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Report: 95% of studios are working on or aim to release a live service game
(www.gamesindustry.biz)
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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This is not /that/ complicated.
Who plays video games these days?
Children, and adults who are basically working shit jobs and have little disposable income, but theyre generally likely to get hooked into a game that offers microtransactions of some kind.
Ok, so, we all know AAA studios are more or less led by extremely money hungry bullies who see games as a product to sell to consumers for the purposes of maximizing shareholder profit, and they know they have to mainly compete against other games, and movies and tv (netflix hulu fucking whatever).
Gamers also basically expect high quality graphics and the production value of basically a blockbuster movie, if you go by sales data.
Sure, other games with less astounding graohics and actually unique or novel gameplay exist, thats neat, they have teensy tiny draws, excepting the essentially totally unpredictable break out hit thats popular for maybe a month, maybe literally days.
So, we need huge studios for huge production values, and then the only way to possibly make profits on that is exploitative games as a service with microtransactions and season/battle passes.
Their brains are stuck in a loop state basically, and going by their logic, it makes sense from their position and with their motives and personalities.
Theyre following corpo logic basically perfectly.
You can say theyre the bad guys, and I can say go rewatch V for Vendetta and replay the part where V says 'you only need look into a mirror' multiple times.
How does this situation actually change?
Either, somehow, not one but a number of basically indie games somehow become huge successes with massive regular player counts, and most importantly they somehow have to draw people away from the mostly unoriginal schlock that is most AAA money printing games these days...
Or, basically, a significant number of big name studios/publishers need to basically just go entirely bankrupt.
Are either of these likely to happen?
Probably not, not soon, barring an extremely serious basically global economic downturn.
The fact that there is this much uniformity in strategy means that there will be sort of attritional damage done to the less successful, but that... might result in a sea change of market strategy to some other basically fad for AAA game studios... or it might result in even further buyouts and consolidation of once great IPs and studios.
Welcome to video game hell, nearly no one is truly innocent.
See also: pre purchase
First off, dang thats a pretty good username, second:
sigh yep, youre right.
I am the only avid video gamer I knew who actually refused and refuses to buy anything ever again from Bethesda after FallOut 76.
I personally know a good deal of gamers who said theyd do the same... and actually did not, some even pre ordering Starfield.
Gamers are basically hilarious hypocrites from the standpoint of market research, public sentiment analysis and actual dollareedoos.
Which is why i would have been an actual idiot at this point to think that an actually significant number of gamers could actually successfully pull off a boycott as a means to influence the overall market conditions.
When you realize that games really don't change as they get older, just the hype that dies down, then become a patient gamer and more often than not you'll be better off.
Also, thanks on both counts!
Hah, Ive gone uh, full tilt, and actually am working on making a game myself that will hopefully /actually have meaningfully innovative and compelling gameplay/, and i dont plan on or seem to have any real need to fall into the kickstarter/early access trap.
From a developer standpoint, both those approaches mean deadlines and managing expectations, which is basically maddeningly stressful and soul crushing.
From a gamer perspective, more often than not that means throwing money at a promise that at best will not live up to the hyped experience you have generated with the fandom, and at worst is just a total bust, failure, or scam.
So yep, my plan is tinker away for a year or two until the fundamentals are technologically sound and the actual gameplay is unique and compelling.
Then, only then, would i maybe release a demo or in depth teasers or testing session footage.
Yes thats right. Testing. Remember when games used to actually be playtested, not just for bugs, but for actual gameplay experience?
Many of at least my favorite games and mods were hugely shaped by tester feedback that radically reworked certain game elements to solve unexpected gameplay problems, or to further an idea that the testers found fun or useful that tje devs didnt even realize was really possible in the world theyd constructed.
Anyway... woo video games, shit sucks mostly these days but there are some notable basically niche exceptions, and hopefully i can make something thats at least niche successful.
In the words of a person i truly do think is an actual genius of game design:
These things, they take time.
Time where no one has any real clue wtf youre actually doing, haha.
I remember the documentary on testing, very compelling stuff!
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0456554/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk