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[Peroroncino]

I feel like I'm having a deja vu.

Either way, hopefully Concord wasn't a planned answer to their worries.

 

[nkarafo]

Imagine things can't grow indefinitely and tend to reach a peak before dropping or stabilizing.

Amazing concept.

 

[TGO]

Really? with all those amazing PS studio titles they've been pumping out.
I don't believe it.
And we have the PS5 Pro coming out soon beautiful demonstrated by new exciting games like The Last Of Us Pt2 and Horizon Forbidden West.
I really can't see what the problem is....

 

[Mobilemofo]

Sure but, if they did that, you'd just complain when those games have issues.

Their top studios are the top studios for a reason, they put out quality work.

So maybe Rockstar and Naughty Dog are on to something, if someone is going to demand AAA quality, they clearly will charge AAA price, but that means real AAA time must be put into those works to get those games 100% or near 100%

Its too greedy to really expect everyone to be like Insomniac lol

You've forgotten about "AAAA" gaming...skull and bones was described as.."AAAA" .

 

[AgatonSax]

To go from $20b to $17b....

OMG the sky is falling! Pack it up folks, no more FP SP games from Sony anymore....

/s

Sound business reasoning as always Mr Guillemot.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Inflation included?

Some folks include it in reasons for Pro price increase so...

Inflation doesn't impact VG game and DLC pricing. So no

 

[CliffBronger]

Stick to making games and stop injecting garbage politics into them and they will sell.

Nearly everyone on this forum could tell you this it's not rocket science.

 

[Guilty_AI]

pre-concord data, automatically invalidated

 

[RickMasters]

yep 70 dollar and even more expensive in most places makes day 1 less likely, has already been a couple games ive been kinda interested in but when the pricetag is over 1 worknight for standard edition, it feels too expensive so wallet has already started the voting. That and sony as the other console makers putting online behind a paywall makes it just more likely to be bought on pc if anywere. That said if i knew the biggest sony titles would end up on pc like right now, i should just have skipped the ps5.

I know a lot of people who are in the same situation. Just regular hard working people with family’s to feed and bills to pay. Honestly I’m suprised subscribtion services like GP are not more popular.


I think we are only a few years away from AAA games costing 100 bucks being the norm. And hardware is clearly not getting any cheaper to make. Most people have more important things to spend that kind of money on but still want to play games. I do beleive that’s where subs will ultimately find their core market. With gamers who have families and bills to pay.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

It’s strange given PlayStation’s success there doesn’t seem to have been a lot of confidence coming from Sony management. Predicted decline of full price games, leaked presentations showing their concerns about their strategic position moving forward, Jim Ryan ‘retiring’, public complaints from management about SIE profitability.

I imagine Concord result would add to the uncertainty.

It’s weird, because you think they’d be out beating their chests about how much they’re dominating.

I’m starting to get the feeling PS have a view of the near future of console gaming landscape that is very different to what we see now, in hardware and software.

 

[DeepEnigma]

It’s strange given PlayStation’s success there doesn’t seem to have been a lot of confidence coming from Sony management. Predicted decline of full price games, leaked presentations showing their concerns about their strategic position moving forward, Jim Ryan ‘retiring’, public complaints from management about SIE profitability.

I imagine Concord result would add to the uncertainty.

It’s weird, because you think they’d be out beating their chests about how much they’re dominating.

I’m starting to get the feeling PS have a view of the near future of console gaming landscape that is very different to what we see now, in hardware and software.

One can see the global economy and see major shake ups and shifts. It's impacting everything.

 

[Edgelord79]

Lots of things competing with full priced games now. So many sales, people are on multiple platforms, etc. Day one $70 priced games can be really tough when there is so much else to play and you can wait for a sale.

Hardware is pretty expensive too. Cost of development is high. Risk is high (see Concord) for new IPs and sequel burnout is real. A bit of a tight rope.

Making a good game doesn’t appear to be enough anymore. If it doesn’t appeal to a very large contingent it won’t matter if it’s good due to sales expectations and costs.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Maybe if you actually made good 1st party games again, I would buy.
Maybe if the price wasn't jacked up to$70 and actually had decent sales again, I would buy.
Wages have not matched inflation, and prices of everything else rises.

At this rate if sony abandoneds single player full releases I will just invest more and more into pc and nintendo (similar to now but more so).
And if nintendo follows suit, I will fall back to playing my extensive backlog.

 

[Shadowstar39]

GamePass is a dead end and completely unsustainable. Especially given Xbox marketshare.

A lot of the decline in full-priced sales have to do with lots of cheap or f2p Gaas-titles.

The most played games are predominantely f2p live service titles and lots of them are rather good.
This alone makes it harder and harder to justify €80 game releases with 'only' 10-20 hours of playtime.
(100hrs to 100% those games is irrelevant, as most people don't even tend to finish the main stories).

For a certain age group ,mostly teens and gen Z who prefer social gaming. If you are older than 30, most prefer full priced games and shun f2p and woke crap.

As for gamepass, yeah it is unsustainable and a bad idea for a console and games maker to do. It was a good idea for gamefly but they didn't have a stake in sales.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

For a certain age group ,mostly teens and gen Z who prefer social gaming. If you are older than 30, most prefer full priced games and shun f2p and woke crap.

I wonder if your claim is true.
Most people play live service games and wasn't there research data recently that showed the average age of gamers in de US was ~40yo?

Purely anecdotal, but all my 30+yo friends (and co-workers) play live service games, which mostly boil down to Fortnite and Warzone.
This falls in line with aforementioned research data.

 

[Astral Dog]

The economy is collapsing and people are poorer, games start at $70,full of bugs and sales are plenty on digital stores (and some retail as well)

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

For a certain age group ,mostly teens and gen Z who prefer social gaming. If you are older than 30, most prefer full priced games and shun f2p and woke crap.

It's not like this anymore. There have been quite a few AAA single-player F2P in the last 7 years, and the trend is growing. The average age of Genshin Impact players is 35 years old, people with money to burn.

It's funny that the quality of those is improving by the day while companies like Bethesda or Ubisoft only produce buggy trash that no F2P player would even bother with.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

This a good thing. Too many brokies have invaded my safe space.

This is what happens when a Little Chicken tries to step up to a monster like @ Ass of Can Whooping

Don’t bait the monster

 

[mckmas8808]

The way you changed your avatar from Concord to Marathon like nothing happened kills me.

And then have the nerve to post a thread like this. He's insane.

 

[mckmas8808]

I'm worried about the fact they'll be spending 60% on GAAS trash. Who exactly is their target market to do a complete 180 from their bread and butter? 16-24 year old, Gen Zs with lots of time on their hands?

Concord should teach Sony a HUGE lesson. Will they listen?

 

[Lorianus]

I wonder if your claim is true.
Most people play live service games and wasn't there research data recently that showed the average age of gamers in de US was ~40yo?

Purely anecdotal, but all my 30+yo friends (and co-workers) play live service games, which mostly boil down to Fortnite and Warzone.
This falls in line with aforementioned research data.

I would support this, i myself play gacha's daily and buy mostly JRPG's at 38yo, while my nephews and nieces in the ages between 6-18 only play mobile stuff on their phones and tablets while owning at most a switch, all the traditional "gamers" i know playing on consoles/pc are in my age group.

 

[yurinka]

In May 2022, and again in May 2023, PlayStation published a couple of oft discussed slides. The discussion surrounding these slides has usually been about where PlayStation is allocating their game development resources. However, just as big of a story seems to have slipped under most peoples radar. PlayStation seems to think the "full priced game market" is going to shrink over the next 5 years.

Here's what they thought in 2022: Digital and Physical software combined for 20 billion dollars in CY21. By CY26, PlayStation projected the same market to combine for 17 billion dollars, a -15% drop.
Here's what they thought in 2023: Digital full game software would plunge from 15 billion dollars in CY21 to 7.4 billion dollars in CY26. That's a roughly 50% drop.

PlayStation, a company set up beautifully to produce full priced games, not only doesn't see growth in that market, they don't see a plateau either. They see the full priced game market atrophying considerably.



(Q1 2022)

(Q1 2023)

These projections posted by Sony two years ago were by IDC.

Here you have more updated data from Newzoo, they show that people spends their time mostly on GaaS, particularly old ones. So doesn't have a lot of time for non-GaaS, particularly new ones.

Playerbase growth has been slowing down for console and PC in recent years, and it's expectec to continue slowing down:

Playtime has been declining in console and PC:

Playtime by subgenre:

Around 80% of that playtime is spent in 3+ years old games, meaning GaaS:

The top five GaaS got 25% of the total playtime:

New games only got 8% of the playtime:

And over 60% of that 8% was spent in annual (GaaS) IPs:

90% of that 8% of total playtime spent on new games was spent in 48 titles:

Source: The PC & Console Gaming Report 2024 (Newzoo)

 

[semiconscious]

I think we are only a few years away from AAA games costing 100 bucks being the norm. And hardware is clearly not getting any cheaper to make. Most people have more important things to spend that kind of money on but still want to play games. I do beleive that’s where subs will ultimately find their core market. With gamers who have families and bills to pay.

tax included, we're already there in canada. just paid $103 for silent hill 2 remake...

 

[yurinka]

More updated IDC numbers (Gaming Spotlight H1 2024 Review report):

(in this report they didn't split by business model / revenue source type)

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

The games industry isn't struggling. The full priced game is struggling.

Is that true? Game sales are in sharp decline? I haven’t seen any reporting about that.

I thought it is more just that people are gravitating to fewer, bigger games, and there are a smaller number of games now that do sell well, they just sell extremely well, leaving the middle and bottom of the market essentially non-existent. People are just flocking to the giant AAA games like TotK, Elden Ring, CoD, Hogwarts Legacy, etc.

Isn’t Black Myth Wuking over 20 million sold already? And that’s full-price, no discounts/sales yet. And hasn’t even launched on everything yet. People are choosey, for sure, but the big games are selling better than ever.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

I assume "full priced game market" includes games on sale.


No. Games are the platform, not launchers, not plastic boxes.

Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox...Star Citizen. These are the new platforms of the future.

I think this is only true of very young users. There are… ~150 million or so people who buy consoles specifically to play high-end AAA games. That will take a long time to change. What does the latest market research show, the average age of a gamer is 42-64 or something like that? I’d have to find the resource again.

When the reality you’re talking about completely takes over, consoles as we know them will cease to exist. It would just be some third-party set top box with a GPU and wireless connectivity to your TV or phone/tablet/controller.

It will happen in my lifetime, just, not anytime soon.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Is that true? Game sales are in sharp decline? I haven’t seen any reporting about that.

For two years straight, PlayStation believed it was going to happen based on an IDF report, though I'm sure their internal data probably backs up that report too.

I thought it is more just that people are gravitating to fewer, bigger games, and there are a smaller number of games now that do sell well, they just sell extremely well, leaving the middle and bottom of the market essentially non-existent. People are just flocking to the giant AAA games like TotK, Elden Ring, CoD, Hogwarts Legacy, etc.

The projections suggest that old style "full priced games" are a shrinking market and GAAS is growing faster than full priced games are shrinking. I think you're seeing people flock to a smaller number of hugely successful titles because single player games have stopped innovating. If they all play the same, people naturally go to the best of the best and feel less compelled to play the B tier "me too" titles.

Isn’t Black Myth Wuking over 20 million sold already? And that’s full-price, no discounts/sales yet. And hasn’t even launched on everything yet. People are choosey, for sure, but the big games are selling better than ever.

PlayStation is concerned about total dollars spent in a given market. Cherry picking a small number of hugely successful titles within that market segment is mostly irrelevant.

I think this is only true of very young users. There are… ~150 million or so people who buy consoles specifically to play high-end AAA games. That will take a long time to change. What does the latest market research show, the average age of a gamer is 42-64 or something like that? I’d have to find the resource again.

When the reality you’re talking about completely takes over, consoles as we know them will cease to exist. It would just be some third-party set top box with a GPU and wireless connectivity to your TV or phone/tablet/controller.

It will happen in my lifetime, just, not anytime soon.

The 16 year old kids that went crazy for Fortnite in 2017 are 23 years old today. As the demographic that grew up playing GAAS ages, they'll stick with those types of titles and the new gamers will also play GAAS.

If you're greenlighting a game today, you know it's going to take 5 or 6 years to make. That means the 23 year old Fortnite generation are going to be 28 or 29 years old by the time your game releases. All of these companies take this demographic data into consideration and they know when older gamers age out of the medium too.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Here you have more updated data from Newzoo, they show that people spends their time mostly on GaaS, particularly old ones. So doesn't have a lot of time for non-GaaS, particularly new ones.

It's funny how often we see new GAAS titles do huge number for a week or two and then drop off a cliff afterwords.

To me, that suggests the market craves new GAAS titles but will not settle for an inferior product. This is an extremely strong, healthy model where only the great stick around (and improve). That's an extremely tough model to compete with, especially as it grows and matures.

 

[AGRacing]

Well, maybe if you could let all your signature studios keep releasing games in a reasonable pace, there wouldn't be any shrink.

Bingo.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy the way they’ve been operating.

 

[Little Chicken]

This is what happens when a Little Chicken tries to step up to a monster like @ Ass of Can Whooping

Don’t bait the monster

 

[Felessan]

Even Sony is spreading the doom and gloom of the industry. I keep reading on here that Sony is doing more than great and it's FUD that others are spreading, but now we have it coming from the horses mouth. If sony is expecting decline, I think we could be heading towards a crash.

A crash for single player games? Probably. A crash for gaming as a while? Unlikely

Gaas slowly encroaching gaming, and accelerating of AAA f2p gaas will obviously impact full priced games - this is what Sony projecting for several years now.

Those are great cash cows when they hit, but the hit rate seems to be extremely low so I’m not sure how that will balance out, but yes, I guess it’s helping

If you look at western games - yes, expertise is low and success rate is not that high.
If you look at eastern games (and Asia is more than half of WW gaming revenue) - success rate there for gaas are rather normal and a lot of expertise accumulated, allowing companies to steadily release consecutive hits.

I'm worried about the fact they'll be spending 60% on GAAS trash. Who exactly is their target market to do a complete 180 from their bread and butter? 16-24 year old, Gen Zs with lots of time on their hands?

Like everyone now
Playstation already make around half of their gaming revenue on gaas games, so they are cautious and aware about trend and try to adjust their business model to incorporate gaas and promote playstation as place to go for playing them.

 

[mdkirby]

Microsoft also bet the house on massive and continued growth of gamespass subscriptions (which yes, would 100% result in less full price games purchases), but it didn’t happen, it stagnated, despite massive investment.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Imagine being Sony and trying to budget the next big Naughty Dog game while sitting on this data.

The next few years is going to be wild I think.

 

[Felessan]

Imagine being Sony and trying to budget the next big Naughty Dog game while sitting on this data.

The next few years is going to be wild I think.

Actually big games like Naughty Dog's are less at risk compared to smaller AA "40$" games, because former still have vastly different production values and latter have to differentiate themselves from AAA f2p gaas games, as those already catched up to similar IQ

 

[STARSBarry]

The way you changed your avatar from Concord to Marathon like nothing happened kills me.

I don't get why it's not Fairgame$ that's the next big thing from Sony right?

 

[Shifty1897]

This is probably true but also why does Sony have market analysts at all after someone on that team predicted Concord was a good idea.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

This is probably true but also why does Sony have market analysts at all after someone on that team predicted Concord was a good idea.

Collecting data doesn't mean that execs will do something useful with it. And it's very easy to cook them to validate whatever the decision makers wanted beforehand.

 

[Sethbacca]

And yet games like PoP: The Lost Crown sell abysmally and is justified by gamers as "no one wants Metroidvanias for $40." Or "Only Nintendo can make these games fully priced even though the quality is similar." Gamers constantly say this but make all sorts of excuses not to support said games. I would love for Sony to diversify too but that isn't happening. When they did have Japan Studios, those unique games didn't sell as much. You can have the most critically acclaimed games of all time, but if they don't sell, companies have no incentive to make them.

I feel like you have to kind of cultivate these things though. Like, yeah you may have a few misses when you're first getting shit going but the ability of Sony to put out a game in Astrobot that rivals some of Nintendo's best gives me faith that they could develop some IPs that fit into other genres. The problem is that we've all been trained that only Nintendo makes worthwhile Nintendo style games. They kind of had something like that in Little Big Planet but they've let that die off, but they could definitely repurpose some of their unused IPs or develop new ones to explore other genres of gaming.

 

[HogIsland]

Concord should teach Sony a HUGE lesson. Will they listen?

what is the lesson tho? it can't be simply to stay away from live service, because Helldivers was an all-timer for Playstation. they're still going to want more live service hits.

- don't copy a generic marvel franchise?
- don't copy a well-worn game template? (i.e. overwatch, etc)

 

[yurinka]

It's funny how often we see new GAAS titles do huge number for a week or two and then drop off a cliff afterwords.

To me, that suggests the market craves new GAAS titles but will not settle for an inferior product. This is an extremely strong, healthy model where only the great stick around (and improve). That's an extremely tough model to compete with, especially as it grows and matures.

Both GaaS and non-GaaS have a sales peak at launch.

It isn't something new, it always has been like that. With things like discounts, price cuts or post launch content they try to create more peaks, to the point that in GaaS they aim to -if the numbers of the games allow it- to keep adding post launch content during years.

Obviously, like in non-GaaS, a few GaaS became super successful, other ones do it ok and many fail. I say that having worked in a game that had a peak of 3 million daily users.

Over time there are more and more GaaS that keep the players busy, which means have less time for newer games, making it more difficult for new games. But at the same time, obviously publishers want that one of these small portion of games that get most of the playtime is one of their.

To make games is very hard. To make great games even more. And to be very successful even more.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Both GaaS and non-GaaS have a sales peak at launch.

It isn't something new, it always has been like that. With things like discounts, price cuts or post launch content they try to create more peaks, to the point that in GaaS they aim to -if the numbers of the games allow it- to keep adding post launch content during years.

True, but it suggests that GAAS gamers have always been interested in other games. It completely destroys the narrative that gamers are "locked" to their preferred GAAS game. In reality, GAAS gamers prefer playing their one or two GAAS games but we all want a better game to come out and lure us away.

Over time there are more and more GaaS that keep the players busy, which means have less time for newer games, making it more difficult for new games. But at the same time, obviously publishers want that one of these small portion of games that get most of the playtime is one of their.

The thing no one has access to is the hit rate of GAAS titles over the last 20 years. Lots of talk about market saturation but no one has any idea what the success rates were pre saturation and post saturation.

The advantage GAAS has over traditional SP games is that it thrives on innovation whereas traditional SP games do not. GAAS needs to find new niches to carve out a new audience. Traditional SP can keep releasing the same game with slightly better production values because those games have the shelf life of a fruit fly.

 

[mckmas8808]

what is the lesson tho? it can't be simply to stay away from live service, because Helldivers was an all-timer for Playstation. they're still going to want more live service hits.

- don't copy a generic marvel franchise?
- don't copy a well-worn game template? (i.e. overwatch, etc)

BOOM! You did it yourself! Those two are a good start. And how about not spending 60% of your game creation yearly budget on GAAS games!!!!! That's just stupid!

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

BOOM! You did it yourself! Those two are a good start. And how about not spending 60% of your game creation yearly budget on GAAS games!!!!! That's just stupid!

60% of the market is GAAS (and it's growing fast)

Why wouldn't you spend 60 percent of your resources on it? Especially with the old model dying.

 

[Felessan]

The thing no one has access to is the hit rate of GAAS titles over the last 20 years. Lots of talk about market saturation but no one has any idea what the success rates were pre saturation and post saturation.
The advantage GAAS has over traditional SP games is that it thrives on innovation whereas traditional SP games do not. GAAS needs to find new niches to carve out a new audience. Traditional SP can keep releasing the same game with slightly better production values because those games have the shelf life of a fruit fly.

Most people will not even relate to the first time "gaas market oversaturated" was a common knowledge (it was post-WoW MMO rush, somewhere in 2006-2008). From then gaas balooned several times, expanding to many other area, splitting to a new genres (moba, br, extraction shooters etc, you can easily track their inspirations to once popular mmo mechanics), swallowing even new medium, to come back in full force back to console (and console-like PC players) space.

 

[mckmas8808]

60% of the market is GAAS (and it's growing fast)

Why wouldn't you spend 60 percent of your resources on it? Especially with the old model dying.

Because the old model isn't dying. That's why! It's stupid. But we'll see if Sony will be stupid or smart from here on out.

 

[yurinka]

True, but it suggests that GAAS gamers have always been interested in other games. It completely destroys the narrative that gamers are "locked" to their preferred GAAS game. In reality, GAAS gamers prefer playing their one or two GAAS games but we all want a better game to come out and lure us away.

The thing no one has access to is the hit rate of GAAS titles over the last 20 years. Lots of talk about market saturation but no one has any idea what the success rates were pre saturation and post saturation.

All gamers at some point get tired of whatever game they are playing and move to another one. The point of the very successful GaaS is that key keep the player there for longer with post launch stuff, which for devs/publishers means more changes of getting more money per player.

But yes, even in the most successful ones, at some point the player gets tired and moves on. It may be after playing the first day, it may be after a few months, it may be after some years.

Players -GaaS players too- often play other games, as could be newer GaaS, and if they prefer them they move there. In some cases they prefer the older game and go back to the older game. Which is more likely in cases where the player already invested a lot of time (and sometimes money) on it.

Nowadays there are more games (that includes GaaS too) being very successful than ever, because the amount of games released increases every year.

As always happened, most games aren't greenlighted to enter production, get cancelled or aren't profitable. A minority end released and being successful. Only a few became hits and a tiny portion become superhits.

Some of the teams have to shut down and created different teams or sell to somebody else to join forces and continue alive. And try again. The successful ones continue forward and get competition from newer teams. And the circle continues.

Some genres or niches get saturated, and once devs and publishers realize there's no place for them they move on to try something else, so the competition decreases in that area.

As of now GaaS userbase, revenue and game software revenue % continues growing, so it's the biggest cow to milk and more players keep trying there.

The gaming market keeps regulating itself and keeps evolving and changing every few years as it did for 50 years.

The advantage GAAS has over traditional SP games is that it thrives on innovation whereas traditional SP games do not. GAAS needs to find new niches to carve out a new audience. Traditional SP can keep releasing the same game with slightly better production values because those games have the shelf life of a fruit fly.

I wouldn't say it drives innovation.

GaaS just means that instead of being designed as a product that they release and forget about it, they are designed as service that will evolve after launch with game updates and new content as much as it makes sense according to its metrics.

So it has two main advantages:

1) If it doesn't work, they can shut it down shortly after releasing a let's say 'minimum viable product', which means they shut it down before having spent the total amount of money that required the full vision of the project. For companies is important to fail fast, reducing the loses that a failure can generate.

2) If it works, they can keep adding content for years, to achieve a potential amount of money per user way higher than the one they get from non-GaaS titles. Because if a player let's say keeps playing a game for 3 years he may spend there the money he could have spent in other let's say 3, 6 or 10 other games he could have played in that period.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Because the old model isn't dying. That's why! It's stupid. But we'll see if Sony will be stupid or smart from here on out.

Well PlayStation thinks it is...Look at the OP.

All gamers at some point get tired of whatever game they are playing and move to another one. The point of the very successful GaaS is that key keep the player there for longer with post launch stuff, which for devs/publishers means more changes of getting more money per player.

But yes, even in the most successful ones, at some point the player gets tired and moves on. It may be after playing the first day, it may be after a few months, it may be after some years.

Players -GaaS players too- often play other games, as could be newer GaaS, and if they prefer them they move there. In some cases they prefer the older game and go back to the older game. Which is more likely in cases where the player already invested a lot of time (and sometimes money) on it.

Nowadays there are more games (that includes GaaS too) being very successful than ever, because the amount of games released increases every year.

As always happened, most games aren't greenlighted to enter production, get cancelled or aren't profitable. A minority end released and being successful. Only a few became hits and a tiny portion become superhits.

Some of the teams have to shut down and created different teams or sell to somebody else to join forces and continue alive. And try again. The successful ones continue forward and get competition from newer teams. And the circle continues.

Some genres or niches get saturated, and once devs and publishers realize there's no place for them they move on to try something else, so the competition decreases in that area.

As of now GaaS userbase, revenue and game software revenue % continues growing, so it's the biggest cow to milk and more players keep trying there.

The gaming market keeps regulating itself and keeps evolving and changing every few years as it did for 50 years.

Very true.

I wouldn't say it drives innovation.

GaaS just means that instead of being designed as a product that they release and forget about it, they are designed as service that will evolve after launch with game updates and new content as much as it makes sense according to its metrics.

So it has two main advantages:

1) If it doesn't work, they can shut it down shortly after releasing a let's say 'minimum viable product', which means they shut it down before having spent the total amount of money that required the full vision of the project. For companies is important to fail fast, reducing the loses that a failure can generate.

2) If it works, they can keep adding content for years, to achieve a potential amount of money per user way higher than the one they get from non-GaaS titles. Because if a player let's say keeps playing a game for 3 years he may spend there the money he could have spent in other let's say 3, 6 or 10 other games he could have played in that period.

No, you misunderstand. One massive advantage of GAAS is that it encourages innovation and punishes sameness in a way the old model didn't.

You can pump out clones of games using the old model because the old model entertained players for a week or two before they moved on. You can make the same game with slightly better production values because players are left in constant states of starvation. You can't do that with GAAS. It's why all the innovation in gaming recently has been found in the GAAS space. SP games are for sequels and pretty graphics. GAAS is for new concepts.

 

[yurinka]

No, you misunderstand. One massive advantage of GAAS is that it encourages innovation and punishes sameness in a way the old model didn't.

You can pump out clones of games using the old model because the old model entertained players for a week or two before they moved on. You can make the same game with slightly better production values because players are left in constant states of starvation. You can't do that with GAAS. It's why all the innovation in gaming recently has been found in the GAAS space. SP games are for sequels and pretty graphics. GAAS is for new concepts.

Almost no megahit, GaaS or not, is really innovative. Like most games, they basically mix existing concepts from previous successful games that did it right at least in some areas.

Maybe they take a very successful genre and use some art style, theme or setting that maybe didn't work in this genre but did work elsewhere. Or maybe they bring to that genre some features or mechanics from other genre/market/platform/etc. That's maybe 90% of the game, based on a proven, solid base ground that works. And then on top of this there's some twist or addition, often in the way of how these borrowed elements are mixed, or adding some really new mechanic or twist. Or let's say doing what other ones did before but better.

That applies not only the megahits but to most commercial games, particularly the AAA ones. Because in AAA things are super expensive, so they have to prove with objective numbers that whatever they want to put there did work well before elsewhere.

Players, like the rest of human beings, normally reject the things -in this case games- that are very different or new. 99.99% of the very innovative games tank because of that. People prefer to play things they already know that they will like, so they prefer to buy the next FIFA/COD/AC/NBA2K/GTA/etc. than to try whatever very innovative (normally indie).

 

[Icymanipulator]

The way you changed your avatar from Concord to Marathon like nothing happened kills me.

Never forget

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Almost no megahit, GaaS or not, is really innovative. Like most games, they basically mix existing concepts from previous successful games that did it right at least in some areas.

Innovative, unique, fresh, creative...whatever you want to call it. That's where GAAS shines now.

Maybe they take a very successful genre and use some art style, theme or setting that maybe didn't work in this genre but did work elsewhere. Or maybe they bring to that genre some features or mechanics from other genre. That's maybe 80-90% of the game. And then on top of this there's some twist or addition, often in the way of how these borrowed elements are mixed, or adding some really new mechanic or twist. Or let's say doing what other ones did before but better.

GAAS doesn't rely on shallow concepts like art style. PUBG, Roblox, Lethal Company, Valhiem are all ugly as sin. They succeeded because they meaningfully innovated in some particularly important ways. Art style looks good in magazine pictures but it gets old fast.

That applies not only the megahits but to most commercial games, particularly the AAA ones. Because in AAA things are super expensive, so they have to prove with objective numbers that whatever they want to put there did work well before elsewhere.

Lot's of commercially successful GAAS hits that pushed creative concepts in their design.

Players, like the rest of human beings, normally reject the things -in this case games- that are very different and new. 99.99% of the very innovative games tank because of that. People prefer to play things they already know that they will like, so they prefer to buy the next FIFA/COD/AC/NBA2K/GTA/etc. than to try whatever very innovative indie.

A vague platitude that ignores the uniqueness of GAAS. People try to muddy up, and downplay how special Live Service is (because they don't like it) but it has very real advantages that are pushing gaming forward.