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The GaaS model is stagnating the industry.
- Thread starter 64bitmodels
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Preposterous.
Report: 95% of studios are working on or aim to release a live service game
Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox A new report from Griffin Gaming Partners …
www.gamesindustry.biz
Nothing in nature stays the same. Growth or decay, no in between.
Complistic
Member
It's important to realize that games releasing now are always chasing trends from about 5 years ago.
Wildebeest
Member
Yes. I totally agree. For originality, you need people who are able to come up with fresh ideas, which means both the industry being open to outsiders and developers not leaning on consultants on best practice to make games. In terms of techniques that enhance creativity, one that is really known to work is imposing constraints on what you can do.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Battle Royale 2.0 still coming?
We got 2016 Overwatch clones hitting shores this year. 2017 BR wave hits next year?
Dr.Morris79
Member
Gaas?
Don't like em at all anymore.
Don't like em at all anymore.
Guilty_AI
Member
Preposterous.
Report: 95% of studios are working on or aim to release a live service game
Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox A new report from Griffin Gaming Partners …
Nothing in nature stays the same. Growth or decay, no in between.
I guess Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, Dragons Dogma 2, Lies of P, Resident Evil 4, The Talos Principle 2, Ultrakill and so on are all "live service" by the definition this report uses.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I guess Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, Dragons Dogma 2, Lies of P, Resident Evil 4, The Talos Principle 2, Ultrakill and so on are all "live service" by the definition this report uses.
I guess you're right. Nothing has changed since the 90s, lol
Note: Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk2077, Elden Ring, Dragons Dogma 2, Lies of P, Resident Evil 4, The Talos Principal, and Ultrakill do not recieve a cadence of regular content updates and are not considered Live Service games.
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Guilty_AI
Member
I guess the graphics got prettier.
You know, for all your talk about online games being at forefront of innovation, they certainly were the ones which changed the least out of everything.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I guess the graphics got prettier.
makes sense
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I actually agree with this. Gaming started as an offline medium back in the 1970s so offline games grew from zygote to what we see today. That's about 60 years of progress, starting from single screen gaming.
That being said, the baton has officially been passed. The last 10 - 15 years have been unbelievably exciting in online gaming. The amount of new investment, new genres, and new IP is basically all in multiplayer today.
Guilty_AI
Member
You know you can still date "online" gaming to back then too right? Arcades were immensily popular and had their own golden age in the late 70s - early 80s. You can even date eSports competitions all the way back to the early 70s.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Not really.
The industry overwhelmingly invested into traditional SP games from 1970 - 2018. They did this because that's where the players & money were.
Only just recently has investment into Live Service multiplayer met or eclipsed the old model. Rapid change is taking place that's easier to see when you pull back the lense.
ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
allow me to also yell at clouds, and I am indeed middle aged.... but I'm also a parent, and that's more important
Yes, trash like Fortnite is making children objectively and tangibly stupider (just like Youtube/TikTok addiction, for the shitty parents who let their kids have unrestricted phones).
Yes, they don't know better because they've fallen into the hole of quick gratification. These quick ephemeral always-online entertainments are designed ot plug kids in and make them feel something is happening, give them FOMO if they aren't on the latest season, which is the same loop but with more cynical corporate skins thrown in based on even more braindead franchises like Marvel.
Yes, they'd be better off if restricted from these games. Gaming can--and for many used to be--a medium where you can extend your mind by taking on a vast array of different kinds of challenges, each of which requires a unique kind of thinking. I remember kids who were into PC games in my generation, and most of them spent many hours learning challenging genres: real time strategy, world simulations, very difficult role-playing franchises like the early Gold Box, complex flight simulators, etc.
Today, if a kid is a self-professed "gamer," that sadly means 90% of the time that they just plug into the corporate brain-melting feed from call of duty / fortnite, and sit in their chair doing the same thing month after month, with barely a single brain cell engaged.
It is sad; parents who shrug at it are as responsible as these companies for ruining a generation; and objectively the kids caught up in this (and we all know that Fortnite etc makes its bank off of literal kids lacking self control more than anything) are living substantially dumber lives as a consequence.
Guilty_AI
Member
And i'm pretty sure you have investment data of all major game companies dating all the way back to the 70s to say this. Because Sega certainly wasn't investing money for nationwide competitions in 74, and blizzard wasn't investing hundreds of millions for a MMORPG in the mid-2000s.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
No, just common sense
Guilty_AI
Member
Appeal to Common Sense
Asserting that your conclusion or facts are just “common sense” when, in fact, they are not.We must argue as to why we believe something is common sense if there is any doubt that the belief is not common, rather than just asserting that it is.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Appeal to Common Sense
Asserting that your conclusion or facts are just “common sense” when, in fact, they are not.We must argue as to why we believe something is common sense if there is any doubt that the belief is not common, rather than just asserting that it is.www.logicallyfallacious.com
There's no one on planet earth who thinks Sega invested the same amount into multiplayer/live service games in 1974 (the year you mentioned) than they are today. I'm sure you've heard about their 5 "super games" they're currently working on.
There's no one on planet earth who thinks Blizzard isn't investing more into multiplayer/Live Service today than the early 00s.
When cherry picking, try to pick better cherries.
Dr. Claus
Banned
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I'll try again.
Sega & Blizzard spending much more money on multiplayer Live Service today than they were in 1974/early00s.
Guilty_AI
Member
Yeah, they're also spending more money on single player games today than they did back in 1970s/early00s because of, you know, inflantion, bigger audience and all that shit.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Percentage wise they're not.
Guilty_AI
Member
And where's the 50 years history of investment data to back this claim up?
Dr. Claus
Banned
lughnasadh123
Member
I'm turning 52 next month. All that you said just echoes the stuff my parents were saying about gaming a long, long time ago but they were wrong. My gaming habits didn't hamper my life but enriched it. Things have changed significantly since then, but with each generation it's the same - The old guard don't like something because they can't relate or hate changes to the thing they liked. Only it's not about the kids, they'll be fine as they always are, it's about the growing pains of realizing you're tastes and preferences are aging out of the current trends.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Neither of us have 50 year history of investment data to back up our claims.
Only one of us has common sense though. Go look at NeoGAF from just 10 years ago. No one was complaining about GAAS because it didn't represent a threat to the masses preferred game type.
A lot has changed in 10 years friend.
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Guilty_AI
Member
My claim is that companies always invested in both, something perfectly verifiable. Your claim is a magical number that says one had higher investments than the other during specific time periods, something completely unverifiable that requires hard data to comfirm.
By the laws of logic, your claim can be what's commonly called "Tales from the butthole".
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ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
I'm mid 40s, so similar in that sense.
But I have a markedly different view of my parents and their attitudes towards gaming. In fact, my parents were very strict with it. I was limited to only a very small amount of time per day on gaming consoles (~30-45 minutes on days with school or other events, maybe ~1:15-1:30 on a weekend at most), because having varied kinds of mental interests was important to them, not setting into a chair and plugging into Nintendo.
However, they didn't have a uniformly bad attitude towards games. Once they purchased a PC for me, they saw that it had a wider variety of mentally engaging games, and those time restrictions were largely eliminated -- so long as I was playing games that used my mind. So I could play for longer if I played complex flight simulators, world simulations, real time strategy games with maps, chess simulators, all kinds of things.
They regarded it as their parental responsibility to ensure my games were mentally developing, rather than quick satisfactions that just sink you into a state of repetition without thought. And I'm grateful for it... the breadth of things I learned and found long-term engagement with was quite wide, and paid off over the years.
I 100% agree with them that this matters, that there are qualitative differences between types of games and their impact on the brain or even the soul of the person. These GAAS games are of the worst possible quality and type. They aren't challenging the kid to extend their mind into new kinds of thought and long-term (zero quick gratification) challenges. And their dominance is making gaming something that I think should embarrassing, in this form. Plugging kids into a hundred matches of Fortnite with your headphones and bag of chips is awful, and I see this everywhere. So many of my kid's peers are like this, that gaming is a sad state of affairs now, doing more bad than good for children.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
That's obviously not the topic.
ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
I think that's a bit ridiculous to ask for... the observation that investment has been tilted harshly towards online GAAS is obvious. There are plenty of examples like the Arkham franchise, which was the pinnacle of single-player action/adventure gaming, and clearly was demolished by a desire to chase after GAAS bucks. We can see this happening.
Guilty_AI
Member
I suggest you go back the chain of quotes.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
"Hey Mom, want to see the Minecraft castle I've been working on all summer?!"
ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
Minecraft isn't like the others on the list; I actually regard it as largely a rewarding game. I play it with my son, and we give ourselves all kinds of challenges of things to build and do.
Notably, it doesn't have "seasons" or "passes" or any of that other absolute shit from the Fornite world, so it really isn't like the GAAS world at all.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
The topic is level of investment - rates and degrees.
No one disagrees with you that publishers made multiplayer games back in the 1980s. Everyone agrees with me that the level of investment into multiplayer has catapulted past traditional SP over the last decade or two.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
League of Legends, Fortnite, Rocket League...
The list goes on and on. Todays games are far more complex with more interesting long term goals than what was popular in the 90s.
Mario Bros 3 is a complete joke of a game by todays standards.
Guilty_AI
Member
This was already happening 20 years ago, with: Warcraft, Diablo, COD, Final Fantasy, Need for Speed, Halo, etc. Even before that it wasn't uncommon to see companies investing on MP games with the same intents, companies like Epic looking at the Quake mp scene and making their own MP shooter in Unreal Tournament. Some trying to create "social" games to mimic internet forums back in the 90s, early 2000s too.
The notion of online game as some sort of gold mine is very old.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
People were going out West to mine for gold in the late 1700s.
The gold rush didn't start until 1848.
That's what you're not understanding. You have a difficult time recognizing rate and degree.
Guilty_AI
Member
Except the correct analogy would be the "multiplayer gold rush" began back in the late 90s early 2000s and now in current year all that's left are the cartels.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
The start date is less important. We know it has increased substantially in the last 7 years.
Trogdor1123
Member
People will play what they want to play and enjoy. Once they cease to enjoy it they will move on to something else. I don’t see the issue here. We are going to see several more years like this and then something will shift. It’s happened several times before and will happen again. Just find a game you like and enjoy it.
I’m going to try Lunacid on Steam. Looks awesome.
I’m going to try Lunacid on Steam. Looks awesome.
lughnasadh123
Member
You do raise some good points in a thoughtful post that would benefit everyone and not just kids. I just respectfully disagree with the negative aspects of GaaS on people and the industry as a whole with the caveat of moderation (as with anything) and basic good parenting to set guidelines for a healthy hobby. A few matches of Fortnite is perfectly fine. Endless hours of it while hardly moving and gorging on crap food due to lack of poor supervision or lack of caring should never happen.
Guilty_AI
Member
Except gaming in general increased substantially in the last 7 years. Probably an effect of the rise of social media + some covid lockdown boosters.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Again, rates and degrees.
The industries biggest publishers were not investing into multiplayer Live Service (percentage wise) as much in 2004 as they are in 2024.
This is basic common sense.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
haven't watched it, I have to do my dailies you know.
Halo is Back
Member
I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 lately. It is an absolute breath of fresh and true delight of a game to play in this current gaming market. BG3 is the antithesis of the modern gaming industry, which is more concerned with shoving out half-baked GASS games to maximize thier profits rather than delivering a complete and satisfying gaming experience that respects the consumer.
LordofAllThatIsEvil
Member
There are so many good games I haven't played. Stagnate so i can catch up
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
I am the "younger" generation you moron
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
It's really disappointing to see so many people miss the point here. I am not shitting on the monetary explotation of GaaS or its addictive strategies to get people stuck in the game. I am not shitting on the GaaS games because they are quite fun for me.
I am angry because GaaS gets so successful that it turns companies into shells of their former self who focus on updating the same fucking thing over and over again with nothing new to excite people who... want something new. I am pointing out that 7 year old games have the highest MAU of any modern video game and that this is a problem, we should be championing new good stuff when they come out so new legends can come up instead of the same stuff we were hyped for a decade ago
There are some companies who use their success to fund their other games, like Nintendo who could just as easily coast off of Smash, Mario Kart and Pokemon, but use that cash to fund newer IPs and sequels in their old franchises. But it's disappointing to see many others succumb to this same boring routine of making new content for the same old same old. It is a stagnation objectively
I am angry because GaaS gets so successful that it turns companies into shells of their former self who focus on updating the same fucking thing over and over again with nothing new to excite people who... want something new. I am pointing out that 7 year old games have the highest MAU of any modern video game and that this is a problem, we should be championing new good stuff when they come out so new legends can come up instead of the same stuff we were hyped for a decade ago
There are some companies who use their success to fund their other games, like Nintendo who could just as easily coast off of Smash, Mario Kart and Pokemon, but use that cash to fund newer IPs and sequels in their old franchises. But it's disappointing to see many others succumb to this same boring routine of making new content for the same old same old. It is a stagnation objectively
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