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[GymWolf]

For what it's worth Helldivers 2 is actually doing something more unique, so I hope it finds some success.

Like what?

 

[schaft0620]

I love this question OP, this is a great thread.

 

[yurinka]

We're a few months away from PlayStations first "real" Live Service effort in Helldivers 2.

No, we aren't. The first of the ten GaaS Sony IPs (some new, some existing) that were mentioned to get GaaS titles were Gran Turismo 7 and MLB 21. Both are a success.

I personally think it's going to be a big success for Arrowhead Studios and PlayStation. That got me wondering, how many of these games does NeoGAF think will fail?

I think that it will be most successful game ever of the studio, a successful jump to the AAA area. Meaning, the best selling/top grossing game coming from this studio, or at least being in track to achieving it when sharing its sales or revenue at a certain point (typically in their launch campaign, when often numbers are shared).

As was the case from Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Forbidden West, MLB 22, GoW Ragnarok, Returnal, Detroit, Days Gone, TLOU2, Ghost of Tsushima or Death Stranding and more examples of recent games from Sony 1st/2nd party teams I may forget.

Extra credit: Define what failure means in this context.

I'd say a failure is to miss their main expectations for that game with a distance big enough that they wouldn't happy with it for their context and strategy.

So in this specific case, their main goal now according to Jim Ryan is to release around a dozen GaaS games hoping that at least handful of them are a huge success.

Meaning that for them, the very big success from a couple games may compensate the potential loses they may have from other ones. And these other games, not as successful and that may even generate loses, may also be very helpful and useful for them because may provide them very important learnings for future GaaS titles (like to detect if out of the potential studios they had to work which are the best performing ones, which are genres or settings that best work for them, which features work best for them, pricings, post launch or monetization strategies and so on).

You should know the profits, ROI or at least revenue to estimate how successful a game, but they ver rarely mention it. They sometimes only release sales numbers but for GaaS aren't as releveant because depending on the average amount of money spent per player depending on the game with less sales they can do more revenue.

I don't think Live Service games are as "luck based" as some want to believe.

With luck you can be very successful once or twice. But Sony and these devs releases many successful games. That isn't luck, it's the result if very talented and experienced people who knows to do in the proper way many things that are very difficult to do.

 

[rofif]

Most. Only marathon will be played.

 

[Vr46]

i hope no one: single players for life

 

[onnextflix5]

Only ones likely to succeed are games from bungie, can’t see anything being successful

 

[The artful mincer]

We're a few months away from PlayStations first "real" Live Service effort in Helldivers 2. I personally think it's going to be a big success for Arrowhead Studios and PlayStation. That got me wondering, how many of these games does NeoGAF think will fail? Extra credit: Define what failure means in this context.

NeoGAF, I can't talk about this stuff with people IRL. Fulfill your birthright and do your duty by meaningfully contributing to this poll. Remember, there will be people who view this poll after the apocalypses so do your future self proud by being correct.

Personally, I think nearly all will succeed. I don't think Live Service games are as "luck based" as some want to believe. I think Bungie and PlayStations Live Service Center of Excellence will provide PlayStation with insightful guidance on what games are doomed to fail and what games aren't. Helldivers II will be the first in a string of hits for PlayStation.

I ask this sincerely. When was the last major console and PC breakout GAAS hit?

I was thinking about this today the one that stands out recently was Genshin Impact. I don't think there's been a major one this gen yet.

By major I mean on a level of fortnite, call of duty, fall guys etc.

 

[mckmas8808]

Failure is relative. It depends on the expectations they set for it. The problem is these games are not cheap to maintain and support on an ongoing basis so it kind of does need to be pretty popular and have a large playerbase going forward. Lots of good ones have shut down because they didn't have that.

The other problem is that most normal people are not going to play any more than one of these games. So on some level it doesn't make any sense to have like six games going at once because you're just cannibalizing yourself.

So clearly if they shut it down within 6 months it's a total failure. But what if they shut it down after 2 years?

 

[Gudji]

Most of them. The only ones I see being good are TLOU, Marathon and maybe one of the horizon games.

 

[DrFigs]

I ask this sincerely. When was the last major console and PC breakout GAAS hit?

I was thinking about this today the one that stands out recently was Genshin Impact. I don't think there's been a major one this gen yet.

By major I mean on a level of fortnite, call of duty, fall guys etc.

I mean that was less than 3 years ago. It's not like a crazy amount of time since the last big hit.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

They gotta bring back SOCOM and Warhawk. Fill the tactical shooter, pvp arena shooter, and combined arms shooter niches out a bit.

Or you know, buy EA for Battlefield and Apex since that's the cool thing to do now.

 

[Loomy]

They only need 1 or 2

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I ask this sincerely. When was the last major console and PC breakout GAAS hit?

I was thinking about this today the one that stands out recently was Genshin Impact. I don't think there's been a major one this gen yet.

By major I mean on a level of fortnite, call of duty, fall guys etc.

Diablo IV? Forza Horizon 5? I think those two games are likely on the Fall Guys level of success. Warzone and Fortnite are on a tier or three above. There really hasn't been many quality efforts in the last few years though. The next few years will change that.

No, we aren't. The first of the ten GaaS Sony IPs (some new, some existing) that were mentioned to get GaaS titles were Gran Turismo 7 and MLB 21. Both are a success.

I'm just going by this...

For some reason, PlayStation didn't count GT7.

With luck you can be very successful once or twice. But Sony and these devs releases many successful games. That isn't luck, it's the result if very talented and experienced people who knows to do in the proper way many things that are very difficult to do.

We agree on everything else except this one part. Generating 300 - 500 million in sales isn't the success today that it was in 2013. The reason why PlayStation is jumping to GAAS is because they see the fork in the road up ahead and one direction is a dead end. They can't keep doing the same thing (SP w/ 10m sales) and expect different results. Games are too expensive and GAAS is too profitable.

 

[Bartski]

Depends how you define „fail”. I think most will find their audience, biggest one with Marathon. I’m only looking forward to TLOU Online hoping they don’t ruin it with mtx

 

[Represent.]

All of them minus the Bungie one and TLOU.

And TLOU might not even come out, so that would be a failure.

I hope they all fail, every. last. one of them.

 

[Saber]

I'm guessing all of them will fail, specially the fetish ones people have with Factions. Cringe and social crap isn't enought to beat the competition.
Most of GaaS which are a sucess shined because of a core reason. Either a strong appeal or a new boom to the market.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

All of them minus the Bungie one and TLOU.

And TLOU might not even come out, so that would be a failure.

I hope they all fail, every. last. one of them.

Why would you want all of their live service games to fail (in before woosh because that's what Ellie says in that gif)? Having at least one big successful live service game provides Sony with much needed recurring revenue which then gets reinvested into their internal productions, including their single-player AAA games that most of the GAF users here cherish.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Fairgame$ reveal was total cringe and it already feels like a flop. Marathon could potentially be big.

 

[spookyfish]

Over enough time? All of them.

 

[yurinka]

I'm just going by this...

For some reason, PlayStation didn't count GT7.

I'm just going by this...

For some reason, PlayStation didn't count GT7.

Sony was showing only a few examples on each side, with this slide they wanted to explain that their catalog is focused on SP games and that in the next few years they want to release some GaaS to diversify their catalog because it was too focused on SP games.

Saying they don't consider GT7 a GaaS because isn't there is like to say Sony don't consider Days Gone, Astro, Bloodborne or Demon's Souls single player games because aren't listed there. This list wasn't a complete list, just an image with some example to help them explain an idea behind by they wanted to push their GaaS catalog, biasing it to better explain their idea.

Notice they also didn't include there Destruction All Stars or Dreams when they are also GaaS. But they didn't include it there pretty likely because since their performance isn't a hyping example for GaaS.

We agree on everything else except this one part. Generating 300 - 500 million in sales isn't the success today that it was in 2013. The reason why PlayStation is jumping to GAAS is because they see the fork in the road up ahead and one direction is a dead end. They can't keep doing the same thing (SP w/ 10m sales) and expect different results. Games are too expensive and GAAS is too profitable.

Yes. Their main AAA titles now instead of selling 10M sell over 20M, but every generation the budgets raise, to they also need to increase the revenue sources from the games to compensate it. So this is why they port some of their games to PC, make movie/tv adaptations or somewhere in the future also expand these IPs to the mobile gaming market or to GaaS.

Games like TLOU2 and HFW had over 200M development budgets, and very likely had similar marketing budgets. Meaning, they had total budgets of almost half a billion. Sure, these games had the best sales launch these studios ever had so will end being a super success, but that won't always be the case: in every single publisher, from time to time a game tanks and also other projects from time to time get canned.

So to make them less risky, they give them more revenue sources and part of that is turning some of their main IPs GaaS completely or with some spinoffs, something that any other big publisher including the other 2 console makers are also doing.

In addition to this, digital addons (DLC/IAP/passes) generate over half of the game revenues. With a percentage that keeps growing at the expenses of eating the percentage of game sales. Meaning that looking at the future they must bet more on the digital addons area (GaaS) and get better positioned there to make sure they'll continue being relevant in the future.

So yes, Sony will be on GaaS more than they did before and it makes sense. They will diversify their catalog by betting harder on the most popular, best performing business model that there is today in gaming. And they won't do it at the expense of decreasing their investment on non GaaS SP titles, because they'll also grow it.

I ask this sincerely. When was the last major console and PC breakout GAAS hit?

I was thinking about this today the one that stands out recently was Genshin Impact. I don't think there's been a major one this gen yet.

By major I mean on a level of fortnite, call of duty, fall guys etc.

GaaS don't need the level of success of these games to that successful. Sony is happy with the levels of success of Gran Turismo 7 or MLB.

Other very successful GaaS are GTA Online, FIFA, eFootball, NBA2K, NFS, Far Cry 6, AC Valhalla, Rainbow Six Siege, The Crew 2, The Division 2, For Honor, Trackmania, MK, Street Fighter, Rocket League, Apex Legends, Sims 4, Overwatch 2, PUBG, Smash Bros, Splatoon, Mario Kart 8, etc. to name a few of them.

On the MS side you have Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves, Forza Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, Flight Simulator, Minecraft or the upcoming Forza Motorsport and (aparently) Starfield to mention some of them.

 

[Mr.ODST]

Issue is with Live Service, if your first year misses any sort of decent content and stream of updates and content you lose pretty much 80% of your userbase straight away.

Fortnite etc were so popular because of their constant stream of updates and content, huge example of failure being Halo Infinite because they took so long to give content and when they did it was like a minuscule amount.

 

[The artful mincer]

Why would you want all of their live service games to fail (in before woosh because that's what Ellie says in that gif)? Having at least one big successful live service game provides Sony with much needed recurring revenue which then gets reinvested into their internal productions, including their single-player AAA games that most of the GAF users here cherish.

I want whatever gets them to invest more in single player games.

It's difficult to know how they will react if they hit gold on a live service game. Yes they could reinvest into single player games but there's also the possibility that they just try chasing more live service success.

It's tricky they may end up like Nintendo in the wii era where they kinda abandoned the core games in favour of the new thing.

We will see I hope what you say happens.

 

[The artful mincer]

I mean that was less than 3 years ago. It's not like a crazy amount of time since the last big hit.

Fair enough for some reason I thought it was released in 2019.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Issue is with Live Service, if your first year misses any sort of decent content and stream of updates and content you lose pretty much 80% of your userbase straight away.

Fortnite etc were so popular because of their constant stream of updates and content, huge example of failure being Halo Infinite because they took so long to give content and when they did it was like a minuscule amount.

This is wrong. Fortnite was extremely flat footed when FortniteBR first launched. As was PUBG. Those games grew in popularity at unprecedented rates because their core game design was so good. Neither had steady content updates until many months after launch. Halo Infinite actually launched with a Battle Pass and saw player retention take a dive after its first weekend on the market.

 

[yurinka]

So clearly if they shut it down within 6 months it's a total failure. But what if they shut it down after 2 years?

The length depends on the case. In the case of yearly games as CoD or sports games they are only supported by a year even if they are super hits because they move on to the next game.

I want whatever gets them to invest more in single player games.

It's difficult to know how they will react if they hit gold on a live service game. Yes they could reinvest into single player games but there's also the possibility that they just try chasing more live service success.

It's tricky they may end up like Nintendo in the wii era where they kinda abandoned the core games in favour of the new thing.

We will see I hope what you say happens.

The percentage of total game revenue that comes from game sales keep decreasing while the one from addons (GaaS) are over half of the total game revenue and keep increasing. And the AAA budgets skyrockets every new generation. So looking at the future they require revenue from addons (GaaS) to fund future SP games. If they would only invest on SP games their revenue would decrease over time. On top of that, Sony keeps increasing the amount of games they develop at the same time meaning that they need more revenue to fund these developments.

This is the reason of why publishers like Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony and all the other major AAA publishers are increasing their bet on GaaS.

GaaS are the most played games and the games that generate the most revenue, not the opposite. And they keep growing in both sides. And it isn't a fad, it's something that have been happening for many years.

The other problem is that most normal people are not going to play any more than one of these games. So on some level it doesn't make any sense to have like six games going at once because you're just cannibalizing yourself.

Most of these games are pretty different and chase different types of players:

• MLB: baseball fans
• GT7: car simulator fans
• Concord: Halo/Destiny/(CoD in space?) fans
• Fairgame$: Payday 2/GTA Online Heist fans
• TLOU online: TLOU (specially factions) fans
• Helldivers 2: Helldivers & TPS co-op (Gears?) fans
• Marathon: Bungie & extraction shooters (The Division's Dark Zone mode, Escape from Tarkov, etc) fans
• London Studio new IP: fantasy hero shooter (seems to be like Overwatch with magic and melee based combat?) fans
• Horizon Online: Horizon (+ maybe Monster Hunter or MMORPG) fans

Then if we try to guess other GaaS that may also be in the works:

• Twisted Metal: maybe arcade car combat (Twisted Metal, Mario Kart, Wipeout...) fans?
• Deviation's game: CoD fans?
• GoT Online: GoT/samurai game fans (in case they branch off the MP mode of GoT2 into a separate game as did in TLOU2)

Also, on average console gamers buy a game or two per year. Many of us way more games, so to get that average way more people must only buy one game or even less per year.

 

[TrebleShot]

It will be a catastrophe, they have a USP In single player offerings and casual gaming of the highest quality with the odd MP thrown in. Switching focus and MS getting the biggest live service game out there means they I will panic and this whole endeavour will fail.

 

[Banjo64]

Anything not made by Bungie.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I love this question OP, this is a great thread.

I've set a reminder in my phone to recall this thread in the year 2037. It will be fun bumping this in 14 years and throwing it in NeoGAFs collective face. These are fun times indeed.

 

[The Alien]

High risk. High reward.

More than 80% will fail. But Sony only really needs 1 to suceed. I don't think that will be Factions...but could be Marathon.