Support NeoGAF

[Fabieter]

If enough of them bomb Sony will have to deal with the fallout. Their own fans will start turning on them, and the vibe around the console will shift.

I hope for sony that they won't ask 70$/80 euro for gaas games they believe have a big chance to fail. I will happily try some of them if they are free or cheap but I don't trust sony with servers enough to get a single one for fullprice.

 

[kikkis]

The fried dopamine receptor types who get hooked on the gaas drip drip and spend all their money in game, heavy overlap with onlyfans simp crowd, they spend a lot in game.

Thank you, Fortnite.

eh, same could be said that story driven single player are for friendless losers looking for surrogate friends in games, and heavy overlap with virgins looking to "date" their JRPG waifus.

 

[Neolombax]

Market research probably showed this trend most likely. High player engagements, if done right, can generate a lot of revenue. I personally don't have any issues with GaaS games. It gives me steady access to content.

 

[Fabieter]

Market research probably showed this trend most likely. High player engagements, if done right, can generate a lot of revenue. I personally don't have any issues with GaaS games. It gives me steady access to content.

but how many gaas do you play at a time and does it take away from buying single player games? If they are successful than it will cannibalise into their sp revenue which won't be good for us longterm.

 

[X-Wing]

The casuals that actually make Sony all the money. Only some old fart forum dwellers are crying about it, but in the real world people like to play (these) games.

Exactly.

Also from a strategical point of view it makes sense. Some of the biggest games in the world are GAAS, with competition lining up to starve PlayStation out of these titles they kinda need to establish a couple successful ones if they don't want to be left behind. PSN is also a important source of revenue, GAAS will help increase it alongside subscription numbers for PS+.

 

[Cyborg]

Money
Money
Money
MONEYYYYYYY

Came to say this Sony is looking at the competition and thinking we need that cash cow!

 

[Neolombax]

but how many gaas do you play at a time and does it take away from buying single player games? If they are successful than it will cannibalise into their sp revenue which won't be good for us longterm.

I personally play them in tandem. Been playing Destiny for years now, but it has yet to stop me from buying first party Sony games day one, and finishing them. The latest sp game I finished was Jedi Survivor, and then the weekend after I replayed Rift Apart to finish off the challenge mode.

I can only speak for myself, but I cant play GaaS games for too long a stretch, the repetition will quickly sink in and thats when I normally switch to sp games. Its always nice coming back to Destiny whenever new content drops or just to finish off daily or weekly objectives, but it has never hindered me from playing sp.

I personally don't think GaaS games will oversaturate the game market, even coming from Sony specifically, because GaaS games are very hard to develop and sustain. There are very few successful ones. My guess is Sony will aim to develop a few GaaS games, and then focus on one or two that really has legs and let the others die off on their own.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Half of my buddies (on both PC and Consoles) are playing mostly - if not only - GaaS games...
The market speaks for itself.

 

[reksveks]

The interesting things to think about isn't how many will fail, it's what's the lessons and steps that Sony takes after some fail.

 

[Fabieter]

I personally play them in tandem. Been playing Destiny for years now, but it has yet to stop me from buying first party Sony games day one, and finishing them. The latest sp game I finished was Jedi Survivor, and then the weekend after I replayed Rift Apart to finish off the challenge mode.

I can only speak for myself, but I cant play GaaS games for too long a stretch, the repetition will quickly sink in and thats when I normally switch to sp games. Its always nice coming back to Destiny whenever new content drops or just to finish off daily or weekly objectives, but it has never hindered me from playing sp.

I personally don't think GaaS games will oversaturate the game market, even coming from Sony specifically, because GaaS games are very hard to develop and sustain. There are very few successful ones. My guess is Sony will aim to develop a few GaaS games, and then focus on one or two that really has legs and let the others die off on their own.

It's highly likely yea but imagine the customer perception buying into the wrong games. There is flood coming and you won't tell what's sticking. They really have to make most of them f2p.

Is destiny 2 your only gaas. Because I figured most people have only 1 or 2 gaas games at once.

 

[Celine]

It's Sony who run the bean counter and they perfecctly know that in the last few FY of the whole SIE revenue related to "game software", MTX (add-on content) accounts for more than half.
The console manufacturer that isn't heavily leveraging MTX for its bottom line is Nintendo.

 

[Neolombax]

It's highly likely yea but imagine the customer perception buying into the wrong games. There is flood coming and you won't tell what's sticking. They really have to make most of them f2p.

Is destiny 2 your only gaas. Because I figured most people have only 1 or 2 gaas games at once.

Yea, it is. I tried The Division, didn't stick. COD kinda GaaS too these days, but that didn't stick either, the last one I bothered to play all of the seasons was MW.

 

[WhamBamThankYouMaam]

All I know is that I will be pmaying less playstation games. They won’t notice, however.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Game publishers:


Also, if you don't think that you're the target demo for these games, ask yourself if you've ever played one of them for any significant amount of time. If the answer's yes, then you are absolutely the target demo. The only catch is that this is a fad that will pass sooner or later because the more companies try to jump on the band wagon, the more tired we all are with their games, not to mention diminishing returns causing developers to cut budgets and corners, leading to more lackluster games as time goes on. Eventually the bandwagon will finish its tour around the globe and the fad will shrink down to just those few games that were always the most profitable, while everyone else will give up trying and move on to something else.

A hugely contributing factor to why these companies try to push the live service model and MTX into various genres are sports games. Games like FIFA are gigantic money makers thanks to monetisation schemes, and you best believe that it's mostly the older guys like us who are playing those games the most. So naturally, publishers wouldl ove nothing more than to see the same schemes being transplanted to other types of games too. And what about that study that someone posted recently in another thread that says that the biggest gaming demographic is around 30-40 years old? Yeah, you do the math...

I for one, have played a few live service games - and enjoyed them a lot. Destiny 2, The Division 1 and 2, Diablo 3, Elder Scrolls Online, etc. I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with those games in particular and it's just all the monetization crap surrounding them that sucks. But to be honest, I never ever spent any money on anything other than the base game and maybe some expansion packs, i.e. stuff that you'd normally pay for when simply purchasing a video game. Never did I feel forced to pay for any skins, in-game currencies, or other extra bollocks that came along with these monetization schemes, and just enjoyed whatever content was available with my base game purchases. If you don't want to have anything to do with this crap then vote with your wallet and don't spend money on it. Once the scheme will stop bringing in enough revenue, it will go away on its own, there's no other way to get rid of it, period.

 

[Crayon]

I think if we can figure out who likes money we'll be hot on the trail of this mystery.

 

[Dick Jones]

The aim is that at least 1 of the GaaS stick with the general market. If they stick there is more money to use to grow the business with traditional single player experiences and invest in other companies and creating partnerships [note I didn't say buy major companies]. It is a necessary evil but if they get the next Fortnite going, they will be set up to have more studios making more games, some will have GaaS elements unfortunately.

If I were Sony I'd look for a GaaS of Fall Guys. Free to play and earn costumes/characters and have stages inspired by levels from Sony's IP. Keep working on that separately. Fall Guys reddit seems to have hated the laziness of releasing new stuff. New IP comes ou, so have stages and characters release in anticipation of that release inspired by the new game.

To be honest, how Nintendo don't have their own Fall Guys is bizarre.

 

[KungFucius]

Thank you for saying this.

What I find outrageous is the fact that all the money they are using to invest in GAAS studios/games has come from the customers who purchase their consoles for the SP games over the years.

They are behaving like morons.

Isn't spending money received as profits to expand into different markets good business? Sony is the top dog in the console space when not including Nintendo. They know they only have to release 2 big exclusives in a year and will continue to do that until something makes them change. Why wouldn't they try to capture some GaaS money?

I hope they fail because I don't like games that are designed to manipulate players into spending money. It feels like shit playing them. It also seems that there is a limited market for these type of things and that a moonshot is required to be really successful.

 

[GHG]

Isn't spending money received as profits to expand into different markets good business?

And why should I care about that exactly if it's not resulting in products that I want?

Look at EA as an example - great from a business perspective, lucrative GAAS across majority of their portfolio and they've recently had record years from a financial perspective, yet they make fuck all that I'm interested in. So if Sony want to go down that path, where the pursuit becomes about money above anything else and they abandon their core values in the process (as in what makes playstation playstation and what made me a customer in the first place) then it's quite simple, I'm out. Xbox went down a similar path after the 360 (yet I still made the mistake of buying an OG Xbox One), I said bye bye and they've done nothing since that makes me want to return.

Sony are only doing 2 big single player exclusives a year of late because they are choosing to and are redirecting investment elsewhere, that much is evident. If they continue on this tragectory soon it will be just one and then before we know it we end up with Xbox's 2022.

What people fail to realise is that GaaS is capital/resource intensive, more so than single player games in many ways due to the ongoing attention and investment required. Look at what has happened to companies like Valve and Rockstar since they stumbled upon TF2 and GTA online respectively. A lot of their focus becomes about milking those games instead of making more Half Life's and single player GTA experiences. Playstation will suffer the same fate while embarking on this path, regardless of whether any of their GAAS games are successful, the allure of highly lucrative success being right around the corner is too much.

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

No one is asking for GaaS games from Sony. The market is already saturated. Mindshare already allocated. It’s impossible to keep up with multiple GaaS game seasons at once. I truly hope that GaaS is a fad that dies but sadly I think it’s here to stay.

 

[Fabieter]

They are only doing 2 big single player exclusives a year of late because they are choosing to and are redirecting investment elsewhere, that much is evident.

Iam also dont believe they still has sp games as the focus as they claim. Its a similar claim for "japan is still super importent to us". The direction is pretty clear actually and it goes against what made playstation great for almost three decades.

 

[ToadMan]

There was a time some people complained Sony didn’t make multiplayer or FPS games…

 

[lyan]

Was it resisted strongly though? Vocally maybe but in practice, it's hard to tell and even harder to tell for Sony's first party games.

All the "money hungry" corps must have done enough market analysis and research to know that is the case, otherwise we would be seeing $150 games now only to match inflation without even taking into account increase in development costs.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

I believe it’s Jim Ryan and that other tool, Herman Hulst.

This has everything to do with the success of Warzone and Fortnite and Sony wanting a piece of that pie. It’s absolutely going to bite them in the ass though without a shadow of a doubt. None of what they showed in that area looked remotely interesting or original.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

There was a time some people complained Sony didn’t make multiplayer or FPS games…

Making multiplayer games is good. I think almost all of us were thinking along the lines of Killzone MP, Warhawk or SOCOM. Nobody asked for some shitty Splatoon rip off or another fucking extraction shooter.

 

[X-Wing]

Dunno man, I don't play multiplayer games but Helldivers 2 looked dope.

 

[GHG]

There was a time some people complained Sony didn’t make multiplayer or FPS games…

Here's the important thing to note, those people are a very loud minority who don't game on Playstation and that much is evidenced by the numbers the competing platform that they come from is currently putting up. They cry about the popularity of the Sony "3rd person cinematic" exclusives - well fuck you, millions of gamers really value those experiences because no other company has been focused on making those experiences of late, especially not to the level of quality that Sony has managed to produce over the last ~10 years.

So I don't know why Sony are even bothering to take them seriously. The most popular GAAS games are on every platform, Sony already has all the shooters everyone plays and that's not changing any time soon. Their first party has and should continue to be a differentiator, not attempt to duplicate what already exists on their platform. Focusing on GAAS is a nonsense strategy.

 

[X-Wing]

Here's the important thing to note, those people are a very loud minority who don't game on Playstation and that much is evidenced by the numbers the competing platform that they come from is currently putting up. They cry about the popularity of the Sony "3rd person cinematic" exclusives - well fuck you, millions of gamers really value those experiences because no other company has been focused on making those experiences of late, especially not to the level of quality that Sony has managed to produce over the last ~10 years.

So I don't know why Sony are even bothering to take them seriously.

This is also true to hardcore gamers though? Enthusiasts as you find on this and other online boards are not the majority of the PlayStation costumer base...

 

[Fabieter]

This is also true to hardcore gamers though? Enthusiasts as you find on this and other online boards are not the majority of the PlayStation costumer base...

Ofc not but people like us are the most valueable customers and you don't want that base to say bye, you really don't.

 

[X-Wing]

Ofc not but people like us are the most valueable customers and you don't want that base to say bye, you really don't.

Most valuable as in the ones who generate more revenue for them? I don’t know if that is true at all… I’m their worst costumer since I mostly play single player games, buy mostly physical and don’t buy any extras…

 

[reksveks]

All the "money hungry" corps must have done enough market analysis and research to know that is the case, otherwise we would be seeing $150 games now only to match inflation without even taking into account increase in development costs.

Hmm, again a number of assumptions.

This is an obviously a complex issue and whilst the rise of mtx has offset the margin required from SP games, there isn't any evidence that they would have increased it to $150 games if there was no GAAS games. Games have become larger in terms of MAU generally.

There is multiple reasons that GAAS is a trend but to say it's cause of the stagnant price of SP is just very assumptious imo.

 

[noise36]

The answer is always money, its where a lot if not most gaming money is made.

 

[X-Wing]

I also believe GAAS games have a shorter development cycle with lower costs and higher profit margin, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

 

[Fabieter]

Most valuable as in the ones who generate more revenue for them? I don’t know if that is true at all… I’m their worst costumer since I mostly play single player games, buy mostly physical and don’t buy any extras…

I could stop buy games today on Playstation and I would still have way more games as the average consumer at the end of the gen.

I also believe GAAS games have a shorter development cycle with lower costs and higher profit margin, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Epic crunched the hell out when fortnite became a hit to install the resources necessary thar it grows further. It binds a shitton of resources.

 

[GHG]

This is also true to hardcore gamers though? Enthusiasts as you find on this and other online boards are not the majority of the PlayStation costumer base...

See my edit. They can and do already game on Playstation platforms and play the Fortnites of this world if they wish.

However what has enabled Sony to build mindshare and what has (in current day at least) made playstation so popular are the god of wars and last of us' of this world. Those are the types of experiences that you will really struggle to find elsewhere, particularly at that level of overall quality and polish. So someone who might spend 80-90% of their time playing GAAS can supplement that with a God of War or a Horizon Zero Dawn or a Last of Us whenever those games come out.

The moment they stop doing those "supplementary" games then they no longer have a differentiator, and at that point what really separates them from Xbox if they are just focused on adding to the graveyard of failed GAAS like Bleeding Edge and Halo Infinite?

 

[X-Wing]

I could stop buy games today on Playstation and I would still have way more games as the average consumer at the end of the gen.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that they made more money out of you than out of someone who plays only Fortnite but spends hundreds of dollars every month on vBucks.

 

[RoboFu]

Investors

 

[X-Wing]

See my edit. They can and do already game on Playstation platforms and play the Fortnites of this world if they wish.

However what has enabled them to build mindshare and what has (currently) made playstation so popular are the god of wars and last of us' of this world. Those are the types of experiences that you will really struggle to find elsewhere, particularly at that level of overall quality and polish. So someone who might spend 80-90% of their time playing GAAS can supplement that with a God of War or a Horizon Zero Dawn or a Last of Us whenever those games come out.

The moment they stop doing those "supplementary" games then they no longer have a differentiator and at that point what really separates them from Xbox if they are just focused on adding to the graveyard of failed GAAS like Bleeding Edge and Halo Infinite?

I don’t disagree entirely. I just don’t think they are stopping with their single player games, those simply take more time to be ready especially with their obsession with high aggregated scores. GAAS will be important to keep people engaged on their platforms while the single player games are cooking… that’s how I see it.

 

[Fabieter]

That doesn’t necessarily mean that they made more money out of you than out of someone who plays only Fortnite but spends hundreds of dollars every month on vBucks.

That's 1% at best. Most people get the battlepass and call it a day which when you level to 100 you get enough credits to buy the next one without spending extra.

 

[LimanimaPT]

What games are you talking about? The sony showcase didn't show any first party games except for Spiderman and that one is not a gas game.

 

[Three]

I hope for sony that they won't ask 70$/80 euro for gaas games they believe have a big chance to fail. I will happily try some of them if they are free or cheap but I don't trust sony with servers enough to get a single one for fullprice.

They will likely go into PS+ subscriptions. Like MS day one GaaS. This is likely what is driving the push for it much like how it did for MS.

What games are you talking about? The sony showcase didn't show any first party games except for Spiderman and that one is not a gas game.

Concord, FAIR GAME$, Marathon. These are all first party.

 

[Zekra Dezivad]

Thank you for saying this.

What I find outrageous is the fact that all the money they are using to invest in GAAS studios/games has come from the customers who purchase their consoles for the SP games over the years.

They are behaving like morons.

You are delusional, aren't you?
I don't want to break the narrative for the sake of it, but you clearly never read a single sales thread to say such things or you are just lying to yourself. Just go and see where playstation earns the majority of its money. Please sit down before reading, the wake up will be violent

 

[darrylgorn]

Ofc not but people like us are the most valueable customers and you don't want that base to say bye, you really don't.

Are we though?

 

[reksveks]

They will likely go into PS+ subscriptions. Like MS day one GaaS. This is likely what is driving the push for it much like how it did for MS.

Would be the sensible plan, does a raise a minor question for pc users?

Are we though?

Yeah, audience cohort analysis would probably say that re arpu, SP gamers maybe (if this is questionable) but in total revenue, SP gamers may not be.

 

[Three]

Would be the sensible plan, does a raise a minor question for pc users?

If I were a betting man, a price for PC users on steam, just like MS games Halo, SoT etc. Future PC compatible subscription/cloud service from PlayStation also could be possible.

 

[lyan]

Hmm, again a number of assumptions.

This is an obviously a complex issue and whilst the rise of mtx has offset the margin required from SP games, there isn't any evidence that they would have increased it to $150 games if there was no GAAS games. Games have become larger in terms of MAU generally.

There is multiple reasons that GAAS is a trend but to say it's cause of the stagnant price of SP is just very assumptious imo.

Well all we can do here is speculate and assume.

 

[GHG]

I don’t disagree entirely. I just don’t think they are stopping with their single player games, those simply take more time to be ready especially with their obsession with high aggregated scores. GAAS will be important to keep people engaged on their platforms while the single player games are cooking… that’s how I see it.

Do you know what the solution is to that "problem"? Make more single player games.

That way the weighted risk for any one first party single player game reduces dramatically. If Ragnorak flopped last year it's a disaster. If Spiderman 2 flops this year it's a disaster. Ironically this is the exact same position Xbox have found themselves in for years - the over reliance on a single first party game to make or break a year for them, and this year it's Starfield. With Xbox it's got to the point where Phil is so beaten down that he doesn't even want to take any high profile risks anymore and he's at the point where he's just saying "fuck it" and will release Redfall in the state that it's in because "what's the point?" right?

It hasn't always been like this, not too long ago Sony made sure there were at least 3-4 big first party games coming out each year from them. That way if one big ticket game underperforms, no big deal.

Let me give you an example. It's 2015, The Order 1886 comes out, it flops (yeh yeh, some people might look back fondly on it, but let's call a spade a spade, it flopped). But no big deal, you know why? Bloodborne comes out just one month later. Suddenly nobody is talking about The Order anymore, everyone is rushing to the store to buy Bloodborne, to purchase PS4's just to play Bloodborne. That's the impact of not having everything riding on one single game. Later that year, Until Dawn also came out and it was a surprise hit. And overall 2015 was one of the lighter years, there are similar stories for pretty much every year of the PS4 generation. Not every game you make is going to be a huge hit, not every game will review well, that's just the reality of it.

The biggest issue that we are witnessing at the moment is the fact that they are not even trying to make the games that "might not be a hit" anymore. Zero risk with single player first party games. So there is no chance we get something like an until dawn from current Sony, there's no chance we get a Days Gone from current Sony, there's no chance we get a Gravity Rush or even a Driveclub from current Sony. What are they doing instead? Redirecting the money that would have once gone into making those games towards all the GAAS crap they are chasing at the moment. It's a travesty.

Let me make this clear - they have the money, they have the resources, they are now choosing to utilise them in a different way. All the risks they are now taking are in the GAAS space. Why? Because they have seen across the industry that even when a fallout 76 comes out, it still somehow manages to make money.

In summary, we're fucked.

 

[Snake29]

There was a time some people complained Sony didn’t make multiplayer or FPS games…

Hahaha i wanted to post this. You see...the same people are now complaing about Sony investing in MP/GaaS.

I want to see more of these announced games from Haven and Firewalk. Concorde teaser had a great retro Scifi vibe.

 

[reksveks]

Well all we can do here is speculate and assume.

I know, sometimes there is no right answer to what causes what in a complex world. Still nice to talk through it.

 

[Shut0wen]

Only GAAS that seem to work are budget ones

 

[Sakura]

There isn't much room to grow in terms of install base and software sales any more. So they basically need to get more money out of the customers they do have. This is why they start charging for online, then adding other subscription services, and then raising prices of games, etc.
Now they want to make money via games as a service. It doesn't matter if it might be a more risky investment than they realise. The people up top see how much money games like Fortnite or Genshin, or whatever else people are playing, are bringing in, and they want a piece of that pie as well.