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The Industry Runs on GaaS

bitbydeath said:
They'd have to be physical copies right?
Because you cannot rebuy digital copies without creating a new account each time, AFAIK.
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No the digital copies come a code for the card they are not tied together. I've not looked into things recently. I did a bit of research for my own curiosity a couple of years ago because I couldn't figure out why it was a top selling game year on year.

There's a few articles/reddit posts on the subject if you can be arsed googling it.

That was the answer then I don't see why thing would change.
 
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clarky said:
No the digital copies come a code for the card they are not tied together. I've not looked into things recently. I did a bit of research for my own curiosity a couple of years ago because I couldn't figure out why it was a top selling game year on year.

There's a few articles/reddit posts on the subject if you can be arsed googling it.

That was the answer then I don't see why thing would change.
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There's no rebuy option on PSN.
I think it's just new people looking to experience SP. There's always someone new discovering it as they get older.
 
Yea no shit sherlock, MP games have dominated the space since online play became more accessible with PSN and Xbox Live. The argument most are making is that TOO MANY developers are trying to chase this market. Thus, oversaturating the market with bland garbage. The reality is that gamers have a finite amount of time to play, and most are going to spend that time playing the few games they truly love on a regular basis.

Basically, there are too many developers all bending over backwards for every gamer's precious time and money. When you have a business model that continuously demands thier attention and money, well...only an elite few will survive and continue to dominate.
 
pudel said:
Nope. If you were born when GTAV released...you are now more or less able to play the game for the first time and who wouldnt experience one of the best games ever made. You forget that every day new "gamers" are born.

However I agree that GTA online does seem to play a big role as well to keep people in the game for a very long time.
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If you where born when GTAV released you are still not old enough to play the game. Like i said i looked into it, it sells because of the shark cards, not because billy just turned 18 and has been waiting his whole life to play a 12 year old game.

Also GTAV ain't all that there are much better entries in the franchise.
 
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clarky said:
If you where born when GTAV released you are still not old enough to play the game.
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Come on, you know what I mean. Lets say you were 5 years old...better? And believe it or not with 13 I played preferably stuff which I wasnt allowed to play. ;)

...and there are millions of "Billy's" turning 18 every day.
 
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The problem with gaas isn't that they are live service, the problem is that the majority are corporate mandated products with no artistry or creativity behind them. They are soulless products that start with a business model and then attempt to copy an existing genre (maybe with a small twist). They keep trying to dethrone established games in a zero sum game. If you are going to make gaas, either spend truckloads of money like the Chinese, or have actual talent and skill and do something novel that excites people.

Gaas slop #5682 is not exciting when I'm already playing gaas slop #103.
 
pudel said:
Come on, you know what I mean. Lets say you were 5 years old...better? And believe it or not with 13 I played preferably stuff which I wasnt allowed to play. ;)

...and there are millions of "Billy's" turning 18 every day.
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I'm not having that kids are growing up dying to play a twevle year old single player game thats not even close to being the best entry in the series. If anything they are buying it for the online.

Like i said a few years ago the main driver was that it was cheaper to buy the full game + shark card than it was to buy the card on its own. I'm not sure if thats still the case.
 
bitbydeath said:
Yeah, you provided it above with the 18M figure in a month.

Fortnite though, they've had nearly 50M in a day.
That should be where GTA is if it was as popular as you're thinking.
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Not so. Fortnite has around 700million unique user accounts so the numbers are about right.
 
Hari Seldon said:
The problem with gaas isn't that they are live service, the problem is that the majority are corporate mandated products with no artistry or creativity behind them. They are soulless products that start with a business model and then attempt to copy an existing genre (maybe with a small twist). They keep trying to dethrone established games in a zero sum game. If you are going to make gaas, either spend truckloads of money like the Chinese, or have actual talent and skill and do something novel that excites people.

Gaas slop #5682 is not exciting when I'm already playing gaas slop #103.
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Doesn't the premise remain the same for single player games as well?

Unless your game is a standout, it's most likely going to disappear into the void.
 
Me posting on GAF after playing another 10 hours of Hunt: Showdown over the weekend

Comedy Sunglasses GIF by Filmladen
 
Big-G said:
Yea no shit sherlock, MP games have dominated the space since online play became more accessible with PSN and Xbox Live. The argument most are making is that TOO MANY developers are trying to chase this market. Thus, oversaturating the market with bland garbage. The reality is that gamers have a finite amount of time to play, and most are going to spend that time playing the few games they truly love on a regular basis.

Basically, there are too many developers all bending over backwards for every gamer's precious time and money. When you have a business model that continuously demands thier attention and money, well...only an elite few will survive and continue to dominate.
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There is zero consumer market where the battle for consumer attention/time, is not the main focus.

Applies to literally anything, video steaming service, etcetera.

What tends to happen is there will be few winners, and the rest will fail.

Keep in mind, single player games are not immune to this.

Most games on Steam for example don't even generate $1000 in profit, lifetime.
 
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Topher said:
Single player games are not dependent on servers so there is no reason for them to disappear.
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They get forgotten about, as people move on to whatever is current.

There's a reason launch period is the most crucial for new single player game releases, that's where most of the profit comes from.
 
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Games that continually release new content will obviously have better player retention than games that don't. I definitely prefer them.
 
Instant_Classic said:
They get forgotten about, as people move on to whatever is current.

There's a reason launch period is the most crucial for new single player game releases, that's where most of the profit comes from.
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Who cares? I paid for the game and I want to be able to play it 30 years later if I want to. I'm not playing games so some corporation can have profits.
 
It's more like what started out as initially successful franchises were then made into live service games to avoid having to rebuild an entirely new game in order to make money. Business decisions led to this model, not requests by fans.
 
Instant_Classic said:
There is zero consumer market where the battle for consumer attention/time, is not the main focus.

Applies to literally anything, video steaming service, etcetera.

What tends to happen is there will be few winners, and the rest will fail.

Keep in mind, single player games are not immune to this.

Most games on Steam for example don't even generate $1000 in profit, lifetime.
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Except you forget one important fact. Live service games are more expensive to operate by maintaining a consistent line of content and paying for servers to stay online. When a single-player game is released, only one point of sale is made, and thier expected return on investment is baked into the expectation of sales numbers. Also, once a single-player game is done, the person moves on to the next one. What if 5 different live service games come out this year that you are interested in? I doubt you have enough time and money to keep invested in all five games, and you will likely only go back to one or two you consistently enjoy. If these are F2P games, they really rely on thier audience to stay invested to keep the live service going.
 
Players that play this shity gayass games will get older and loose interest in multiplayer games. Turning their attention into single player and more relaxed experiences.
 
Kilau said:
Yes we knew the industry had become a flaming pile of shit catering to the stupidest people with the worst tastes.
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According to OP, since a lot of idiots like to consume feces, we should just fall in line at the trough and also stuff our faces with feces. Imagine being so fucking stupid you think popularity=good. Imagine if the industry ONLY made MP horseshit like sportsgun.
 
Instant_Classic said:
Doesn't the premise remain the same for single player games as well?
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Biggest difference is the default is for the single player game to be moved on from in comparatively short order, and then the player is demanding another game. This demand can then be met by another game, and so on. The demand for SP games from the SP market is constantly refreshing.

GaaS users have their drug/s of choice, and anyone else trying to enter the market and lure those users away has to overcome a current addiction first. The demand is largely locked up for extended periods.

I suspect the latter will eventually be more heavily regulated, especially GaaS aimed at children.
 
Humdinger said:
Yeah, we know. It's why all the corporations are chasing GaaS.

It's not different from posting a Top Ten music list and saying, "This is why everyone wants to be like these artists [who mostly suck] -- because look at how popular they are, and how much money they make!"

Ok... so? What's the argument? Are you saying that producing GaaS games is a good thing, because it's popular and lucrative (sometimes)? Are you saying we should stop complaining about it and instead applaud it, because it produces "hits" that make lots of money? I'm not sure what the takeaway here is supposed to be.
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Yes. Because popularity = good. According to his idiotic viewpoint, McDonald's is the greatest hamburger you'll ever eat in your life and every business should make their hamburgers taste just like Mickey D's because "iT'S PoPuLaR". Avatar is a better movie series than the original Lord of the Rings trilogy because it made more money, Walmart is the best place to shop, and Love Island is the greatest show ever made because, again, "iT's PoPuLaR".

This is exactly the kind of corporate cocksucking attitude that helped lower the quality of games we've been given from Western devs over the past decade of so. Morons blindly accepting whatever trash is placed in front of them because other morons promote it. Going by OP's logic only kickball/throwball yard games and MP based shooters should be allowed to exist because dumb fuck normies are retarded enough to buy $600 consoles just for those games.
 
I guess this is my problem with GaaS: I don't play or care about a single game on that list. If this is the future of gaming then my days are numbered.
 
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so just to understand, are you stating this because you like the industry direction, you like gaas, or you just want to have a fun discussion about it?

My feeling on it is the industry chases fads and money, as most businesses do, they'll load up on gaas titles until the next fad than shift again (some faster than others). Great single player games are good for brand recognition and inital hardware sales, but will be more and more religated to "art house" style investments, and often tacked on with gaas elements. A few key devs will make their money though on single player games as their primary identity (just like some art house studies make money by sticking to just that specific nitch, they excel at it and keep their scope and cost within check). CDR, Team Cherry, and the like.

Personally I dislike gaas games and elements, but I recognise I'm aging out of the market, and know that once FF7 R3 comes out, I'm basically hanging up the controllers and just going to causally game from here on out, my gaming story will have been complete.
 
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Only games i played here were GTA5 (on ps3 and ps4 for single player)
and Minecraft - on java - pc and then vita , back when Notch owned it, going back to its early beta and alpha releases. Never touched it after the sale.

Only gaas game I really got into was Warthunder and Warframe. The later I stopped when I realized that you weren't making progress without paying big money or playing over and over and over again, like a job.
Hell an mmo would be better than that as at least you had levels and got loot.
Warthunder is only good because nothing else does ww2 planes.

I hate how kids are trained to not buy games but pay for mtx for this shit.
I despise gaas as much as i do modern ai (I miss when ai for gaming was the npc behavior, i like that type of ai).


The more gaas, the less money from me they will get from me. They are fools if they only target the younger crowd. There are millions of old head gamers who only play single player. It's money on the table. It's why indie and AA sells as AAA has jumped the shark.
 
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The potential can be higher with service-based games if you can hit...but so many don't, and even those that do struggle to retain it.

So many companies want that money, but it's an exception if you get a success, and the market for them is getting saturated as people can play the same few forever which that OP list exemplifies.

I spend more on gaming than the average consumer, and none of those games got my money.
 
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I think he's right, the AAA industry runs on Gaas. Because they need massive and steady profits to show up on their quarterly reports, with regular timed content patches. That's what looks great to the fund managers, steady predictable profits and cashflow. It's like asking if you'd rather invest in a company that builds single family homes, or a company that build apartment buildings that collects rent, I guarantee you every REIT goes after the apartment building.
So every AAA company's management is trying to build the next Overwatch or Fortnite, and then they can coast on that game for next 2 decades.
That's why if you want real games, you look away from AAA.
 
Not surprising. My PS5 is used mainly for Destiny 2. After that I probably use it more for Youtube, Netflix, and Blu Rays than any other game.
 
LordCBH said:
If single player games die and get replaced by nothing but live service slop, I'll just play the nearly infinite amount of backlog and unplayed older games.
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This is why I invested in the mini consoles and emulators. I have a pc that can play all of it, but its nice to have a dedicated box at the tv. I have a snes mini with all the nes/snes games, a genesis mini with all sega games from master system to 32x, a tg16 min, a ps1 classic loaded with 132 psx titles. Plus every semi-modern console needed: PS2, PS3, Series X, Wii, PS5, Switch 1, Switch 2. (may purchase a xb og or 360 if I can find one that works for cheap).
All with 100s -1000s of games, my backlog is bursting.

That's not to mention 4 decades of pc gaming. I have games going back to the 1980s that i haven't finished from childhood. I could go back and play the gold box games, ultimas, might and magics, etc.... explore the 90s with fallout, doom, hexen, duke, half-life, command and conquer, empire earth, civ 2, bg1. The early 2000s with nolf, heavy metal fakk2, half-life2, fear, black and white , undying, alice, etc..... and on and on and on.

So they can not make money from me unless they deliver a good single player game.
 
Instant_Classic said:
The market you would like Sony to cater to, is dwindling.

Single player games really only appeal to people born in the 90s or prior, when those kind of games made the majority of what was sold.

Kids born in the 2000s and later, GaaS is what they know and care about.

The data proves this.
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Men in Boxes, is that you????


You do realize we aren't going to stop gaming right. I plan to continue until I die. We don't suddenly disappear. The industry will leave a lot of money on the table and talent.

Also my son had his gaas phase, he is genZ and grew out of it. He played his roblox, gary's mod, siege, Minecraft, and all that , then he grew up as a later teen played God of war, days gone, need for speed, cod, Mad max, borderlands2, spiderman, Gt Sport.
He lives with his fiance and works and plays,...... single player games.

He no longer plays cod as he can't stand the the rainbows and unicorn gaas elements. He loves that game but not how it has evolved. And they refuse to make a more grounded / old school experience.
He is 21. I am sure there are others who had parents that played single player games with their kids.

GAAS == Greed.
 
Instant_Classic said:
Doesn't the premise remain the same for single player games as well?

Unless your game is a standout, it's most likely going to disappear into the void.
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All entertainment competes for time and attention. I think of single player games as movies. You watch them when you want and when you are done you move on. Live service games are like soap operas. You have to watch them everyday and you probably don't have time to watch more than a couple.
 
Hari Seldon said:
All entertainment competes for time and attention. I think of single player games as movies. You watch them when you want and when you are done you move on. Live service games are like soap operas. You have to watch them everyday and you probably don't have time to watch more than a couple.
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Long running soap operas. I mean.....for me, I'd be incredibly bored playing the same game for weeks and weeks, if not years. I want to play a game and then move on to something else. Constantly changing it up and looking for the next new thing. Some live service games can do that. Space Marine 2 has a campaign and live service parts. Uses live service to extend the campaign. That kind of live service I can get behind.
 
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