GaaS – The “Only” Way Forward - Article
by Mark Nielsen , posted on 05 April 2024 / 4,476 Views
Warner Bros., Ubisoft, Sony... there's no shortage of companies declaring their love for, and intention to pursue, the Live Service or “GaaS” (Games as a service) format these days. The idea is simple: rather than releasing a game as a one and done deal - where you finish it, sell it, and then move on to the next one - you instead opt to make the title an evolving experience, a “service”, that gets continuously updated with new content for years after its initial release, to drive lasting player engagement and lasting revenue through the monetization of this new content.
It's not hard to see why companies feel drawn towards this format. Not only is continued support of an existing title a simpler task than starting from scratch with a new one every few years, it also has the potential to become many times more profitable; a fact both players and companies are continuously reminded of whenever we see games like Fortnite top both the revenue and playtime charts for the umpteenth year in a row. A recent report showed that 60 % of all playtime on PC and consoles last year was spent in games at least six years old, the biggest of which were all GaaS titles.
Another reason why GaaS is increasingly being viewed as the “future” of gaming by certain publishers is the recently growing notion that profit margins on traditional AAA games are too small. This is a topic that could be worthy of article in its own right (along with many other potential solutions), but here I will pose only one question: compared to what? While market and shareholder interest certainly complicate things; at least theoretically, simply making a profit should be viewed as a success in its own right, and even traditional games provide a continuous revenue stream as long as they're still on sale. The problem is that moderate success is rarely viewed as success in the business world, and as long as companies know there’s a bigger pie out there (in this case the GaaS pie, of questionable taste), they’re going to want a piece of it.
This should not be taken as a complete renunciation of the GaaS format, however; I myself have put hundreds of hours into games like World of WarCraft & Hearthstone and greatly enjoyed them. There definitely is a place for GaaS titles in gaming, that place just isn’t everywhere & all the time. The model of continuously evolving and adding to a title can sound appealing on paper, but only if it works for the game in question and isn’t just a way to force in an abundance of microtransaction to (theoretically) increase profits. And the reality that so rarely gets brought up is that that increase is far from guaranteed. Even speaking purely commercially, for every GaaS success story there is also another failure.
Marvel’s Avengers, CrossfireX, Anthem, all high budget titles intended for enduring player commitment and success but which instead struggled right out the gate and eventually had to be shut down. The direst of all cases was perhaps Babylon’s Fall, which despite coming from the usually lauded developer PlatinumGames, barely managed to top 1,000 concurrent players on Steam at its absolute peak and had to shut down after less than a year. And the trend might be getting worse. Even just a few months into this year we’ve seen multiple examples of poorly received GaaS titles likely to fall to the same fate, such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Foamstars, and Skull & Bones.
For traditional games with a finite amount of content and (usually) a beginning and end, players can sit down and experience that game whenever, whether it’s on launch day or 10 years later, but GaaS titles are generally speaking social experiences that live and die by their player base. This is what gives them tremendous potential if one takes of; a chain-reaction of people convincing their friends to play, who in turn convince their friends to play. But the opposite holds just as true. If a GaaS title starts to lose steam or gets off to a weak start from the get-go, it loses a lot of its appeal, and the player base will stagnate or dwindle. This becomes a death-spiral which, unless something major is done from the developer’s side, will only continue until eventually support becomes pointless and it will shut down all together. And that is one of the biggest issues with GaaS releases. With traditional games, even a commercial failure can end up having value to some players for years to come, but a failed GaaS titles is a lose-lose for everyone.
The entire point of GaaS is that they keep players continuously engaged for long periods of time - months, maybe years, as the previously mentioned report has shown. While a passionate gamer can play one, two, or multiple dozen traditional games in a year, nobody is looking to do the same for GaaS titles. Realistically each year can only fit three or four big new GaaS releases, and the further we go beyond that, the higher the failure rates will get. What some companies are seemingly starting to view as the most reliable (or only) way to make a profit in the gaming industry is essentially the same as placing their money in a horserace (or a battle royale, if you will). If half the industry sets its sights on GaaS it won't lead to more Fortnites, it will lead to more Babylon's Falls.
At the end of the day, it's not the quote-unquote “greed” of the industry that worries me; if fully priced AAA titles were $100 in 10 years’ time that would be what it is and I would decide my purchases accordingly. But when financial interests start limiting the types of experiences available and lead companies to play Russian roulette with their development resources (with at least a half-loaded chamber) in hopes of becoming the next viral phenomenon, it undeniably becomes a problem.
In 2018 our own Taneli Palola predicted that the Live Service bubble would burst sooner or later. Six years later we still aren’t quite there - if anything the bubble has grown bigger - but the cracks are certainly starting to show, even if many companies seem blissfully unaware or intentionally willing to play the (rapidly decreasing) odds. It’s hard to say which is the case or which would be more troubling. Warner Bros. gaming boss J.B Perrette recently described traditional AAA games as “volatile”, but while that development approach has its issues as well, in reality it’s the GaaS format that best fits this description, as each title is quite literally as likely to explode in popularity as it is to implode.
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If gaming would become pretty much all ‘GaaS’, it could die for all I care. There’s plenty of old stuff to play.
I do not care for the need of the AAA, luckily we have indies to avoid this crap.
The problem is that the market can only support so many "live service" games. Only a handful can have a healthy population because people have only so much time and money. Personally, the only multiplayer game I've ever really played regularly was Halo, and even that is something I'm steadily losing interest in. If gaming in general moves in an online-only, digital-only direction, then I'll stop supporting the industry. I'll still have over 40 years worth of older games to keep me busy for the remainder of my life.
Just be a 99% retro game like myself. Modern gaming sucks for youngsters, too bad they were born in the 2000's+
GaaS, the only way forward...to losing most of it's longtime millennial gamers.
For the conspiracy theorists, the disease is called Sweet Baby, Blackrock, ESG or any fantasy that cannot be substantiated with evidence.
Careful, you'll bring the cookers out of the woodwork by saying the "SB" word.
It all comes down to the rise of online play. Online means needing to have server capacity. Either invest in it or rent the capacity, either way there are recurring costs.
Games tend to be front heavy with sales, but those online recurring cost will keep going. The only way to match the recurring cost is with recurring revenue. And so we get subscriptions, paid expansions, battle passes, micro transactions, etc.
*This person has been removed from the site over many failed warnings. -- mod.
Only bigoted Nazi's use terms like this.
Only leftists/progressives/they-thems call people nazi.
I'm not a progressive by any means, I don't have an issue with most republicans or most democrats, I don't have a problem with how someone identifies themselves because they are just being themselves. I do have a problem with the use of the word wokeness, not the word itself but the fact that those that use it think that their way of life is the only way to live.
Deal with it.
Why don't you. You cried first. 50 year old baby.
Most people who use 'wokeness' in a negative context don't mean it in such a negative manner as that wokeness can't or shouldn't exist.
They see it as negative because it's something that tends to threaten them, especially if it's being pushed on them directly or indirectly.
To promote wokeness to these people, isn't much different than promoting something like drunk driving from their point of view.
You wanna get wasted all the time, go right ahead, just don't get in your vehicle and possibly collide with the non woke. When it comes to driving, there's no place for drinking, and if you're going to drink and drive, there's likely going to be negative consequences in some form. Same goes for drinking on the job.
That doesn't mean you can't drink and enjoy it if that's your thing, you just have to do it responsibly.
Trying to explain away a 'lifestyle choice' of drinking, that shouldn't be seen as a negative in any manner to others, would just be absurd to them. Taking it further and trying to promote it, is flat out crossing the line as far as they're concerned.
I don't partake in politics but bigots are nazi's. I'm not a they/them. I'm just your everyday cunt. You're pathetic. Act tough but have the thinnest skins. No one cries more than a bigot.
Another they/thems that could not resist. "Tough skin" right?
50 years old lol. Guess you never stopped wearing diapers. Bye now.
You really could not resist :)
