Trying to break into the gaming market, how do tech giants get ‘the bitter end’?

Remember the Apple Game Center? Or a gaming controller designed, manufactured and distributed by Amazon?

No one can blame you if you admit to having forgotten both: they are long-neglected projects of the two largest companies in the world, with countless other projects underway. proceed very smoothly.

And they are just two of the many names that will be mentioned in this article – technology companies with million-dollar projects but “sliding banana peel” when entering the field of video games.

Apple with Game Center

Apple’s Game Center, launched in 2010, was designed to serve as a platform across all Apple’s games. How the operating systems on the Xbox and PlayStation play for these platforms, the Game Center is the same for Apple devices.

It has a system of achievements, a list of friends, and a few simple forms of interaction between players. But overall, things were superficial and didn’t make much sense, so much so that Apple eventually decided to abandon Game Center.

In terms of operation, Game Center is nothing to blame – except that its features are somewhat limited.

The biggest problem Game Center faces and then cannot overcome is that game developers are also trying to build similar functions into their own games. Instead of forcing Game Center to be deployed on a system-wide level across all App Store titles, Apple allowed game developers to decide whether to integrate it into their games. Therefore, some games have Game Center, while others ignore it.

Moreover, Game Center itself lacks many platform-level features that have been the norm since 2010, such as messaging and voice chat. Apple eventually had to remove the service from iOS and macOS devices, and has yet to come up with a new solution to replace it.

Amazon with a gaming project on Fire TV and a gamepad controller

Playing games directly on set-top boxes like Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, or Google Chromecast has long been a technology dream.

Every one or two years, an analyst or journalist will make a solid prediction that it will be the year that Apple or some other technology giants make ambitious intrusions. video game field with a set-top box that many people are putting next to their TVs.

Yet, year after year, that illusion never materialized. But that doesn’t mean tech giants have never tried it.

In 2014, Amazon launched a new version of the Fire TV set-top box, accompanied by an entirely new gamepad and significant backing from some famous game developers. The company even released a game developed by itself for this device, called “Sev Zero”. But playing games on Fire TV was never popular, and just a few years later, the Fire TV set-top box disappeared, replaced by a compact stick.

Of course, you can still play games on the Fire TV sitck, but Amazon has abandoned the idea of ​​directing this device to the gaming division. And the company doesn’t even dream about making or selling gamepads.

It’s Amazon again, with the game Crucible

Did you know that Amazon, the world’s largest company, has launched a new game with a huge development budget this year?

The title of this game is Crucible, and you’ll be forgiven if this is your first time hearing about it. Although it is a free game and was put on the world’s largest gaming platform, Steam, Crucible only appeared briefly and was kicked off the top 100 of the platform.

On May 21, the day after its launch, Crucible had about 25,000 players simultaneously at its peak. By May 22, two days after its launch, it had disappeared from Steam’s top 100 – which is the list of the most played games on Steam, of which the least-rated game has about 5,000 simultaneous players. .

What does it mean? Understandably, just two days after launch, the number of Crucible players at any given time was less than 5,000. For comparison, the most played game on Steam has an average of about 1 million simultaneous players.

Just over a month after its launch, Amazon has removed the game from Steam. “From tomorrow, Crucible will move to closed beta,” a blog post from the game said.

Remarkably, Crucible has been in development for over 5 years. It certainly cost Amazon tens of millions of dollars in the process!

Google with the Stadia service

After years of development and storming the internet, Google’s long-rumored gaming project was officially launched last November: Google Stadia.

This is not a console, nor a gaming platform – it is a Google-run digital store where you can buy games. It is an ambitious new platform, aiming to become “Netflix in the field of games”.

Why is Stadia so ambitious? Instead of downloading games or playing games from Blu-ray discs, Stadia will stream the game to you wherever you are, just like Netflix streaming movies and TV shows.

However, eight months passed, and Stadia did not stand out as expected. Multiplayer modes in games like “Destiny 2” become meaningless when no one participates, and interest in Stadia fades over time. The service is not yet available on Apple iOS devices, and there is no sign that it is about to change.

Google does not seem to have let go. The technology giant is still working diligently on hiring and acquiring many other companies to serve its game project. Even so, up to now, things are clearly not very good.

(According to BusinessInsider)