my computer and I needed another way to play this classic game.
Skyrim on Amazon Luna plays well and that is all I really needed. My laptop often overheats when playing a game installed on the machine, so I needed a virtual way of passing that issue.
Nvidia GeForce Now is a great service, but I needed to switch as it fits with my budget right now. Battlefield 6 was the main reason why I was paying for the service. As Battlefield 6 has many hackers and issues at the moment, I am going to wait and let the people who work on the game to smooth out any problems so that the gameplay experience is more enjoyable for me and other users.
Amazon Luna is probably the best game streaming service right now if one wants to just play and not have to worry about space on their computers. There is a limitation in games available but that if that really worries you, there are other premium additions that you can add to the service. Many people already have a prime subscription as one can clearly see with all the Amazon vehicles on a daily basis moving around America’s cities and communities. It is worth the money and I recommend that people subscribe to Amazon Luna if they want a way to stream without taking space.
It is also a great way to expose more people to gaming as it can be kind of an elitist space, but game streaming makes more available to those who wish to enter this incredible cyberspace of play and entertainment. The video game industry has great potential, and we need to be able to expand the culture of gaming beyond what we have seen before here. Being able to just pick up and play will bring in new people and maybe ideas so that gaming can start to innovate once again and bring some much-needed creativity into America and the gaming community.
My Game Reviews 