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[Men_in_Boxes]

True but Bloodborne and the likes are prestige games meant to entice people to the platform and make gaas game visible.

I consider it to be like a doctor giving candy to a child before giving the syringe.

Nothing brings gamers to a platform like "Hey, we're playing this (GAAS title) and we need a 4th. You want to come play with us?"

That's 1000x more effective than commercials and reviews.

 

[killatopak]

Nothing brings gamers to a platform like "Hey, we're playing this (GAAS title) and we need a 4th. You want to come play with us?"

That's 1000x more effective than commercials and reviews.

Yes but the problem with that is that GAAS title might not even be on the Playstation platform. It could be on PC, Xbox, Nintendo or even mobile. You have to understand, very few people play multiple live service games at once however many people play multiple standard games.

People usually don’t buy multiple platforms as one is enough for most casual audiences. The key is to get them locked in then they’ll be limited to the what that specific platform provides.

This example will probably be more relevant for Bungie’s game as it will release on multiple platforms. They have to deal with it the same as Fortnite.

"Hey, we're playing this (GAAS title) and we need a 4th. You want to come play with us?"

“Which platform though? Oh hey, Playstation has this or that and this game which we all like so let’s go play on this platform. 2 birds with one stone.”

 

[ZehDon]

...If what ye say is true, why does PlayStation not see it? ...

They do see it. And that's why they're launching so many: they want a "Call of Duty", not twelve different versions of "The Division 2". By launching so many, they're evidently happy for most of them to die. If they die because they were eaten by a bigger Sony GaaS, that's probably a good thing - Sony wants something as big as "Call of Duty", not a flash-in-the-pan "Fall Guys". All that matters is that one of their studios delivers the golden goose. This is Ryan's big move, and success or failure, this will be his legacy.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

Without quantifying what is considered a success or a failure, we can't say. If a game recoups its dev/marketing costs and earns a decent profit, then that could possibly be considered a success and it won't have to be the next Fortnite or Genshin Impact to do so. SIEs lives service games are going to run the gamut in terms of scope, team size and budgets.




It's like some folks still don't understand. All of these steps - the live service games, PlayStation productions, premium subscriptions, premium accessories, expanding to more platforms, acquiring more studios than ever before and expanding existing studios... all of that, is designed to help SIE grow and become more self sufficient to weather any storm that may come. Traditional game budgets have ballooned over the last decade and by expanding their footprint in new ways and opening up new revenue streams, SIE are ensuring they have a stronger overall business to help keep funding all those wonderful traditional games that everyone loves. A rising tide lifts all boats and all of these new initiatives are designed to fortify SIEs flotilla to ensure to help ensure none of them sink.

Hoping that the live service games fail is also hoping that one of the revenue streams that will help fund their traditional games will also fail. Every single person who loves Sonys traditional games should be hoping that SIE finds great success with the live service games so they can remain self sufficient and fund even more projects on the whole. Wishing for them to fail would be like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's honestly stupid to wish that they fail.

I don't have to hope for most of them to fail because they will. That's just how live service games are. Then they'll just use the revenue from the few that are successful to fund future attempts.

Traditional games is why I've used every Playstation as my main console since the 90s lol. I want that to be their primary focus which it isn't and is only projected to get worse.

 

[RTX4070]

Cant vote yet but 80% will fail. The times are changing. Gaas fails or is super popular there is almost no in beetween. And most fail spectacularly. Since making games takes years. When the games done so much changed that its failing.

 

[Lupin25]

50-75%

Live-service has become a very fickle genre... To grasp a large audience requires lots of resources and innovative gameplay loops to continuously retain a player base.

Activision-Blizzard, EA, Take-Two, Epic & Bungie all have the resources and expertise to succeed in doing this, but not all of their live-service games have been successful.

MLB: The Show 23/24***
Helldivers 2***
Fairgame$
The Last of Us Pt. II Factions
Marathon***
Concord
Twisted Metal (Reboot)
London Studios’ Unannounced MP Title
Deviation Games’ Unannounced MP Shooter

We have to see more. Will they all be similar in quality?
That remains to be seen.
My prediction is possibly less than half (***) will be up to par even with Sony’s and Bungie’s quality stamp of approval.
Who knows though.

 

[Ar¢tos]

To think that they sacrificed their cool, often innovative, AA games to do GAAS shit...

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

They do see it. And that's why they're launching so many: they want a "Call of Duty", not twelve different versions of "The Division 2". By launching so many, they're evidently happy for most of them to die. If they die because they were eaten by a bigger Sony GaaS, that's probably a good thing - Sony wants something as big as "Call of Duty", not a flash-in-the-pan "Fall Guys". All that matters is that one of their studios delivers the golden goose. This is Ryan's big move, and success or failure, this will be his legacy.

I guess we will see.

Apparently Sony thinks MLB The Show is a Live Service. That's likely a successful game at this point.

Helldivers II is coming later this year.

It would be crazy if their first two Live Service games are successful right off the bat. You'd almost have to reconsider your position, right?

 

[8BiTw0LF]

80% will succeed - make profit. 40% will be major successes.

 

[Doctor Hades]

Not interested in *any* live service game personally so I will not be buying any for my PS5. Absolutely not interested in Helldivers 2 at all and never played the original either.

 

[Spaceman292]

I hope all of them

 

[Hudo]

I am enough of a resentful fucker that I want that blatant abuse of the Marathon IP to fail.

 

[Damigos]

All will fail. Not necessarily because they will not be good games. But because its not in the playstation's DNA to create these games.
And personally i hope they will fail, as i hate anything with season passes, battles passes, micro transactions, cosmetic shops etc

 

[vivftp]

I don't have to hope for most of them to fail because they will. That's just how live service games are. Then they'll just use the revenue from the few that are successful to fund future attempts.

Traditional games is why I've used every Playstation as my main console since the 90s lol. I want that to be their primary focus which it isn't and is only projected to get worse.

Well again we have to quantify what precisely success and failure are. Statistically yeah some will bomb, just like any other assortment of games. No doubt Sony are taking a bit of a scattershot approach and are hedging their bets. When this initiative began in 2019 they knew that not every game that started dev would make it across the finish line (ie. Deviations game seems to be cancelled), so starting with a larger initial number of projects means more get across the finish line. Of course that's nothing new, many single player traditional games get started and cancelled as well. They're ensuring they've got a wide assortment of titles from a wide assortment of studios to try and cater to different groups of gamers out there. We'll just have to see what all of these projects are, and how gamers react to them. There really is to know which will strike it big and which won't, which again is why it's a good idea to start with more projects than fewer.

PlayStations focus is on making games, full stop. Quite frankly, you're not their only customer. Tens of millions of people play all manner of live service games on their PlayStations and Sony wants some of those games to be their own. They're not making any less traditional games now than they have in the past, so you're still getting everything you've loved from them up until now. Only now they've expanded their footprint to include a wider variety of games.

Plus, it's not like single player gamers can't play live service games. How many single player gamers play MLB? Or Destiny 2? Both can be played and enjoyed for countless hours by single player gamers without having to play with friends or spending a single extra cent. Truth of the matter is that we don't know much about the vast majority of the live service games SIE are making and it's entirely possible that some of them can be enjoyed by single player gamers as well. Not to mention we know that Sony are planning to inject their talent for making games with strong narratives into these live service endeavors, Hermen's said as much multiple times. SIE are basically looking to take what folks adore from their traditional games and inject some of that DNA into their live service games by introducing strong narratives and high production values. That's friggin' amazing and I can't wait to see how they turn out.

 

[Drizzlehell]

I've no idea. I only know that literally none of them look even remotely interesting to me. Like, Helldivers? Tf is this shit? They have a triple-A publisher like Sony backing the development and all they can come up with is a generic alien shooter that looks like something that you'd find on Steam Early Access for 20 bucks?

 

[vivftp]

I've no idea. I only know that literally none of them look even remotely interesting to me. Like, Helldivers? Tf is this shit? They have a triple-A publisher like Sony backing the development and all they can come up with is a generic alien shooter that looks like something that you'd find on Steam Early Access for 20 bucks?

Did you whine this much when that same triple-A publisher also published Helldivers in 2015? Helldivers 2 is a huge leap up from the original and brings it into the AAA realm - the studios first AAA game. Just like Returnal was Housemarques first AAA game.

 

[Radical Dreamer]

Most of them

 

[MiyazakiLoVesKojima]

Men_in_Boxes is the MVP of making garbage-tier threads such as this one.

Be less obvious with the rhetoric next time.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Define failure for a GAAS title.

Not every game has to make Fortnite money, nor every game should last 10 yrs of support.

Say, if a small game sold a million and had players play for a couple of years, that also could also be successful.

But most would consider it a failure cause it got shut down in 2 years.

 

[GymWolf]

Hopefully all of them.

 

[MrA]

Hopefully everyone that isn't a good core game with intrusive mtx will fail,
I personally don't have an issue with gaas, along as it is only part of the pie, and as long as the core game is good and the mtx aren't intrusive. Of factions plays as well or better than the original I'm all for it, if it's skinner box garbage I hope it fails.
I find the companies that go all in chasing trends baffling investing 101 is diversify your portfolio and a game developer/ publishers investments are it's products why it would bet all in on one concept is short sighted

 

[Drizzlehell]

Did you whine this much when that same triple-A publisher also published Helldivers in 2015? Helldivers 2 is a huge leap up from the original and brings it into the AAA realm - the studios first AAA game. Just like Returnal was Housemarques first AAA game.

Except Returnal is a good game with a unique hook and imaginative visual style. Helldivers looks about as imaginative as pictures from Shutterstock.

 

[ZehDon]

... It would be crazy if their first two Live Service games are successful right off the bat. You'd almost have to reconsider your position, right?

Trying to position Helldivers 2 as a barometer for Sony's billion-dollar GaaS gamble is kind of silly. Sony aren't interested in twelve different early access games with niche communities; they want long tail games with monstrous revenue streams to offset the eye-watering USD$220m+ development budgets they're committing to elsewhere. MLB: The Show doing its typical numbers isn't going to cut it - even with the Xbox platform now contributing for that title. Sony want their own "Call of Duty". Helldivers 2 might do fine initially, but there's little chance it'll be successful enough to justify "Destiny"-like publisher investment or ever hope to see "Fortnite"-like returns. Titles like that run a one-year road map and then they're basically discontinued. That's clearly not the plan for their major GaaS titles, like Marathon or Naughty Dog's troubled TLOU multiplayer game - the titles expected to rake in the money for years and years and years. Sony's betting big on GaaS, but their real bets haven't started landing yet. When they do, we can discuss it more. Right now, all we can say for certain is that this gamble will define Ryan's PlayStation, for better or for worse.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

PlayStations focus is on making games, full stop. Quite frankly, you're not their only customer. Tens of millions of people play all manner of live service games on their PlayStations and Sony wants some of those games to be their own. They're not making any less traditional games now than they have in the past, so you're still getting everything you've loved from them up until now. Only now they've expanded their footprint to include a wider variety of games.

They're investing more in live service than traditional games right now. And that gap is going to widen going forward so that's their primary focus.

Never said I was their only customer. I'm going to root against them changing to a strategy that doesn't align with my own self interests.

Sony has already been growing plenty lately and they could be investing that in more traditional games.

Not to mention we know that Sony are planning to inject their talent for making games with strong narratives into these live service endeavors, Hermen's said as much multiple times. SIE are basically looking to take what folks adore from their traditional games and inject some of that DNA into their live service games by introducing strong narratives and high production values. That's friggin' amazing and I can't wait to see how they turn out.

Kind of exactly my point lol. I'd rather they not be wasting talent on live service games.

 

[The Cockatrice]

The more, the better. Not just PS, but Xbox, Pc, etc. any gaas game can foad.

 

[vivftp]

Except Returnal is a good game with a unique hook and imaginative visual style. Helldivers looks about as imaginative as pictures from Shutterstock.

You have absolutely no basis for that assertation. The original game found its audience for what it was, and now they aim to scale it up to try and capture a much broader audience.

They're investing more in live service than traditional games right now. And that gap is going to widen going forward so that's their primary focus.

Never said I was their only customer. I'm going to root against them changing to a strategy that doesn't align with my own self interests.

Sony has already been growing plenty lately and they could be investing that in more traditional games.

Kind of exactly my point lol. I'd rather they not be wasting talent on live service games.

They are investing to get a massive new initiative off the ground, that requires a large investment in developmental and post-launch support. As I pointed out earlier, rooting against the live service push is shooting yourself in the foot because success with the live service push will only HELP Sony to fund more overall games, including more traditional games. It doesn't matter one iota if it doesn't align with your own self interests because you'd still benefit from the live service games succeeding. I'm not sure why this is such a hard point to grasp.

As for "wasting talent". Only a selfish, shortsighted person would view it as a waste. This is what those studios want to do and what all those devs want to do. They're applying their talent to create new things. It makes no difference if it doesn't specifically cater to you, they're trying to cater to the tens or even hundreds of millions of others who might be interested. I would suggest trying to look beyond your own short term, short sighted goals and try to look at the bigger picture to see what's good for SIE.

 

[Drizzlehell]

You have absolutely no basis for that assertation.

As a matter of fact I do because we can already look at plenty of pre-release materials to form an opinion about the game's visual style. And it looks generic.

 

[vivftp]

As a matter of fact I do because we can already look at plenty of pre-release materials to form an opinion about the game's visual style. And it looks generic.

Well then that's your opinion and you're free to it. It's not a fact, of course. no doubt many others had the opinion that Returnal looked like uninspired dreck.

Maybe more pre-release info on Helldivers 2 will change your mind. After all, all we have so far is a CG trailer and a gameplay trailer with a bunch of quick cuts. Hardly enough to form a solid opinion, IMO

 

[MiyazakiLoVesKojima]

I imagine virtually all of them will fail. GaaS titles demand insane amounts of time and money from players. Launching lots of them means Sony will be competing against themselves for that time and money, and, because players don't have infinite amounts of either, players will quickly drop many of these titles just as they do the dozens of failed GaaS that litter Steam.

I also imagine a good number will launch in a pretty bad state. It seems Naughty Dog's first attempt was a non-starter, and they're having to re-work the core of their TLOU GaaS. Sony's support studios and internal QA were all re-configured for single player cinematic games across the last two gens. That won't change overnight, meaning their ability to service that many GaaS isn't strong. Sony are clearly putting a lot of stock in Bungie to drive success here, but the current state of Destiny 2 leaves a lot to be desired. If Bungie is serving as their guide into the world of GaaS, I can only imagine Bungie will push for dark patterns and content grinds at the heart of many of these games. That's not why fans buy PlayStation.

It all adds up to my expectations of several low quality titles from their small studios, some high quality titles from their larger studios that die due to content droughts and a lack of experience, and maybe one that truly lands strong - but no where near the Fortnite-level juggernaut Ryan is gambling for.

The level of confidence in your post is incredible, especially coming from a lesser-known developer in an industry that's truly experiencing a brain drain.

Your post reminded me of the typical Jez/Warren hit pieces with the usual FUD rhetoric & clever (albeit specious) arguments trying to make it sound like Sony will fail inevitably because "my writing says so".

You & your "lads" are soon going to be exposed to the entire world, and what we got over the past few months was just a preview.

Did you really think Karma wouldn't come back around?

The question ye must answer for yourself is a simple one.

If what ye say is true, why does PlayStation not see it?

Surely, this idea has been brought forth to PlayStations leadership. Why have they disregarded it and tripled down on GAAS? If you can answer that question, then you are on the path to becoming a high level gamer.

You're seriously an unfunny person.

 

[midnightAI]

Somewhere between all of them and none of them is my guess, but what do I know?

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

They are investing to get a massive new initiative off the ground, that requires a large investment in developmental and post-launch support. As I pointed out earlier, rooting against the live service push is shooting yourself in the foot because success with the live service push will only HELP Sony to fund more overall games, including more traditional games. It doesn't matter one iota if it doesn't align with your own self interests because you'd still benefit from the live service games succeeding. I'm not sure why this is such a hard point to grasp.

As for "wasting talent". Only a selfish, shortsighted person would view it as a waste. This is what those studios want to do and what all those devs want to do. They're applying their talent to create new things. It makes no difference if it doesn't specifically cater to you, they're trying to cater to the tens or even hundreds of millions of others who might be interested. I would suggest trying to look beyond your own short term, short sighted goals and try to look at the bigger picture to see what's good for SIE.

They don't need live service games. They've been killing it without them. And if this new strategy of investing more in live service than traditional is more profitable then they're just going to keep doing it.

I'd rather they let the 3rd parties chase the next Fortnite while Sony does what they've always done.

 

[odhiex]

It would be tough to manage every one of them to be successful (depending on the metrics of measuring success). However, I do agree that most of the announced Sony live-service titles would not have a long life, and that's okay. As long as they are generating money, Sony would be happy to keep them alive and they can just shut them down if they are bleeding money.

 

[trent_the_gent]

They all look uninspiring and samey as fuck so hopefully they all bomb and the entire godawful concept of GaaS gets killed off.

 

[Heaven Angel]

I think most of them will fail, perhaps 1 or in rare case 2 might succeed but that also won't see much longetivety. Live service/GaaS games are extremely competitive and the market is already cluttered with it.

Also, Helldivers 2 is a GaaS title? I thought it's just a Singleplayer / co-op game.
It looked good in the trailer, if it's a proper GaaS title then I'll loose all the interest I had and probably won't bother about it.

 

[Fbh]

Depends on your definition of fail.
When talking about GAAS everyone instantly jumps to Fortnite or Apex Legends and I don't think a lot of the Sony games (if any) will have that level of success. The one with the highest chance right now is probably Marathon.
But then there are games like For Honor, which you don't really hear about often and which isn't breaking any playerbase records but has kept on going with a small but dedicated fanbase for 6 years to the point that Ubisoft is STILL releasing content updates every week. I could see a few of their games doing the same, not really becoming a big success but also not dying and going offline like Babylon's Fall

 

[midnightAI]

They all look uninspiring and samey as fuck so hopefully they all bomb and the entire godawful concept of GaaS gets killed off.

Do they? I genuinely havent seen gameplay of them all other than Helldivers 2 (and is that really a GaaS game?)

 

[Calverz]

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.

You forgot Fairgame.

 

[Heaven Angel]

Generally, after sometime nobody cares about GaaShit games unless they get extremely successful like COD. People tend to loose interest much faster nowadays. A left player is almost a never coming back certainty. The chances of GaaS games being successful is getting drastically shorter each day.

 

[schaft0620]

Helldivers 2: Pass
MLB: Pass
Concord: Fail
Marathon: Pass
Sony London: Fail
Naughty Dog: Fail
Horizon: Mid
Destiny 3: Pass
Gran Turismo: Pass
Twisted Metal: Pass
Fairgames: Mid
Devation: Canceled
Media Molacule: Fail

 

[GymWolf]

Lol at people thinking that helldivers 2 is now AAA because it improved the graphic and changed camera view

 

[StealthGoblin]

A majority I’d assume as they’ll cannibalise their own player bases.

What is interesting to me is what will happen to the studios - will they get a chance another IP, work on a smaller game, or become a support studio for the successful GAAS games.

 

[Kikorin]

I think about 80%, but if even just 20% will works they'll can celebrate for years.

 

[T0minator]

They don't need live service games. They've been killing it without them. And if this new strategy of investing more in live service than traditional is more profitable then they're just going to keep doing it.

I'd rather they let the 3rd parties chase the next Fortnite while Sony does what they've always done.

Diversifying their 1st party line is extremely important. Sony will continue to do what they've always done, but adding in more games that generate some additional revenue yearly helps with their high budget single player games

Games like Concord NEED to hit, it would be smart for PS to be strong in every genre, so they won't have to be in scenerios where 3rd parties like Activision being taken away won't be an issue, for Nintendo it isn't.

PS needs their own Fighting game, FPS game, GaaS game other than Destiny.

Utilizing all their IP into a GaaS would be smart (character fighting game, character racing game, PS character sports game , it would be cross advertising for casuals to want to get their single player games with those characters

 

[mitch1971]

 

[Calverz]

A majority I’d assume as they’ll cannibalise their own player bases.

What is interesting to me is what will happen to the studios - will they get a chance another IP, work on a smaller game, or become a support studio for the successful GAAS games.

Shuttered

 

[Pasta la Vista]

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

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Trying to position Helldivers 2 as a barometer for Sony's billion-dollar GaaS gamble is kind of silly. Sony aren't interested in twelve different early access games with niche communities; they want long tail games with monstrous revenue streams to offset the eye-watering USD$220m+ development budgets they're committing to elsewhere. MLB: The Show doing its typical numbers isn't going to cut it - even with the Xbox platform now contributing for that title. Sony want their own "Call of Duty". Helldivers 2 might do fine initially, but there's little chance it'll be successful enough to justify "Destiny"-like publisher investment or ever hope to see "Fortnite"-like returns. Titles like that run a one-year road map and then they're basically discontinued. That's clearly not the plan for their major GaaS titles, like Marathon or Naughty Dog's troubled TLOU multiplayer game - the titles expected to rake in the money for years and years and years. Sony's betting big on GaaS, but their real bets haven't started landing yet. When they do, we can discuss it more. Right now, all we can say for certain is that this gamble will define Ryan's PlayStation, for better or for worse.

I'm not trying to position Helldivers II as a barometer for Live Service success.

I'm trying to show people who think "Most will fail but all they need is one Fortnite level megahit to succeed" is faulty thinking.

All these games need to do to be viewed as a success is to reach a certain level of profitability. Deep Rock Galactic, Sea of Thieves, Fallout 76, and For Honor are successful games. Setting the barometer for success as creating the "next Fortnite juggernaut" is faulty thinking. Arrowhead is a smaller studio and Helldivers II isn't costing 220 million dollars.

It's likely that ~80% of these games will be profitable. I think the "SP only" people don't like that idea.

 

[mckmas8808]

Most live service games die within a couple months, dont think sony is any safer from that statistic.

What is even success? What if Helldivers 2 goes to sell 1 million units and is a good game that rates at an 84% on Metacritic and people play it a good 4-6 strong months? Is that a failure for THAT game?

 

[YeulEmeralda]

I don't have to hope for most of them to fail because they will. That's just how live service games are. Then they'll just use the revenue from the few that are successful to fund future attempts.

Traditional games is why I've used every Playstation as my main console since the 90s lol. I want that to be their primary focus which it isn't and is only projected to get worse.

You can't expect Sony to ignore how the market has changed. Adapt or die.

 

[diffusionx]

What is even success? What if Helldivers 2 goes to sell 1 million units and is a good game that rates at an 84% on Metacritic and people play it a good 4-6 strong months? Is that a failure for THAT game?

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.