The number one reason why Live Service is the future and I see no one talking about it...

[Men_in_Boxes]

The problem with videogames is that everybody wants to feel like the main character and that’s a hard limit on what these games can be.

This was the best post in the thread thanks to this singular sentence.

However, what's stronger? The need to feel like you're the "main character" or the need to feel like you belong? Remember, games have been giving us the "main character" feeling for most of the mediums existence. That model is now losing to live service.

We're the most social animal on earth and our need for connection is finally starting to be explored in multiplayer. I suspect we're going to see Live Service continue to take over more and more of the market because it serves the two above needs better than single player does.

This is a great book for anyone interested in exploring the topic...

 

[Yurinka]

There is no question that industry investment into Live Service was relatively small prior to 2017.

And yet, these successes were developed in an industry that overwhelmingly invested in traditional single player games. 2017 changed that.

The industry wasn't investing the majority of their resources into Live Service games after 2014. That sea change came after two exponentially bigger hits in PUBG and Fortnite in 2017.

This is just something totally wrong you made out. Nothing changed in 2017, this is a complete bullshit already debunked.

By 2017 all big publishers had been investing hard in GaaS and many of them since decades ago. They all had GaaS, some of them hugely successful, and many also had an important present in (F2P, so GaaS) mobile games. I

Another example in case of Sony could be Fate Grand Order (2015) is known for having made over $7B. Or Gran Turismo moving to GaaS with Gran Turismo Sport (2017, so were investing on its development several years before) after having big success with other GaaS titles like LBP or PS Home plus the SOE ones and others.

In 2017 Valve already had several GaaS hits, Riot's LoL was almost a decade old, WoW was over a decade old and Blizzard had been successful with several other GaaS like Heartstone, Heroes of the Storm, Starcraft II, Diablo III or Overwatch. Activision had several GaaS CoDs o Destiny and more. Square Enix had FFXI and FFIV, Dragon's Quest X, the episodic Hitman (2016). Capcom had SFV or the Asia only MMORPGs MH Online, Dragon's Dogma Online or even Makaimura (Ghost 'n Goblins) Online. Take 2 already had GTA Online, NBA 2K, Evolve, Battleborn and more. And same goes with EA and all the other main publishers. And well obviously the main Chinese and Korean ones too.

And this is only in console/PC. Most of them already had a long presence in GaaS (mostly F2P) in mobile gaming and / or browser gaming. In 2017 most mobile games already were GaaS, and mobile already was generating more revenue than PC and console. In console and specially PC there were many other super successful GaaS, I only mentioned a few of them. In mobile there was almost a decade of a ton of GaaS hits by 2017.

And obviously all these games required juicy investment / budget. You can keep repeating the lie of the gaming industry not investing in GaaS 2017 like a flatearther when proving wrong with a ton of examples.

Mobile is worth ignoring because the console / PC market is the one we're interested in. A huge percentage of the mobile market comes from casual games like Candy Crush

When talking about GaaS and their eras, mobile gaming and these mobile (and back then, browser) casual games are key because they are by far the most important GaaS because of their userbase and revenue, and also because they are the most influential ones.

Most GaaS concepts, techniques and mechanics come from there, not from Fortnite. They were there being super successful way before 2017.

We're talking about eras and level of investment, not start dates.

Nah, you are trying to find excuses to don't accept the truth. Fortnite was just one of the gazillion super successful GaaS that there have been for like 25 years or so that didn't change anything in the market or in the GaaS. Or even in their investments.

Why not engage with the actual OP instead?

It is what I'm doing, explaining why it is totally wrong and why your concept of the supposed eras of GaaS that you made out are totally nonsensical and wrong.

 

[Bryank75]

Seems appropriate to post this here.

Fallout creator on why online games suck now.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

This is just something totally wrong you made out. Nothing changed in 2017, this is a complete bullshit already debunked.

It hasn't been debunked because it's true.

There's a reason why no one on message boards like Icon Era, NeoGAF, or ResetERA was complaining about Live Service games pre 2017...it's because the hivemind of single player gamers believed they were still the primary market being catered too. The uproar over Live Service only started in 2018/2019 when gamers started realizing how much money was being made and how all their favorite companies were transitioning to Live Service orientation. PlayStation announcing aggressive GAAS plans a few years ago, and the meltdown that ensued, encapsulates this perfectly.

You're not going to find a quarterly or yearly report from many of the major publishers in 2014 explaining how the majority of their investment will be put towards Live Service because that doesn't exist. Nowadays companies like EA, WB, PlayStation etc...are angering the online hivemind because they're openly stating how important Live Service is to the future of their business.

By 2017 all big publishers had been investing hard in GaaS and many of them since decades ago. They all had GaaS, some of them hugely successful, and many also had an important present in (F2P, so GaaS) mobile games.

The difference is that Live Service/GAAS was a small side project for the majority of big publishers in 2014. The vast majority of investment went into traditional single player games.

By 2017, that all changed.

Another example in case of Sony could be Fate Grand Order (2015) is known for having made over $7B. Or Gran Turismo moving to GaaS with Gran Turismo Sport (2017, so were investing on its development several years before) after having big success with other GaaS titles like LBP or PS Home plus the SOE ones and others.

In 2017 Valve already had several GaaS hits, Riot's LoL was almost a decade old, WoW was over a decade old and Blizzard had been successful with several other GaaS like Heartstone, Heroes of the Storm, Starcraft II, Diablo III or Overwatch. Activision had several GaaS CoDs o Destiny and more. Square Enix had FFXI and FFIV, Dragon's Quest X, the episodic Hitman (2016). Capcom had SFV or the Asia only MMORPGs MH Online, Dragon's Dogma Online or even Makaimura (Ghost 'n Goblins) Online. Take 2 already had GTA Online, NBA 2K, Evolve, Battleborn and more. And same goes with EA and all the other main publishers. And well obviously the main Chinese and Korean ones too.

And yet, you dare not compare this list to the list of big AAA single player games over the same time span. We both know the market was overwhelmingly skewed towards traditional single player games before 2017. That's not even debatable.

And this is only in console/PC. Most of them already had a long presence in GaaS (mostly F2P) in mobile gaming and / or browser gaming. In 2017 most mobile games already were GaaS, and mobile already was generating more revenue than PC and console. In console and specially PC there were many other super successful GaaS, I only mentioned a few of them. In mobile there was almost a decade of a ton of GaaS hits by 2017.

PUBG and Fortnite taught the PC/Console market that their audience was ready for GAAS/Live Service. That's why you saw such little investment there pre 2017.

And obviously all these games required juicy investment / budget. You can keep repeating the lie of the gaming industry not investing in GaaS 2017 like a flatearther when proving wrong with a ton of examples.

No one said there was no investment, it was just very little investment. PlayStation released almost 0 live service games during their entire existence up until early PS5 generation.

When talking about GaaS and their eras, mobile gaming and these mobile (and back then, browser) casual games are key because they are by far the most important GaaS because of their userbase and revenue, and also because they are the most influential ones.

The mobile market has always been viewed as a separate market from PC/console. Only recently has there been a true attempt to blend the markets together. It's why you don't see any threads on mobile games here.

Most GaaS concepts, techniques and mechanics come from there, not from Fortnite. They were there being super successful way before 2017.

Incorrect. Fortnite taught the PC/console market that their audience was ready for Live Service in a way they hadn't realized pre 2017.

Nah, you are trying to find excuses to don't accept the truth. Fortnite was just one of the gazillion super successful GaaS that there have been for like 25 years or so that didn't change anything in the market or in the GaaS. Or even in their investments.

That's wrong too. Fortnite is the most successful console game in console history. There has never been a game nearly as big as Fortnite on console. Saying it was "one of a gazillion" is just blatently false. It's like saying The Beatles or Michael Jackson were just one of a gazillion successful musical artists.

It is what I'm doing, explaining why it is totally wrong and why your concept of the supposed eras of GaaS that you made out are totally nonsensical and wrong.

You argument has simply been to try and prove there were successful GAAS games before Fortnite, which is irrelevant to the topic posed in the OP. You are avoiding the topic because you don't want to grapple with the truth.

The more I see people avoid the topic, the more I understand how arcade fans of the 1980's must have resented the rise of the home console business. It's almost like everyone knows the truth but is not willing to openly admit it.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Seems appropriate to post this here.

Fallout creator on why online games suck now.

Old single player developer resents how the medium left him. A 30 minute yelling at clouds video.

 

[anonpuffs]

OP is fundamentally wrong because 2017 was not the start of the live service era, maybe it was for western AAA devs but WoW and Everquest broke open the doors on that a decade+ prior, and is actually a cautionary tale of why gaas is NOT the future.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

OP is fundamentally wrong because 2017 was not the start of the live service era, maybe it was for western AAA devs but WoW and Everquest broke open the doors on that a decade+ prior, and is actually a cautionary tale of why gaas is NOT the future.

Everquest didn't start anything. 99% of the industries investment went into traditional single player games when Everquest was at its peak. That's nonsense.

To put it into some perspective of just how monumental PUBG and Fortnite was to altering the trajectory of the entire games industry...

Verant Interactive, a division of 989 Studios made Everquest. No one here knows that name because Everquest wasn't nearly as successful as PUBG or Fortnite.

Epic Games is now the 12th largest videogame company on planet earth thanks mostly to Fortnite.

Krafton is the 18th largest videogame company on planet earth thanks to PUBG.

It's crazy that people don't realize what happened in 2017.

 

[Boswollox]

I guess you aren't pretending to be retarded and are just retarded.

 

[Yurinka]

It hasn't been debunked because it's true.

In your dreams maybe it's true. In the real world I debunked it because all the super successful pre-2017 GaaS games and GaaS types I mentioned existed.

There's a reason why no one on message boards like Icon Era, NeoGAF, or ResetERA was complaining about Live Service games pre 2017

You keep lying and saying nonsense.

Well, for starters Iconera and Resetera didn't exist before 2017. And Neogaf, like in all the forums, people is constantly complaining every day about all games they know about, both GaaS and non GaaS.

And well, these 3 forums aren't representative of the worldwide player population because they are mostly PC and specially console players, when the majority of the playerbase play mobile games.

And in any case, most of these players don't know what a GaaS is, even if they played many of them. Some think it's a shooter subgenre and other ones say that GT7 isn't a live service game.

Pre-2017 I remember the Street Fighter V launch (2016), many people complained about it due to multiple topics. One of hte main ones was people complaining about it for being a GaaS.

People for some reason complained about having free content via updates and DLC characters they could unlock for free by playing, and instead prefered to pay $60 as a separate game for the new content for what we today understand a couple of DLC seasons, splitting the fanbase of the game in different titles. Really stupid takes from people who had no idea what they were talking about.

The uproar over Live Service only started in 2018/2019 when gamers started realizing how much money was being made and how all their favorite companies were transitioning to Live Service orientation. PlayStation announcing aggressive GAAS plans a few years ago, and the meltdown that ensued, encapsulates this perfectly.

No. Every time something new appears many people complains about it because are afraid that their favorite thing may be lost and replaced. Happened when arcades, computer games, consoles, mobile games, analog sticks, 3d polyponal visuals, cds, digital games, indie games, online MP, dlcs, GaaS, F2P etc. happened.

In case of GaaS, people complained first about when MMORPGs atarted to appear and became popular. People also complained about the casual games, the F2P games, the mobile games, games with many dlcs, with season passes, with IAPs, with loot boxes, with gatcha and a long etc. before 2017. Many people complained when every major publisher started to do this, which in all cases has been before 2017.

Street Fighter V is just an example. For Sony there are others, like the very successful and profitable PS Home. It ate a lot of hate. Game goes with Gran Turismo Sport for focusing on the online MP and not featuring the classical meaty SP content that they later brought back with GT7.

Seems that you have no fucking idea of what happened 2017 and before.

You're not going to find a quarterly or yearly report from many of the major publishers in 2014 explaining how the majority of their investment will be put towards Live Service because that doesn't exist.

Many of them already invested the majority of their budget on GaaS games because the majority of their projects were GaaS.

Nowadays companies like EA, WB, PlayStation etc...are angering the online hivemind because they're openly stating how important Live Service is to the future of their business.

The difference is that Live Service/GAAS was a small side project for the majority of big publishers in 2014. The vast majority of investment went into traditional single player games.

By 2017, that all changed.

And yet, you dare not compare this list to the list of big AAA single player games over the same time span. We both know the market was overwhelmingly skewed towards traditional single player games before 2017. That's not even debatable.

PUBG and Fortnite taught the PC/Console market that their audience was ready for GAAS/Live Service. That's why you saw such little investment there pre 2017.

No one said there was no investment, it was just very little investment. PlayStation released almost 0 live service games during their entire existence up until early PS5 generation.

The mobile market has always been viewed as a separate market from PC/console. Only recently has there been a true attempt to blend the markets together. It's why you don't see any threads on mobile games here.

Incorrect. Fortnite taught the PC/console market that their audience was ready for Live Service in a way they hadn't realized pre 2017.

That's wrong too. Fortnite is the most successful console game in console history. There has never been a game nearly as big as Fortnite on console. Saying it was "one of a gazillion" is just blatently false. It's like saying The Beatles or Michael Jackson were just one of a gazillion successful musical artists.

You argument has simply been to try and prove there were successful GAAS games before Fortnite, which is irrelevant to the topic posed in the OP. You are avoiding the topic because you don't want to grapple with the truth.

The more I see people avoid the topic, the more I understand how arcade fans of the 1980's must have resented the rise of the home console business. It's almost like everyone knows the truth but is not willing to openly admit it.

I'm tired of replying to nonsensical posts. Specially when you're going to keep rejecting reality and gaming history and will continue believing only in your fantasies.

I'm done with this stupid thread, good bye and have fun with the thread.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

In your dreams maybe it's true. In the real world I debunked it because all the super successful pre-2017 GaaS games and GaaS types I mentioned existed.

I've addressed this point 6 times. I will now address it 7 times.

You cherry picking a small number of examples does not negate the fact that the vast majority of investment during those games prime years was still going towards tradition single player games.

You avoid this point like your life depended on it. Why?

Well, for starters Iconera and Resetera didn't exist before 2017. And Neogaf, like in all the forums, people is constantly complaining every day about all games they know about, both GaaS and non GaaS.

Nope. There was no complaining about GAAS prior to about 2018/2019. Once the single player hivemind understood the industry started to turn towards GAAS, the hate came.

BTW, that's why I said "Sites like..." Message boards existed before Icon Era and Resetera.

And well, these 3 forums aren't representative of the worldwide player population because they are mostly PC and specially console players, when the majority of the playerbase play mobile games.

Right, but we're talking about the PC/Console industry, not the mobile industry.

And in any case, most of these players don't know what a GaaS is, even if they played many of them. Some think it's a shooter subgenre and other ones say that GT7 isn't a live service game.

Irrelevant to the topic.

Pre-2017 I remember the Street Fighter V launch (2016), many people complained about it due to multiple topics. One of hte main ones was people complaining about it for being a GaaS.

Not nearly as much as the complaining that began around 2019. There was no need to complain about Live Service / GAAS during the years you think it was big because it wasn't big. It represented a small fraction of industry investment so gamers didn't care. Now it represents the majority of industry investment.

No. Every time something new appears many people complains about it because are afraid that their favorite thing may be lost and replaced. Happened when arcades, computer games, consoles, mobile games, analog sticks, 3d polyponal visuals, cds, digital games, indie games, online MP, dlcs, GaaS, F2P etc. happened.

The old, traditional single player game is the new arcade business. Just as the home console diminished the viablity of the arcade, so too is Live Service diminishing the viability of the old model. Luddites.

In case of GaaS, people complained first about when MMORPGs atarted to appear and became popular. People also complained about the casual games, the F2P games, the mobile games, games with many dlcs, with season passes, with IAPs, with loot boxes, with gatcha and a long etc. before 2017. Many people complained when every major publisher started to do this, which in all cases has been before 2017.

But no one complained about the LIve Service / GAAS model as a whole because it was niche back then. Fortnite and PUBG turned it from niche to the industries main target.

Street Fighter V is just an example. For Sony there are others, like the very successful and profitable PS Home. It ate a lot of hate. Game goes with Gran Turismo Sport for focusing on the online MP and not featuring the classical meaty SP content that they later brought back with GT7.

Seems that you have no fucking idea of what happened 2017 and before.

I know no title released before 2017 changed the trajectory of the industry like PUBG and Fortnite did. Gaming was altered forever after those two juggernauts.

Many of them already invested the majority of their budget on GaaS games because the majority of their projects were GaaS.

Most did not.

I'm tired of replying to nonsensical posts. Specially when you're going to keep rejecting reality and gaming history and will continue believing only in your fantasies.

I'm done with this stupid thread, good bye and have fun with the thread.

You're tired of avoiding the truth. I would too if avoiding the truth was something that interested me. It has never, and will never.

 

[peter42O]

Live service games and single player games are the future as they will both co-exist like they have done for over a decade and continue to do so.

 

[Thirty7ven]

This was the best post in the thread thanks to this singular sentence.

However, what's stronger? The need to feel like you're the "main character" or the need to feel like you belong? Remember, games have been giving us the "main character" feeling for most of the mediums existence. That model is now losing to live service.

We're the most social animal on earth and our need for connection is finally starting to be explored in multiplayer. I suspect we're going to see Live Service continue to take over more and more of the market because it serves the two above needs better than single player does.

This is a great book for anyone interested in exploring the topic...

That’s like saying Tik Tok and Instagram are bigger than any movie or TV show or book. Sure yes you’re right.

 

[Yurinka]

I've addressed this point 6 times. I will now address it 7 times.

You cherry picking a small number of examples does not negate the fact that the vast majority of investment during those games prime years was still going towards tradition single player games.

You avoid this point like your life depended on it. Why?

I am not cherrypicking at all, I just listed some examples of huge GaaS and top publishers who invested on them out of many more examples that exist to debunk your bullshit lies. And mentioned many related facts like mobile already being bigger than console and PC before 2017, with most mobile games being GaaS.

YOU are the one lying and cherrypicking with all your nonsense acting as if that huge industry of GaaS titles didn't exist before 2017 and as if big publishers weren't investing on them a lot of money before. Even outside mobile that you cherrypick to don't count it when talking about GaaS because of potatoes.

I explain the truth showing receipts. You didn't adress anything, you reject to accept the facts/truth it like a flatearther because of potatoes. You don't want to accept the reality and just want to keep believing in your fantasies that are totally unrelated to the truth.

Not nearly as much as the complaining that began around 2019. There was no need to complain about Live Service / GAAS during the years you think it was big because it wasn't big. It represented a small fraction of industry investment so gamers didn't care.

Totally wrong, you have no idea what you are talking about. Go back and check how people were complaining about DLCs, IAPs, loot boxes, moving the focus to MP, etc.

And the several pre 2017 GaaS l listed in multiple posts (plus many more) were huge and their development wasn't cheap. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Right, but we're talking about the PC/Console industry, not the mobile industry.

You're cherrypicking to leave mobiles out because of potatoes. If you're talking about GaaS and its "eras", obviously the biggest (in userbase and revenue) and most influential GaaS market has to be included.

In the same way you also cherrypick to don't count pre-2017 giants of the live service games like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Dungeon Fighter Online, Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Call of Duty, Destiny and the many other more I mentioned (plus other more out there) because of potatoes.

But no one complained about the LIve Service / GAAS model as a whole because it was niche back then. Fortnite and PUBG turned it from niche to the industries main target.

Sure Jan, WoW, LoL, Dungeon Fighter Online, GTA Online, Destiny, Minecraft, CoD, FIFA, and the long etc. are small niche games xDDD

Sure, games like Fate/Grand Order made over $7B or Dungeon Fighter Online made over $22B because that money grew on trees or something. Sure, they made that money with noboby playing them. xDD

And well, meanwhile League of Legends made over $2B in 2017. Not in all years until 2017: in 2017 alone it made $2.1B. By 2017 WoW had grossed over $9B. Street Fighter 6 had a rocky start because started with technical issues and lack of content that took time to fix but ended being Capcom's top 10 best selling games ever (and this isn't counting the extra of its addons revenue). Games like CoD Ghosts made over $1B in its first 24 hours.

Much niche. Let's call them Game as a Niche (GaaN). xDD

I know no title released before 2017 changed the trajectory of the industry like PUBG and Fortnite did. Gaming was altered forever after those two juggernauts.

Because you have no idea about the history of live service games and you are acting like a flatearther when it is shown to you. To learn a bit about that history go back, read my posts and do a few Google searches.

PUGB popularized the battle royale subgenre and generated a small trend of this type of games. Fortnite added (or popularized?) the battle passes. But didn't change anything other than that. All the big publishers already were investing hard on GaaS before because the top performers of the market already were GaaS. As an example, Fortnite didn't break Destiny's record of fastest selling new IP ever.

 

[Vertigo]

Proprietary engines have a huge part to play in this btw. Just because the makers of such engines want to make their own pipelines efficient. They will update their game and create new content as much as possible. I also do not want to see Unreal being used everywhere — that’s never been as good as gamers make it sound … (never has)

It’s why Insomniac is doing iterative Marvel games. Each built on the one before it. It’s pretty much a live service approach to single player development.

Fortnite is also beyond a game as a service. It is now a platform itself with new games developed within it.

Saying everything will be live service is whatever… doesn’t mean everything PvP or a br. It’s sorta like how you see surface level rpg mechanics in every game made in the last 20 years

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

That’s like saying Tik Tok and Instagram are bigger than any movie or TV show or book. Sure yes you’re right.

Not exactly.

My hypothesis may be correct. It looks like PlayStation expects the traditional single player game market to shrink fairly substantially over the next 5 years. These two graphs illustrate a shrinking of that market. I think the two models are in more competition with eachother. For the last 7 years, we've really seen kids gravitate towards Live Service in a way we've never seen before. As those kids get older, they stay in the Live Service model and each year a new class of kids come in and play Live Service games.

This feels more like the arcades vs home console battle of the early 1980's.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I am not cherrypicking at all, I just listed some examples of huge GaaS and top publishers who invested on them out of many more examples that exist to debunk your bullshit lies. And mentioned many related facts like mobile already being bigger than console and PC before 2017, with most mobile games being GaaS.

YOU are the one lying and cherrypicking with all your nonsense acting as if that huge industry of GaaS titles didn't exist before 2017 and as if big publishers weren't investing on them a lot of money before. Even outside mobile that you cherrypick to don't count it when talking about GaaS because of potatoes.

I explain the truth showing receipts. You didn't adress anything, you reject to accept the facts/truth it like a flatearther because of potatoes. You don't want to accept the reality and just want to keep believing in your fantasies that are totally unrelated to the truth.


Totally wrong, you have no idea what you are talking about. Go back and check how people were complaining about DLCs, IAPs, loot boxes, moving the focus to MP, etc.

And the several pre 2017 GaaS l listed in multiple posts (plus many more) were huge and their development wasn't cheap. You have no idea what you are talking about.


You're cherrypicking to leave mobiles out because of potatoes. If you're talking about GaaS and its "eras", obviously the biggest (in userbase and revenue) and most influential GaaS market has to be included.

In the same way you also cherrypick to don't count pre-2017 giants of the live service games like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Dungeon Fighter Online, Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Call of Duty, Destiny and the many other more I mentioned (plus other more out there) because of potatoes.


Sure Jan, WoW, LoL, Dungeon Fighter Online, GTA Online, Destiny, Minecraft, CoD, FIFA, and the long etc. are small niche games xDDD

Sure, games like Fate/Grand Order made over $7B or Dungeon Fighter Online made over $22B because that money grew on trees or something. Sure, they made that money with noboby playing them. xDD

And well, meanwhile League of Legends made over $2B in 2017. Not in all years until 2017: in 2017 alone it made $2.1B. By 2017 WoW had grossed over $9B. Street Fighter 6 had a rocky start because started with technical issues and lack of content that took time to fix but ended being Capcom's top 10 best selling games ever (and this isn't counting the extra of its addons revenue). Games like CoD Ghosts made over $1B in its first 24 hours.

Much niche. Let's call them Game as a Niche (GaaN). xDD



Because you have no idea about the history of live service games and you are acting like a flatearther when it is shown to you. To learn a bit about that history go back, read my posts and do a few Google searches.

PUGB popularized the battle royale subgenre and generated a small trend of this type of games. Fortnite added (or popularized?) the battle passes. But didn't change anything other than that. All the big publishers already were investing hard on GaaS before because the top performers of the market already were GaaS. As an example, Fortnite didn't break Destiny's record of fastest selling new IP ever.

I wonder if you could share with us which year the console/PC market shifted to the GAAS era? What year do you think the majority of investment went towards GAAS?

 

[Shadow2027]

Not exactly.

My hypothesis may be correct. It looks like PlayStation expects the traditional single player game market to shrink fairly substantially over the next 5 years. These two graphs illustrate a shrinking of that market. I think the two models are in more competition with eachother. For the last 7 years, we've really seen kids gravitate towards Live Service in a way we've never seen before. As those kids get older, they stay in the Live Service model and each year a new class of kids come in and play Live Service games.

This feels more like the arcades vs home console battle of the early 1980's.

Fair point, but how many of those kids are only playing free to play games and are actually spending money on them and maybe besides the few juggernauts like fortnite.

The overall gaming landscape is gonna shrink not just single player because the kids wont buy a live service game, and it will be difficult to pull them away from their current one as well as spend on the new one. To a degree as well, this mobile like mentality in the new generation will also decimate sales for single player and have ramifications there as well.

Sony had 12 in the pipeline more than half already canned and concord lost them hundreds of millions with Fairgames to likely repeat that. Unless you make a truly generational game and have luck on your side, live service is a cash dump as weve also seen with Square, Sega, Capcom, etc.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Fair point, but how many of those kids are only playing free to play games and are actually spending money on them and maybe besides the few juggernauts like fortnite.

Well, we know that PlayStation now makes more money on MTX than they do on full game sales DESPITE investing very little into Live Service games up to this point.

I also think "gamers" are last to know that the Live Service model is in it's infancy. Battle Passes and cosmetics are not the future of Live Service MTX. Studios are going to learn how to wring a lot more money out of their games with better MTX.

The overall gaming landscape is gonna shrink not just single player because the kids wont buy a live service game, and it will be difficult to pull them away from their current one as well as spend on the new one. To a degree as well, this mobile like mentality in the new generation will also decimate sales for single player and have ramifications there as well.

PlayStation doesn't believe this. Neither do I.

The market is projected to grow relatively quickly over the next 5 years (look at both graphs) but SP will shrink while Live Service continues to grow making up the difference.

Sony had 12 in the pipeline more than half already canned and concord lost them hundreds of millions with Fairgames to likely repeat that. Unless you make a truly generational game and have luck on your side, live service is a cash dump as weve also seen with Square, Sega, Capcom, etc.

All we know is that Sony seems committed to the Live Service push. Most of what you said is likely wrong or baseless. Helldivers 2 wasn't a generational game but it was the fastest selling PlayStation Studios title in PlayStation history. Not bad for an 83 Metascore game with terrible launch issues. I wonder how Helldivers 3 will do being a Gen 2 GAAS...

Btw, Sega announced that they're working on 5 "super games" which they defined as high budget and Live Service. Those have yet to release. Square's most successful modern game is their MMORPG. Capcom's most successful franchise (by far) is Monster Hunter, which is now Live Service.

Everyone is now going Live Service.

 

[Yurinka]

I wonder if you could share with us which year the console/PC market shifted to the GAAS era? What year do you think the majority of investment went towards GAAS?

There's no specific year, as I mentioned companies grtadually kept investing more in GaaS as they saw more GaaS being super successful or as they saw that addons or mobile kept epresenting a bigger portion of the market year after year.

Facebook started skyrocketed browser games starting in 2008 or so with some pre-Farmville games. In a couple years after the iPhone was released (2007-2009) mobile games made a transition from paid games to free demo + unlockable full game having an IAP to buy the full game, to having multiple IAPs, to make them consumables to integrate the proper F2P in-game economies, features and techniques from browser games.

They kept growing and these casual/social games too many years to gradually migrate from from browser to mobile (in free reports it can be seen in Newzoo's charts, who over years tracked browser gaming separated from the other PC games), making mobile bigger.

From a World Economic Forum 2022 article with PwC / Omdia data:

Pelham Smithers (2020), this shows a few of the important games:

(2022):

App Annie (now data.ai) / IDC chart from 2021:

Newzoo's 2016 Global Games Market report (notice casual webgames + phone + tablet is 42% of the revenue, and we should add there MMO plus the other console and PC other GaaS):

vs 2023 (casual PC browser games kept decreasing as migrated to mobile, they no longer appear as dedicated version in the 2024 edition for the first time)

(Please note that the different graphs include or not different things and are measured in different points in time)

Then there's the success of many others I mentioned like Second Life (2003), World of Warcraft (2004), Dungeon Fighter Online (2005), Little Big Planet (2009), LoL (2009), Minecraft (2011), GTA Online (2013), CoD and FIFA (I don't remember which exact year they started with the GaaS stuff) etc.

Big gaming companies always did bet on the type of games that they saw working very well in the market. So as they saw mobile games and addons/GaaS getting a bigger market share, they invested more in mobile games or GaaS for console / PC trying to replicate the success of these other big hits. Some did it before, some did it later.

Ocasionally some companies started to report their gaming revenue first separating mobile from console and PC, and later separating addons revenue from game sales revenue.

Normally they didn't report how their investment was split between non-GaaS vs GaaS, or SP vs MP. SIE made an exception because even if they had many attempts in the past in the MP and GaaS with different levels of success, by 2016-2018 aprox they saw that MP and GaaS were gaming and dominating even console, that their SP AAA games were getting too expensive and that in addition to expand to MP & GaSS they needed to also expand to PC & mobile, where MP & GaaS are even more important.

So they started to prepare their expansion first to PC, MP & GaaS and later (but starting to work there) to mobile too. They saw that they were late to the party in all these fronts compared to the other publishers, so prepared a particularly big investment effort in all these different areas at the same time, and as such they had to explain it and justify it to their investors, resulting in the charts you shared.

SIE had to make that exceptional effort to be more in line with all the other top publishers in these areas, who in most cases already had several important MP, GaaS hits plus an important presence in PC and mobile. Sony already made some previous efforts via SIE or via other Sony branches, but SIE back then didn't have a big and steady presence there and had to correct it because as explained in their graph GaaS and particularly mobile keep becoming more and more important.

P.S.: Sony didn't mention it but the logical step for the long term is to transition from paid only -> going GaaS -> going F2P. Plus also console only -> console + PC -> console + PC + mobile. So in the long term, (many years from now) we'll see Sony's GaaS titles having a Genshin Impact and similar format: F2P games you can play on console, PC or mobile. While still having the traditional non-GaaS titles because remember the GaaS/PC/mobile investments are on top of their current SP non-GaaS games, whose investment even if less also grows.

You're tired of avoiding the truth. I would too if avoiding the truth was something that interested me. It has never, and will never.

Bullshit, I shown you a ton of factual, objective data that debunks your nonsensical claim of companies not meaningfully investing in GaaS pre-2017, when there were tons of them from many top companies and many of them were huge hits. And you keep rejecting it because of potatoes.

Sony having to make an exceptional and unusually big push to grow in the MP/GaaS/PC/mobile area because they are late to these parties further proves it: most of the other top players already were there before them.

Sony had 12 in the pipeline more than half already canned and concord lost them hundreds of millions with Fairgames to likely repeat that.

Sony didn't cancel half of them. What they said was that half of the ones still not released were secured to reach their March 2026 deadline and the other ones were still being reviewed to see if were going to make it or not. Later 3 of them got canned, got replaced by other ones and the 2026 dealine was removed. As of now apparently they will be:

1. Gran Turismo (big success)
2. MLB (big success)
3. Firewall (tanked)
4. Helldivers (major success)
5. Destiny (major success)
6. Concord (tanked)
7. Marathon
8. Horizon (despite having this GaaS MP game, a separate Horizon 3 non-GaaS SP game is also in the works)
9. Fairgame$
10. Bend's new IP *
11. Gummybears (codename of the new IP incubated at Bungie) *
12. Ex-Deviation's devs game *

* = Likely to not meet the initial March 2026 deadline

Some of the "cancelled" games you mentioned were projects in very early stages not greenlighted, so they never entered production. Meaning, there was no game/production to cancel.

Sony will still have the dozen IPs with GaaS titles released, but after March 2026. Some will tank and some will (or already have been) major hits or just successful games.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

There's no specific year, as I mentioned companies grtadually kept investing more in GaaS as they saw more GaaS being super successful or as they saw that addons or mobile kept epresenting a bigger portion of the market year after year.

Facebook started skyrocketed browser games starting in 2008 or so with some pre-Farmville games. In a couple years after the iPhone was released (2007-2009) mobile games made a transition from paid games to free demo + unlockable full game having an IAP to buy the full game, to having multiple IAPs, to make them consumables to integrate the proper F2P in-game economies, features and techniques from browser games.

They kept growing and these casual/social games too many years to gradually migrate from from browser to mobile (in free reports it can be seen in Newzoo's charts, who over years tracked browser gaming separated from the other PC games), making mobile bigger.

From a World Economic Forum 2022 article with PwC / Omdia data:

Pelham Smithers (2020), this shows a few of the important games:

(2022):

App Annie (now data.ai) / IDC chart from 2021:

Newzoo's 2016 Global Games Market report (notice casual webgames + phone + tablet is 42% of the revenue, and we should add there MMO plus the other console and PC other GaaS):

vs 2023 (casual PC browser games kept decreasing as migrated to mobile, they no longer appear as dedicated version in the 2024 edition for the first time)

(Please note that the different graphs include or not different things and are measured in different points in time)

Then there's the success of many others I mentioned like Second Life (2003), World of Warcraft (2004), Dungeon Fighter Online (2005), Little Big Planet (2009), LoL (2009), Minecraft (2011), GTA Online (2013), CoD and FIFA (I don't remember which exact year they started with the GaaS stuff) etc.

Big gaming companies always did bet on the type of games that they saw working very well in the market. So as they saw mobile games and addons/GaaS getting a bigger market share, they invested more in mobile games or GaaS for console / PC trying to replicate the success of these other big hits. Some did it before, some did it later.

Ocasionally some companies started to report their gaming revenue first separating mobile from console and PC, and later separating addons revenue from game sales revenue.

Normally they didn't report how their investment was split between non-GaaS vs GaaS, or SP vs MP. SIE made an exception because even if they had many attempts in the past in the MP and GaaS with different levels of success, by 2016-2018 aprox they saw that MP and GaaS were gaming and dominating even console, that their SP AAA games were getting too expensive and that in addition to expand to MP & GaSS they needed to also expand to PC & mobile, where MP & GaaS are even more important.

So they started to prepare their expansion first to PC, MP & GaaS and later (but starting to work there) to mobile too. They saw that they were late to the party in all these fronts compared to the other publishers, so prepared a particularly big investment effort in all these different areas at the same time, and as such they had to explain it and justify it to their investors, resulting in the charts you shared.

SIE had to make that exceptional effort to be more in line with all the other top publishers in these areas, who in most cases already had several important MP, GaaS hits plus an important presence in PC and mobile. Sony already made some previous efforts via SIE or via other Sony branches, but SIE back then didn't have a big and steady presence there and had to correct it because as explained in their graph GaaS and particularly mobile keep becoming more and more important.

P.S.: Sony didn't mention it but the logical step is paid only -> going GaaS -> going F2P. Plus also console only -> console + PC -> console + PC + mobile. So in the long term, (many years from now) we'll see Sony GaaS having a Genshin Impact format: F2P games you can play on console, PC or mobile. While still having the traditional non-GaaS because remember the GaaS/PC/mobile investments are on top of their current SP non-GaaS games, whose investment also grows.

Let me get this right.

I ask "When do you think the GAAS era started in the PC/console market?"

You say "There's no specific year" and then proceed to fill your entire post with mobile data.

Intellectual dishonesty is so boring.