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[Hypereides]

Soon…

That'll only happen if you guys, as well as the rest of the gaming community, finally get your guts together, and act upon this. Get yourselves together and keep away from "games" like this no matter how many discounts they throw in your way. They'll try every fucking tactic in the book to sweeten the deal and get you to buy/download their low quality, glorified microtransaction storefront.

Best antidote against these assholes is to starve them off money. Each individual person has a fraction of buying power. In sufficiently large numbers, that buying power can act like an uppercut on fuckers like the one in the article. The c-suite has just gotten more brazen and used to gamers eventually succumbing to their bidding.

As it stands, way too many gamers have too little backbone and cave in.

 

[WitchHunter]

Greeeeeed

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Live service games require substantial player investment/engagement. How many people do these publishers realistically hope to attract and sustain long term when there will be so many other options out there and with so many already deep into the likes of Fortnite etc?

It may pay off but it could also be a disaster. Personally I think these kind of games are monotonous and the release now fix later model is not something I would of liked to have been seen as acceptable.

As others have said, vote with your wallet either way.

 

[Silver Wattle]

 

[KungFucius]

I really hate this play games for a long time bullshit. To get games like that the content needs to be grindy and unfun. These GaaS games can only be supported by people who only play that one game Obsessively. If the market is flooded with these things, most will fail.

 

[Bernardougf]

To "drive engagement and monetization of longer cycles".

As part of its latest earnings call, Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav has outlined the company's plans to transform its biggest gaming franchises from traditional console and PC releases into "always on" live service games.

Zaslav made the comments during his opening remarks to investors, in which referred to several of the company's franchises - Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Batman, and Mortal Kombat - as $1bn gaming properties. Developer NetherRealm's Mortal Kombat 1, he noted, has sold nearly 3m copies since launching in mid-September this year.

"Our focus," he continued, "is on transforming our biggest franchises from largely console and PC based with three-four year release schedules to include more always on gameplay through live services, multiplatform and free-to-play extensions, with the goal to have more players spending more time on more platforms."

"Ultimately we want to drive engagement and monetization of longer cycles and at higher levels," he continued. "We are currently under scale and see significant opportunity to generate greater post-purchase revenue."

Full article : https://www.eurogamer.net/warner-br...ts-biggest-franchises-into-live-service-games

I swear "engagement" is the fucking cancer word for games ....

 

[Skifi28]

It's like Square announcing they're going all-in on NFTs when they were already on their deathbed. Great decision, but five years too late.

 

[kyussman]

These people are so fucking blinded by greed they can't see the ££££££ when it's right in front of them(Hogwarts Legacy?).

 

[Kaleinc]

These people are so fucking blinded by greed they can't see the ££££££ when it's right in front of them(Hogwarts Legacy?).

What they see is they could have made several bn on top of Hogtwats if it had the usual mtx gacha.
Because to dress up a toon wankers will take a loan if necessary, or sell a kidney.
Hence the real question is: wankers, why u so fucked up?

 

[PeteBull]

Looks like WB going the way of konami, shame for talented remedy devs and other devs working under them, but what u gonna do, i hope any talented dev takes as much cash out of those WB higher ups as only possible and leaves to other companies/studios asap xD

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Well there’s no way to shoe-horn Hogwarts Legacy II into a live service game. Try and fail at their own peril, because none of us will buy it.

 

[ripjoel]

Oh cool. Everybody is playing gotham knights and this gets me more excited for suicide squad. It will be a massive success.

 

[BbMajor7th]

What leaders of an industry that already generates more income than film and television combined should be doing:

What they're actually doing:

 

[Kadve]

Has any AAA "live service" games released during the last 5 years actually seceded? Doesn't feel like it.

 

[Fbh]

WB:
- Tries to turn the Arkham Franchise into a GAAS and it results in Rocksteady spending 8 years (and counting) working on a Suicide Squad GAAS that seemingly no one is excited about. It also resulted in both co founders of the studio leaving, which probably means Rocksteady lost at least some of its identity in the process.

- Releases a more traditional single player Harry Potter game which, despite being made by a dev studio that never worked on something of this scale before AND having a large part of gaming media set against it, ends up becoming one of the best selling games of the generation and exceeded their internal estimates by over 200%".

Conclusion:
"Let's make more GAAS!"

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

 

[Heisenberg007]

I love this.

Honestly, forza horizon 1 and 2 with their sense of completion and accomplishment sucked. Much better to play forza horizon 5... Forever chazing the elusive end.

In fact for full immersion they should charge us real money for gas in driving games.

In batman they should charge us for the destruction in the city.

Follow me for more gaas ideas

 

[stn]

If they make a really good game with some GAAS sprinkled in, I can live with that. But if they release garbage similar to the upcoming Suicide Squad, I'll stop buying and supporting.

 

[Krappadizzle]

I would absolutely love a sensible GAAS superhero co-op game with meaningful content updates.

We'll never get that.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Just put the Arkham games on modern systems with 4K/120 support.

That's it. Don't bother making a new game.

 

[Dr.D00p]

The absurd, never ending greed of the American corporation and its parasite shareholders, once again fucking things up for the majority

 

[Quezacolt]

And i hope all of those games fail

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

"I guess the market...

...wasn't saturated."

Good luck on the strategy though. Their IP has much more impact on SP gamers. MP gamers are immune to The Batman.

 

[iHaunter]

How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?

 

[BbMajor7th]

WB:
- Tries to turn the Arkham Franchise into a GAAS and it results in Rocksteady spending 8 years (and counting) working on a Suicide Squad GAAS that seemingly no one is excited about. It also resulted in both co founders of the studio leaving, which probably means Rocksteady lost at least some of its identity in the process.

- Releases a more traditional single player Harry Potter game which, despite being made by a dev studio that never worked on something of this scale before AND having a large part of gaming media set against it, ends up becoming one of the best selling games of the generation and exceeded their internal estimates by over 200%".

Conclusion:
"Let's make more GAAS!"

Fortnite profits give the average game publisher a priapism so painful that it literally clouds out every other thought in their heads.

 

[Fbh]

Fortnite profits give the average game publisher a priapism so painful that it literally clouds out every other thought in their heads.

Yeah I know but it still feels so dumb. Reminds me when everyone in the movie industry was trying to make their own "cinematic universe".
I wouldn't even blame them for working on one or 2 big GAAS releases.... but every big franchise they have?. And on the year where Hogwarts Legacy is breaking sales records while Suicide Squad got delayed....again?

I guess we should cherish Hogwarts Legacy. The next one is probably going to be some "infinitely grind through repetitive content for colour coded loot" GAAS

 

[BbMajor7th]

Yeah I know but it still feels so dumb. Reminds me when everyone in the movie industry was trying to make their own "cinematic universe".
I wouldn't even blame them for working on one or 2 big GAAS releases.... but every big franchise they have?. And on the year where Hogwarts Legacy is breaking sales records while Suicide Squad got delayed....again?

I guess we should cherish Hogwarts Legacy. The next one is probably going to be some "infinitely grind through repetitive content for colour coded loot" GAAS

100% - it's the madness of an industry that enjoyed a rapid growth spurt through live service that peaked with the pandemic. Now the numbers have plateaued and execs are panicking, because under the rules of corporate capitalism, making a shit-tonne of profit every year is failure - you have to make a shit-tonne more every year than you made last year, even if you're about as big as you can realistically get. Hence the huge explosion of service models (subscription and software), regular lay-offs, cancellations and closures, price hikes, all the film and TV spin-offs, platform expansions, AI automation, globalization... the list goes on and it'll get worse before it gets better.

 

[T4keD0wN]

WB Monteal? Game ruined because it started development as a GAAS
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? More like Studio suicide: Kill the Rocksteady
NetherRealm Studios? Ruined at least 3 games by GAAS mechanics
Monolith? Shadow of war launch ruined by GAAS mechanics

X

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga? Good game with no GAAS
Hogwarts Legacy? Good game with no GAAS

publicly-traded companies always turn to trash, just a matter of time

 

[The artful mincer]

weird, eh? wb: 'yeah, sure, hogwarts is a very successful, very wonderful game... but it's no fortnite'...

Yes but not every GAAS game can be fortnite.

Not every single player can be Hogwarts legacy either.

People are either unaware of have forgotten the success of that game. It's may end up the best selling single player game not named RDR or GTA.

It's also about to launch on a 132 million switches. It will probably gross close to 2 billion by the end of the year.

 

[SmokedMeat]

$70 games and live service season passes and microtransactions!

Gaming has never been cheaper!

 

[The artful mincer]

There are reasons for everything. Mortal Kombat has been trending up in recent years since they rebooted in 2011. Hogwarts got the attention that it needed, but there is really a level higher than that. Could have performed even better.

Really? It's the best selling single player game since RDR2. Yes I know TOP GAAS games can bring in a similar revenue yearly but its no guarantee they would have been a top GAAS game.

I guess if they have to do it they could follow the GTA5 way of doing it. Single player first and add multiplayer later.

Making Hogwarts 2 or whatever a GAAS game on release seems a good way to piss off everyone that bought the first game.

 

[Husky]

Shut up, Warner Bros.

 

[Red5]

It's equally sad and hilarious that all of these corpos are throwing around millions hoping they can nail their own egg laying goose GAAS only to have the majority of them fail and shutter, when it's a safer bet to release good SP games.

At least indie developers are growing in both skill and quantity.

 

[NeverYouMind]

NetherRealm Studios? Ruined at least 3 games by GAAS mechanics

I know the two most recent Mortal Kombat games were ruined by this, but what is the third? If you are referring to Injustice 2, it has infinitely more replay value than Injustice 1 and feels considerably more rewarding.

 

[danklord]

David Zaslav is a content terrorist and must be stopped

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

MK1 got an update today and season 2 on invasions launched also.

Guess what was also added to the content store?

"Thanksgiving fatality added to the Premium store rotation"

 

[Drizzlehell]

Hey, listen, I'm actually down for this. It means that there will be fewer games for me to give a shit about which means that it will be easier for me to choose what to play in the future.

If they wanna "drive engagement" or whatever then sure, let them. They're probably just gonna drive their own franchises into an early grave instead but who gives a fuck, lol. Plenty of other games to choose from.

 

[Phase]

Honestly starting to feel more and more like it's a good time to bow out of modern gaming and start exploring the back catalog of the literally thousands of more than playable games than supporting this shit.

In preparation for this inevitability I began collecting roms from every old console. I must have thousands of games from NES-PS2 at this point. This is the play imo. There will be a few modern games here and there that I'm sure I'll play but the bulk will be games from the past that I've never played before. I also have about 400 gog/steam games I have yet to play in my backlog.

I've got enough games to keep me satiated for a lifetime. Who knows, maybe the gaming industry will have a resurgence some day.

 

[StereoVsn]

We'll have to punish these idiots.

With more Engagement! If you have Engagement, you have the World!

 

[StereoVsn]

I love this.

Honestly, forza horizon 1 and 2 with their sense of completion and accomplishment sucked. Much better to play forza horizon 5... Forever chazing the elusive end.

In fact for full immersion they should charge us real money for gas in driving games.

In batman they should charge us for the destruction in the city.

Follow me for more gaas ideas

Ooh, your Batmobile may get towed because you didn’t pay for the meter or improperly parked.

Good luck Batman fighting the MVA! You will lose.

 

[gothmog]

David Zaslav is a content terrorist and must be stopped

Sounds like he's about to stop himself when these games bomb.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Honestly starting to feel more and more like it's a good time to bow out of modern gaming and start exploring the back catalog of the literally thousands of more than playable games than supporting this shit.

I'm actually with you on this. With some very rare exceptions, whenever I fire up a modern game, I just lose my will to live. But then I pick something out on GoG or PS2 category on eBay and I'm having a blast. It literally can't be just me getting older and being nostalgic because I'm talking about games that I've never even laid my eyes on before. They're just more fun to play than most of the shit that comes out today. Same goes for many indie games.

 

[K' Dash]

I’m focusing on not buying shit from them.

 

[Pejo]

This is gonna work out GREAT for them.

10/10 forward thinking. Hope some C-level guy gets a big bonus for this idea.

 

[T4keD0wN]

I know the two most recent Mortal Kombat games were ruined by this, but what is the third? If you are referring to Injustice 2, it has infinitely more replay value than Injustice 1 and feels considerably more rewarding.

It was Injustice 2, far too much online reliance and the amount of grind was really high for my liking. I see how some could interpret it as high replay value and thus positive, depends on the person i guess.
Definitely not nearly as bad as MK11 or the reboot.

 

[SJRB]

 

[FunkMiller]

Well, he's fucking up movies and TV so why not fuck up video games as well?

Sooner WB dies, and gets sold off in chunks the better.

 

[kiphalfton]

Double down!

 

[SHA]

It's important to note that while live service games have their advantages, they also face challenges, such as managing player expectations, addressing issues like pay-to-win controversies, and maintaining a delicate balance between monetization and player satisfaction. The future of the gaming industry is likely to involve a mix of live service games, single-player experiences, and other emerging formats, as the industry continues to evolve.

The equivalent to quitting a regular game.

 

[elmos-acc]

They just had a pretty promising GaaS concept in Multiversus and they fucked it up immediately.