This is a revenue allocation and consumer bottlenecking tactic to present newer titles on the service as profitable balance sheet items by reducing the choice of consumers to enjoy older content.

I’m not so convinced. In the near term this is likely true, but as we see with TV/Movie streaming services (and Smash Bros Melee), businesses looking to cap residuals will often pull ‘stale’ content in favor of new content.

Licensing those assets doesn’t come cheap and certainly drags on their ability to put that money in more profitable projects. Big licensing deals can be a sign of core brand weakness.

I like to remind people that video games didn’t take mass appeal until systems were in place to make enjoying them as thoughtless as possible: circa 2007 YouTube video walkthroughs (because reading is hard ig), and the explosion of convenient internet based social gaming. ‘No thoughts, just play’

This graph is huge. Trend set gaming consumption has created a wall to getting your game sold. ‘Hype up, or pack up’.

There are holes in this paradigm, though. Free to play games with cash shops are receiving increased global regulatory scrutiny. Genshin & Fortnite can’t stand forever.

Here's a chart looking at the top 2k+ games played on PS5 in the US during December 2024 from Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, ranked by the percentage of active PS5 users that played. (And it doesn't look much different on XBS or Steam)

This is what any new game is up against.

I can’t tell either.