Latest / Black Box Theory Podcast / GTA 6 Is Coming. You May Never Own It.
Transcript
- Malcolm: We w they they want to move on to to another topic. Like I know we talk about it every now and then, man, but this is actually big, bro. Cause like anybody that follows like the gaming industry, you understand how pivotal the DTA six release is going to be. And there has been a ton, a ton of drama over these last couple of days, man. and it's at a really, really, I think, interesting inflection point like in the gaming industry. because we're at a point now where a lot of companies, Sony, I think, is kind of like at the the ring leader of this, but we're at we're at a point now where you don't where companies are are really trying to like emphasize the fact that as a gamer or as just a casual player, you don't really own anything. These digital assets are not yours. They aren't assets. They're just like licenses that you own temporarily. And there's all these different contractual obligations and stipulations that apply where it's like, hey, if you don't turn your PS PlayStation on for this amount of time, you don't really own this. If you don't have a PlayStation network, like it's like all these things where it's like, you didn't have any of this when you owned the physical disc. When you own the physical disc, when you own the actual physical asset, there was never a prop. There was never a question about it. So now we're at a point now where it's like, okay. They are eliminating every option that we have for any type of like anything that's advantageous to us. Because you have to understand, like, PlayStation's already announced that they plan to stop manufacturing consoles that take disc. What that means is that now granted, we went over this in a previous episode where majority of their revenue is digital consoles. So from a from a gross margin, from a from a if I'm the CFO, I'm like, hey, this makes perfect sense. Now to the gaming community, that hurts because it's like there are a lot of people that still do collect discs. And care about the games. But if we're talking about from a margin, from what makes business sense, it makes sense for why they're doing it. However, the caveat is now that they have they have essentially complete control over everything gaming, they control, they set the price for everything that's on the PlayStation Store. They set the price for what's considered ownership or not. They can make whatever subscription, you know, to play online or not. They can set that at whatever price they want because you can't do anything about it because there is no alternative. Right? If Xbox says the same thing, we're all fried. If everything is digital, we're all fried. We have no escape route. There is no there is no one to save us, right? So with GTA, it's it's it's particularly interesting because right now, there's a leaguer, a guy named Cyberleak, who is bro, he has been like he is essentially threatened to release the entire GTA six game before it comes out. Until like, you know, specific demands are met. And so it it's it's this entire like if you go up and look, just just look up GTA Leaks, GTA Six Leaks or or Cyber Leak anywhere online that's Cyber L-E-E-K. it's it's it's kinda it's kinda insane, bro. Like there's like a I wish I had like a timeline. let me see if I can pull this up, right? So let's see, let's see. See if I can find him. But yeah, it's essentially it's it's gotten to a point now, bro.