GAAS grew immensely for PlayStation during the last fiscal year...

Five million copies across all platforms is the only reported number. ~Even~ if it sold 5 million on PlayStation alone (that is highly unlikely) you need 13 such DLC to explain bump in revenue.
People seems to be extremely bad with numbers, but very good with their believes.
Please show me the numbers that state GAAS is the main driving force for this. Oh but you can't! Just assumption by you. Did I say Elden Ring DLC was the only one responsible for this? Hell no, even in my first post I haven't stated this. But saying GAAS is solely responsible for the grown is stupid. It's a combination of multiple factor: DLCs, microtransaction, battle pass, in-game currency etc etc... As you said, people seems to be extremely bad with numbers (and reading comprehension in your case) but very good with their believes. Right?

I'ml tired of this shit fr. If you want to think that GAAS are solely responsible for this, go for it! IDC, I was just putting context into what MiB said, that's it.
 
It couldn't. It's 2.5 billion USD jump, like 100 mil more copies of DLC sold. Numbers on this scale are not dependent on any single or several few games, it should be a massive paradigm shift for it to happen
I mean there was some kind of paradigm shift. M$ selling on the ps store and sony selling on pc. Both works fine, also in favour of Sony's revenues. ;)
 
Please show me the numbers that state GAAS is the main driving force for this. Oh but you can't! Just assumption by you. Did I say Elden Ring DLC was the only one responsible for this? Hell no, even in my first post I haven't stated this. But saying GAAS is solely responsible for the grown is stupid. It's a combination of multiple factor: DLCs, microtransaction, battle pass, in-game currency etc etc... As you said, people seems to be extremely bad with numbers (and reading comprehension in your case) but very good with their believes. Right?
These are parts of live service games in 95% cases, you know. Most games with these stuff are classified as live service as these are parts of live service games monetization.

I'ml tired of this shit fr. If you want to think that GAAS are solely responsible for this, go for it! IDC, I was just putting context into what MiB said, that's it.
It's not solely responsible. It's primarily responsible. To the point that MIB statement has a lot of weight to be true (even though I can't agree with his way to express it).
Every points of data we have shows that live service games revenue overtaken SP games even on PlayStation platform. Even Erdtree goes with 20% sales of follow up content for SP titles (5 mil out of 30 mil) and 30% current gap is a hard wall to overcome in reasonable explanation.

And as I said - we will have more clarity very soon.

I mean there was some kind of paradigm shift. M$ selling on the ps store and sony selling on pc. Both works fine, also in favour of Sony's revenues. ;)
MS selling full games and not DLC so it's only reinforce statement and Sony selling on PC go to another line.
 
It's not solely responsible. It's primarily responsible. To the point that MIB statement has a lot of weight to be true (even though I can't agree with his way to express it).
Every points of data we have shows that live service games revenue overtaken SP games even on PlayStation platform. Even Erdtree goes with 20% sales of follow up content for SP titles (5 mil out of 30 mil) and 30% current gap is a hard wall to overcome in reasonable explanation.

And as I said - we will have more clarity very soon.

MiB should have waited for that "clarity" then. There isn't enough detail in the "add on content" line item to make such a thread. It is full of assumptions and conjecture.

And yeah.....he should change his approach entirely. Actively trying to be the most unliked poster on a forum is never a good strategy.

And Men_In_Boxes is banned at Icon.

If You Say So Shrug GIF
 
These are parts of live service games in 95% cases, you know. Most games with these stuff are classified as live service as these are parts of live service games monetization.
"Classified as". Is AC Shadows a live service game? It's SP only but has battlepass, currency etc... It's both a contradiction and a justification. That's why it's weird to say what MiB said.
This, was my point. Most games have microtransaction now, even SP ones so this is tricky. 90% of games could be categorized as GAAS by this logic.

It's not solely responsible. It's primarily responsible. To the point that MIB statement has a lot of weight to be true (even though I can't agree with his way to express it).
Every points of data we have shows that live service games revenue overtaken SP games even on PlayStation platform. Even Erdtree goes with 20% sales of follow up content for SP titles (5 mil out of 30 mil) and 30% current gap is a hard wall to overcome in reasonable explanation.
What we can say for sure is that the GAAS effort made by Sony is not really good. They have HD2 which was very successful, but also Concord which was one of the biggest bomb ever. What we also do know is they took a full stop at many projects after Concord, I guess it tend to be more negative than positive.

And as I said - we will have more clarity very soon.

MS selling full games and not DLC so it's only reinforce statement and Sony selling on PC go to another line.
MS is also selling DLC for Forza for example, which was very successful on PS5. So this is a GAAS I guess? And I'm genuine by saying this, it's just to emphasize that many, many games could be categorized as GAAS now, but again it's a tricky question.
 
In the US - yes
Worldwide, especially if we take market as whole (PC/console/mobile) - no. Titles you mentioned should be around 10% of global gaas market by rough estimate and there are hundreds of titles there. Some of them are very big but hardly known/perceived as big by old-school SP crowd leading to many delusions and poor judgements.

There is no Mihoyo and they are at 6 bil per year, no Tencent (close second gaming company in the world even though it doesn't have own hardware platform) and Netease and those two big in China/Asia. Japan is like 90% gaas and titles there are not listed by you. Where is Valve with it's Dota2 and CS?

I wanted to edit my post and specify I was mainly referring to console GAAS, and the 80% is just a general out-of-ass number I pulled, just to show how dominant those specific IP named are in revenue for console.

But when talking globally, yes I agree we have to look at the bigger picture and especially include mobile in there. I wouldn't be surprised if in the mobile space, there's a similar phenomenon with a small handful of super-dominant IP gobbling most of the revenue in the space, with a bunch of smaller franchises fighting among the smaller remainder.

As you mentioned, MiHoYo, Tencent, Krafton, and also DOTA2 and CS (tho I don't know how much in terms of MTX those games bring in for Valve). All massive if talking global & also including mobile in the picture. But my ultimate point is: regardless how you look at it, the space is mostly dominated revenue-wise by a handful of super-entrenched IP, which are like the big banks. Even if one starts to fail, chances are they have the cash flow and publisher support to make changes and rebound in a short amount of time.

Some of these companies out here, SIE included, feels like they have been trying to chase for a spot among that elite inner-circle of GAAS mega-titles, but that's a fool's goal IMO because as a new entry you have to get EXTREMELY lucky to carve out enough a space to even just initially survive among the smaller players, let alone shore up enough install base & revenue stream to push into the big boy circle if one of the mainstays starts seeing a big decline. And, you've gotta be fast to act on that, because if you don't solidify your push before that given franchise recovers, you get shut out again.
 
As much as i like Men in boxes avatar (it remind me of the glory days of Atari), he is not called a snake oil salesman for nothing.
Thank god only braindead exec would draw the same conclusion as him from this data.

edit : isn't a three month ban a bit much ? His threads can be annoying, but we also have the possiblity to mute them if we don't feel like having some fun at his expense, so all in all it is not that bothering, is it ?
Yeah why was he banned ? I never agree with his gaas sentiments but seems a bit weird to ban him over that. He does start discussion and that makes this place more lively.
 
Being a fanboy is one thing, being a fanboy of a nebulous genre is extra strange.
I find it pretty funny that he would die on pretty much any gaas hill. Even what he perceived as gaas, hence this thread.
 
MiB should have waited for that "clarity" then. There isn't enough detail in the "add on content" line item to make such a thread. It is full of assumptions and conjecture.
He should write some more analytical insights and explanations and not just straight taunt people.

"Classified as". Is AC Shadows a live service game? It's SP only but has battlepass, currency etc... It's both a contradiction and a justification. That's why it's weird to say what MiB said.
This, was my point. Most games have microtransaction now, even SP ones so this is tricky. 90% of games could be categorized as GAAS by this logic.
In a grand scale of thing these a very small minority. Again - we are talking about a number of 2.5 billion dollars, not some 20 million penny change.

What we can say for sure is that the GAAS effort made by Sony is not really good. They have HD2 which was very successful, but also Concord which was one of the biggest bomb ever. What we also do know is they took a full stop at many projects after Concord, I guess it tend to be more negative than positive.
They expected it, and this part every haters ignore.
Sony, unlike 90% of this forum and 100% of haters, do know what they are lacking. And what to do with it - it's simple and it's costly - try and fail. It's an only meaningful way to learn and get experience and expertise (and they also bought Bungie, one of the only western companies that have experience in making west-focused successful gaas).
Gaas train ain't gonna stop and it's either you learn how to make them or you'll be slave for asian companies who have that knowledge. Tencent/Netease has no problem of making IP into GaaS - CoD mobile, Diablo mobile, Marvel rivals by some "weird" luck (because it's very stable) circumvented all this "oversaturated, risky, blablabla" stuff. Because those guys have 30 years of experience doing live service, and it's quite obvious by results.

MS is also selling DLC for Forza for example, which was very successful on PS5. So this is a GAAS I guess? And I'm genuine by saying this, it's just to emphasize that many, many games could be categorized as GAAS now, but again it's a tricky question.
Not in report.

I wanted to edit my post and specify I was mainly referring to console GAAS, and the 80% is just a general out-of-ass number I pulled, just to show how dominant those specific IP named are in revenue for console.
It's still will be console US gaas. Because situation is quite different in Asia where PS5 in particular serves as Gacha station - as a platform that allow play gacha games at significantly higher quality at home. And most popular games there are those gacha games, it's a reason why Sony pulls so many of them onto platform.

As you mentioned, MiHoYo, Tencent, Krafton, and also DOTA2 and CS (tho I don't know how much in terms of MTX those games bring in for Valve). All massive if talking global & also including mobile in the picture. But my ultimate point is: regardless how you look at it, the space is mostly dominated revenue-wise by a handful of super-entrenched IP, which are like the big banks. Even if one starts to fail, chances are they have the cash flow and publisher support to make changes and rebound in a short amount of time.
Not really - there are tens of mid-tier games (Arknight, Azur Lane, Blue Archive, Girls Frontline, GBF, Uma Musume, NIKKE etc.) those earns 200-500 mil USD per year (still a big numbers by SP games standards) and even more completely niche games. In Asia this market is huge, developed and very diversified. Not much different from developed SP games market.

Some of these companies out here, SIE included, feels like they have been trying to chase for a spot among that elite inner-circle of GAAS mega-titles, but that's a fool's goal IMO because as a new entry you have to get EXTREMELY lucky to carve out enough a space to even just initially survive among the smaller players, let alone shore up enough install base & revenue stream to push into the big boy circle if one of the mainstays starts seeing a big decline. And, you've gotta be fast to act on that, because if you don't solidify your push before that given franchise recovers, you get shut out again.
It's actually the most proper time to carve a space in western live service market because it's in infant state. And first "Mihoyo of the west" would grab insane amount of money.
What western live service games try first - make competitive PvP and even ask money for it. And it's quite crowded market making it difficult to differentiate themselves, especially as most are "creative creators" that go to the same old sub-genres like hero shooters or battle royale. And asking for money reduce your playerbase like tenfold making it harder to maintain and grow population. No one likes to play empty PvP game.
How asian gaas looks like? It's 90% solo/co-op PvE content, sometimes with resembles of PvP, sometimes not. Basically SP games put in series form and have something to do between chunks of story. And these are massively underrepresented in the west.
It seems that western devs fear to damage their SP games colleagues (and there will be massive damage) so they abstain from go that route even though it brings lots of profit and even development of genres (and SP games still survive even though on lesser scale).

And actually being a PvE game helps a lot with diversification and niche finding - stories/settings are different (and many of those gaas heavily story focused), gameplay mechanics also very different - from turn-based jrpg to zelda to xcom to tower defense etc. It's just easier to be different and thus have own playerbase than in "deathmatch PvP" space.
 
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He should write some more analytical insights and explanations and not just straight taunt people.


In a grand scale of thing these a very small minority. Again - we are talking about a number of 2.5 billion dollars, not some 20 million penny change.
In a grand scale of thing, there isn't just one game. Add all of the games doing it, ER DLC etc etc...

They expected it, and this part every haters ignore.
Oh sure, they expected it that is why the brought the studio, right?

Sony, unlike 90% of this forum and 100% of haters, do know what they are lacking. And what to do with it - it's simple and it's costly - try and fail. It's an only meaningful way to learn and get experience and expertise (and they also bought Bungie, one of the only western companies that have experience in making west-focused successful gaas).
Gaas train ain't gonna stop and it's either you learn how to make them or you'll be slave for asian companies who have that knowledge. Tencent/Netease has no problem of making IP into GaaS - CoD mobile, Diablo mobile, Marvel rivals by some "weird" luck (because it's very stable) circumvented all this "oversaturated, risky, blablabla" stuff. Because those guys have 30 years of experience doing live service, and it's quite obvious by results.
Ok you are an MiB alt right? this would make so much sense.

Not in report.
That was not my point.

Anyway I'm done, you made your point and I made mine. Let's agree to disagree.
 
This thread goes to show that console wars are bullshit - If you are this petty to jump to conclusions on sales numbers, things that any normal gamer/human being doesn't give a crap about (Its for analysts/stockholders, after all) to suit a driven narrative, then why are you here.

It shouldn't be this difficult to be morally just. But here we are.

Spider Man Meme GIF
 
He should write some more analytical insights and explanations and not just straight taunt people.


In a grand scale of thing these a very small minority. Again - we are talking about a number of 2.5 billion dollars, not some 20 million penny change.


They expected it, and this part every haters ignore.
Sony, unlike 90% of this forum and 100% of haters, do know what they are lacking. And what to do with it - it's simple and it's costly - try and fail. It's an only meaningful way to learn and get experience and expertise (and they also bought Bungie, one of the only western companies that have experience in making west-focused successful gaas).
Gaas train ain't gonna stop and it's either you learn how to make them or you'll be slave for asian companies who have that knowledge. Tencent/Netease has no problem of making IP into GaaS - CoD mobile, Diablo mobile, Marvel rivals by some "weird" luck (because it's very stable) circumvented all this "oversaturated, risky, blablabla" stuff. Because those guys have 30 years of experience doing live service, and it's quite obvious by results.


Not in report.


It's still will be console US gaas. Because situation is quite different in Asia where PS5 in particular serves as Gacha station - as a platform that allow play gacha games at significantly higher quality at home. And most popular games there are those gacha games, it's a reason why Sony pulls so many of them onto platform.

Okay, maybe so, you might be right on this particular point. I was just pulling out a random set of percentages of what "felt" right given my observations of the GAAS market on console from a Western POV.

Not really - there are tens of mid-tier games (Arknight, Azur Lane, Blue Archive, Girls Frontline, GBF, Uma Musume, NIKKE etc.) those earns 200-500 mil USD per year (still a big numbers by SP games standards) and even more completely niche games. In Asia this market is huge, developed and very diversified. Not much different from developed SP games market.

Yeah, but those are all mostly mobile games, aren't they? I was focusing on the console market mainly, and maybe PC as an adjacent, when I threw out the 80/20. You can probably change it to 70/30, but it's just a way of saying that a small selection of GAAS on console, hold most of the wealth (revenue) in the GAAS market on console itself.

It's actually the most proper time to carve a space in western live service market because it's in infant state. And first "Mihoyo of the west" would grab insane amount of money.
What western live service games try first - make competitive PvP and even ask money for it. And it's quite crowded market making it difficult to differentiate themselves, especially as most are "creative creators" that go to the same old sub-genres like hero shooters or battle royale. And asking for money reduce your playerbase like tenfold making it harder to maintain and grow population. No one likes to play empty PvP game.

But there arguably already are "MiHoYo of the West" companies right now. Epic and Rockstar are arguably the top picks for that type of title, and I guess if you include sports games into the equation, there's EA. I don't agree with the idea that GAAS is in an infantile state in the West, especially if you look at the mobile space.

There may not be an exact MiHoYo equivalent from America or Europe, but MiHoYo aren't perfect, either. They just admitted ZZZ underperformed and that's partly because they're saturating the addressable market for their GAAS, as they have multiples of them, and there is some self-cannibalization occurring as a result.

How asian gaas looks like? It's 90% solo/co-op PvE content, sometimes with resembles of PvP, sometimes not. Basically SP games put in series form and have something to do between chunks of story. And these are massively underrepresented in the west.
It seems that western devs fear to damage their SP games colleagues (and there will be massive damage) so they abstain from go that route even though it brings lots of profit and even development of genres (and SP games still survive even though on lesser scale).

Well when you put it that way, makes you wonder why SIE haven't tried that approach outside of Helldivers 2. Like, could they adapt their cinematic story-heavy single-player model to a live-service PvE environment? Maybe Helldivers 2 would be a good way to test that with some meaty ongoing, evolving story campaign in a PvE context?

They'd have to change some approaches; can't rely so much on cutscenes for example in the normal context, but it would be a great opportunity to innovate that approach with more interactivity while still maintaining the cinematic focus. And if SIE can't do it or aren't interested, I hope some other company comes along and gives it a try.
 
Yeah, but those are all mostly mobile games, aren't they? I was focusing on the console market mainly, and maybe PC as an adjacent, when I threw out the 80/20. You can probably change it to 70/30, but it's just a way of saying that a small selection of GAAS on console, hold most of the wealth (revenue) in the GAAS market on console itself.
Yes, they are mostly mobile as Asia market mostly mobile. But they are spilling into PC/Console space very fast, practically every continuation of these series are Mobile/PC or Mobile/PC/Console

And there are hardly consolidation on consoles. Yes, it looks like a few games grab all the money, but that's because there are few games at all and not because heavy consolidation. Like every gacha launched on Playstation besides First Descendant is successful. And FD problem is of their own making, not because of oversaturation.
I don't know western ones too well, but it seems that it's very similar situation where if the game is bad - it fails and otherwise it's not that hard to carve a niche for themselves, especially given that new entries a few and far between. Like Naraka had no problem carving place for itself when Fortnite and PUBG were already huge and everyone though that BR market essentially locked down.

But there arguably already are "MiHoYo of the West" companies right now. Epic and Rockstar are arguably the top picks for that type of title, and I guess if you include sports games into the equation, there's EA. I don't agree with the idea that GAAS is in an infantile state in the West, especially if you look at the mobile space.
Western Gaas market behind east, especially on mobiles, by like 5+ years and it's not my estimation.
What west currently missing:
1. Convergence of mobile and classic media of PC/Console that significantly increase playerbase and allow seemless transition from portable gaming to big screen gaming. That's a huge convenience boost when you have both mobility and high quality and people really like it.
2. A very weak tapping into PvE games those has like x10 capacity of PvP. GTAO and HD2 are PvE, but EA, CoD, Fortnite, Apex, Lol, Valve etc are all PvP

There may not be an exact MiHoYo equivalent from America or Europe, but MiHoYo aren't perfect, either. They just admitted ZZZ underperformed and that's partly because they're saturating the addressable market for their GAAS, as they have multiples of them, and there is some self-cannibalization occurring as a result.
It still made a billion dollar for half an year - there are just different meaning what is "underperforming". Not on the level of HSR that did 2.5 bil in first year (though it was 1.5 times longer as it launched much earlier in year) but it still a very big number.
And Mihoyo woes are not exactly self-cannibalization, they have ways to alleviate that (they use the same strategy game companies do - put niche populat against GTA and in other times just put different genres in the same time window), but rather that a large number of competitors coming in and market go into deconsolidation as many games targets specific player strata or preferencies making it hard for "one game grabs them all" they had for several years
Biggest Mihoyo loss last year were otome (girls) games (there were two big ones, not counting Nikki) as even though they try to balance gender preferences in their games, they still more male oriented and they lose hard for girls-only games. Probably one of the reason for ZZZ performance as they had to made it clearly very male oriented per market request.

It s actually smart for Mihoyo to make many different games (they have even more in pipeline) as market become fragmented they could grab more fragments. Not surprised though as they know very well that AA gacha market is very diversified and many have money (they actually was on a smaller side in AA space when they did bet for AAA gacha) - so in one or two dev cycles all others will catch up so they have a limited window of opportunity to maximize their future position.

Well when you put it that way, makes you wonder why SIE haven't tried that approach outside of Helldivers 2. Like, could they adapt their cinematic story-heavy single-player model to a live-service PvE environment? Maybe Helldivers 2 would be a good way to test that with some meaty ongoing, evolving story campaign in a PvE context?
Maybe. I am quite baffled by what those guys thinking honestly

They'd have to change some approaches; can't rely so much on cutscenes for example in the normal context, but it would be a great opportunity to innovate that approach with more interactivity while still maintaining the cinematic focus. And if SIE can't do it or aren't interested, I hope some other company comes along and gives it a try.
Cutscenes just fine, there are often quite a lot of them in story oriented live service games (FF14 even have a single cutscene that lasts for 1.5 hours and the whole length at 159 hours just mind-blowing, it's longer than most series/anime), ZZZ also don't take it lightly as every chunk of story usually has one or two cutscenes.
There are just need to be some filling to keep people engaged till next content drop
 
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Inspired by other thread
To understand gap in gaas from east to west, especially in mobile, we could take a look at Activision
Activision, now, MS, has King with it's quite popular Candy Crash that still produce tons of money. But King is a typical Gungho/MIXI/Aniplex of the west - they have a successful game that is 10+ yo that still brings lots of money, mostly on nostalgy and stuck-in players, but market moved so much since than that even with all that money companies can't produce a new hit. Gungho spend 600 mil $ trying and it was a waste.
ATVI wisely though about expanding it's main franchise, CoD, to mobile. They first turn to King (it's what they bought it for) only to find it will not work out. There are no people familiar to how to run current age live service game in King. To not miss an opportunity and time ATVI went to Tencent, Timi in particular, who runs the biggest live service game in the world (honor of kings) to adapt their IP to mobile. They did it, and did it well - CoD mobile was a huge success.
Problem for ATVI was that they missed quite a bit of revenue and profit on that as development is external and also they only publish it in the west. So to get bigger share they tried replacement tactics and made cod warzone themselves, that should, in theory, incentivize players to move from Tencent mobile game with all that cross-progression etc. Only to fail as execution was bad.
And it's kinda really bad if work-for-hire can make your IP much better than you do.
 
I don't understand exclusion's mindset, you get all what you want plus what you don't want but someone else do so what's wrong with that?
 
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