Preshow Interactive

History repeats itself

You know what, in an ideal world, deserved much better for itself? Movie Pass. Remember Movie Pass? No? Then let me enlighten you to the tragic tale of a company who, for some reason, fell on the sword for the good of the consumer. You see, movie pass was a service wherein  people could pay a cheap subscription fee in order to watch an unlimited amount of movies at select retailers for that month. How cheap? Too cheap. I'm talking, so cheap that the company was haemorrhaging money for it's entire lifespan, trying desperately to secure enough users that it would offset their insanely irresponsible business model. (What dumbass bank manager gave out a loan for this?) Eventually they got desperate and started trying to pressure smaller cinemas into cutting them deals, touting their user base, which fell through. Then they started cutting the benefits of the deal to a certain number of movies a week, then a selection of non-blockbuster movies for that week, before giving up and slinking into scummy service provider tactics to retain users. I'm talking, changing passwords on accounts so that people couldn't see movies, in the knowledge that every movie seen cost them money. Eventually Movie Pass went the way of the do-do and quietly faded away into distant memory, but it's legacy is that every major theatre chain started offering their own, more sensible, version of subscription movie watching. So in a way you could say that they died for our sins.

"But you don't even watch movies. Why bring any of this up?" Well pointed out and good point, dear reader, but I have a good reason for this history lesson because you see, bizarrely, these people have been allowed to try the business world again, and this time with Gaming as their target. (Are you afraid or excited? I'm a little of both.) Don't you think we have enough peripheries and addendums to the wild world of Video games that get distributed from actual consoles makers? Do we really need civilians getting involved with family business like this? That isn't the Tojo clan way, you can't just be shoving your nose up in official Yakuza affairs like that. (Huh? Yes I did just replay Yakuza 0 again, why do you ask?) But let's give them the ol' benefit of the doubt as we explore what in the heck these knuckleheads think they have to benefit the gaming world.

Firstly, however, can I send a spiritual slap in the face to whichever duped bank teller gave these guys a loan again! Their last venture ended with lawsuits and millions in debt, I doubt their ledger book ever saw a single droplet of black ink during it's entire service, why are you so insistent on burning your money like this? (And yet I can't even open a current account. What- do I need to tank a fortune 500 company first to qualify?) I am flabbergasted, and a little affronted, that we're here again merely 1.5 years  after the Movie Pass debacle, because even hearing the details of this and thinking it makes a tiny bit more sense than movie pass did, I just flashback to all the poor choices these guys made when things started to tense up and I know they'll find the single way to crash this idea in the most spectacular way possible. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

MTX. We all need 'em, apparently. If there's one thing that is a safe bet, even working with the ever shifting landscape of concrete that is the video gaming world, it's that whatever genre is due to take the top spot it's going to contain Microtransactions. (Well, I mean unless subscription based online games make a sudden resurgence in popularity. But that's impossible. Maybe.) It's the way that the bottom feeders in the industry scrape around customers for that little bit of extra change which builds up into something nauseatingly substantial by the end of the day. So if someone can find a way to leech upon that, some way, perhaps in embodying the maggot feeding on the faeces alongside those execs, then you might be looking at a pretty penny for yourselves somewhere at the end of the rainbow. (I honestly apologise for all the scatological imagery; I swear it's unintentional)

But before you go thinking that these guys went and developed an original idea, have no fear, its ripped it right off of the Mobile gaming world and haphazardly slapped into console gaming. Because my man here wants to offer people ingame microtransaction currency for the small price of watching ads the whole way through. You know, like mobile games have been doing forever?... He needed 3 million in raised capital for that? Or is the three million simply to pay for Movie pass legal fees he's still got hanging over his head, I dunno. It's just that this whole idea seems... how do I put this... bad and dumb and stupid. (Sorry to get all wordy up on you) It's not that I don't think this will work, I'm sure it will, for a time before those who give it a chance realise their time is better spent digging a ditch, I just think there's so many better ways to go about sneaking into the billion-dollar gaming marketplace. But hey, what do I know? This man managed to trick the banks twice, he's got something going for him.

So let's start with the obvious flaw in this little plan; the amount of currency earned isn't going to amount to anything worthwhile, because these sorts of plans have been around forever and the amount of time wasted watching ads is rarely worth the recompense. (Unless you build some algorithm to watch them for you, but even then is it really worth the time?) Then there's the fact that this is going to require an 'in' with the games owners themselves in order to function, simply because Mircotransaction currency transfer isn't something that really any game out there does in the world right now. They'll have to be begging these companies to change fundamental rules about how they run their infrastructure, rules put in place for the games companies' protection, just to make this business model work. (If the entire premise of your business relies on someone else showing you pity, that's probably not the strongest pitch.)

And then there's the little fact that, at the end of the day, these are microtransaction points; what good is that to the average player? Most who buy into the microtransaction trends do so with their big whale pockets anyway and are usually the type who do so because they can't be bothered to wait around and earn something gradually, (Hence why 'Time Savers' are still a thing. Thanks, Ubisoft) so they're not going to entertain a system like this. Players who aren't interested in Microtransactions have likely already resolved themselves to not care all that much, so the tantalizing offer of "Your whole day" for "A new badge plate" isn't going to win any converts. So I guess what I'm asking is simply: who is this for? What's your target demographic? What's your forecast look like? How long until you predict profitability? How future-proof is your business plan? Do you have a business plan? Have you ever written a business plan before? Do you have a relative who's some bigwig banker? How does this keep happening?

Now far be it from me to point and say someone's whole business venture is stupid and doomed for mediocrity if not failure, but when it's this baffling I just can't help myself. (The insults, they floweth) The Movie Pass tragedy was like a car crash in slow motion to everyone but those involved, where we could all see the incoming wall and had plenty of time to react and point out imminent death, but the drivers ploughed straight on through anyway. So isn't this a little bit like Deja Vu, only even more sad because this one doesn't even really have potential to improve the market it's 'supplanting'? You know what, I might be wrong and in 10 years time we're all suckling the teats of Preshow Interactive (that's the company's incredibly generic name, by the way) but I'm willing to put my money on KOTOR 3 launching before that ever happens. (And we all know Kotor 3 is a pipe dream... *Sniffle*) Still, might as well stand around and watch the ill fated startup burn. Ain't much else to do in this town.