Shuhei Yoshida: Gaming Dominated by Service Games Would be 'Boring' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 May 2023 / 4,404 Views
PlayStation Head of Independent Developer Initiative Shuhei Yoshida in a new interview with The Guardian said the video game industry keeps growing and he hopes it keeps supporting "creative ideas" and that the top of the charts potentially being dominated by service games would be "boring."
"The games industry will never cease to be a fun place," said Yoshida.
"The industry keeps growing and growing, and I hope it keeps supporting and chasing creative ideas and people who try to work on new things. You don’t want to see the Top 10 games every year being almost the same, all games becoming service games … That would be a bit boring, for me."
Yoshida also discussed the success of Journey and its impact on the industry and on the people who played it.
"When that game received all its game-of-the-year awards – not just the best indie game, but the best game, against all these AAA titles, it started something," said Yoshida.
"It had such impact on the people who played. You could finish it in four hours but it’s about life and death, and people who have gone through family or close friends passing away could reflect on things they experienced as they played. I am so fortunate to have been involved with it."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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He's right.
Absolutely.
Totally agree.
The amount of monetization has already made gaming boring.
I don't think it's made all of gaming, but I agree it has certainly had a detrimental effect.
Wouldn't say exactly boring, but yes it isn't to my liking and in some cases ruined great games/series.
I agree, I think service games are good and have a place, I really like this game that I go to every evening to play with my friends for instance (I'm playing a lot of Diablo, Heroes of the Storm) to be service games with new content and update (well, sucks to be me with Heroes, game is dead but you see the point).
And then those AAA games like Horizon, Starfield, Zelda, etc... That should be an amazing and dedicated experience.
Even a future with only single player experience would be boring (I don't play MP or GAAS games, but why cut variety right?)
Doubt it. I only play single player. Never a dull moment.
I wouldn't mind at all if all games were SP, but for the gaming space itself it would be boring to lack the variety.
He's not wrong.
If gaming is dominated by services we will no longer own anything.
I know it's boring to ME. Heck, even digital downloads are boring to me. But I suspect the average twelve-year-old of today won't feel that way. My daughter's a teenager and grew up with this sort of thing, and while she enjoys collecting, streaming and digital to her is no different than physical NES carts were to me back in the day. Or at least that's what she believes. My guess is that she would feel the way I do if she'd known that world, but that's besides the point.
It's to be determined whether or not gaming as a service will take over. But if we're arguing that it won't because it's boring, my opinion would lean toward no, because that seems to fall along generational lines, rather than being a strictly objective experience.
They cant all just be multiplayer first person shooters. We need the big single player experiances. 100% agree with him.
exactly, nothing is more disgusting than seeing Microtransaction and live-service games like FIFA and madden toping the charts every week
That is a future that we know is coming since the market (including customers) are pushing/accepting for it, but even if GAAS keep increasing I hope we can still keep place for a healthy number of experiences that match my taste.
kind of reminds me of this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ro6y8VQlOA
Most live service games sucks,
Only a few games can pull it off like Apex legends for an example.
And shitty
Indeed.
Variety is always nice, we all know that. The industry already is dominated by GaaS. Just look at the top 20 played PS5 games by active users for March. All GaaS except two games, Hogwarts in the top ten and barely cracking the top 20 is Ragnorok.
But there will always be developers and publishers pushing experiences with an actual end and structure.
The gaming industry is already dominated by service games
I wouldn't personally say dominated, but they've certainly left their mark in a lot of games that are nor necessarily service games. Relatively few big releases seem to not have any service-like features at this point, but I think full-on service games still don't dominate the industry (except perhaps in revenue, but there still seems to be room for other kinds of games as well).
Despite al the different Industry statement's reiterating a commitment to SP/MP games , my first concern is the best outcome is dependent on a growing gaming market that allows for both GaaS and traditional genres to both continue on an upward path, so for this exercise we will assume that it is indeed expanding , so then the percentage of the investment pool going into new GaaS relative to new traditional games becomes an issue.
My other concern is not so much about new GaaS titles, but the industry taking successful established games and turning them into GaaS tiles, now I don't mind there being a GaaS or mmo version of a successful title as long as it's an adjunct to the game and not a replacement.
Very much true spin-off GAAS/MP of some titles are even welcome if well done, but keep the original core game also going. And some elements of GAAS or MP in some games can also even improve that game, but that is likely only applicable to a minority of titles.
