The pressure to constantly update games is pushing the industry to a breaking point

Live service games have trained players to expect a constant stream of new content, and only constant work can deliver it.

[Futureshark]

Yep, they've made a rod for there own back.

Whereas other multi million highly reviewed games don't require constant updates - God Of War, Spider-man, Witcher 3 , beyond regular patching.

Gaas are always half baked on launch (Destiny 2 and Anthem come to mind) so they better keep working hard to pull new players in as usually once the player base is in decline then it rarely comes back (Destiny with Taken King now pops in, but I have a feeling that times have changed and the public might not be so forgiving in the same situation).

[Dabigsiebowski]

That and Destiny was the first game of it's kind for consoles.

That said Gaas should just die and any Publisher that goes full board but yet half ass it should just die with it.

[Godmars290]

haven't you been paying attention: GaaS are in fact full board and a quarter assed.

[Profchaos]

Gaas titles bring half baked reminds me of the surge of the mmorpg back in 2005 after wow hit 7 million players every dev wanted to create a MMO bigger than blizzards and there was so many half baked MMO world's coming out and so many Devs losing everything because they couldn't get a player base I feel that's where gaas is taking us.

Soon publishers will get it either release a fully featured title or don't play at all

[Psychotica]

There are plenty of other developer jobs out there that is not in the gaming industry, try one of those. I write custom software for a manufacturing company full time from home, never have to work overtime or weekends.

[meep316]

huh? This is great for developers but bad for greedy publishers. As a developer, more work is job security and more pay.

[harmny]

Sounds like boring crap

[Psychotica]

Well work isn't usually for your entertainment..

[UnSelf]

Dont mind him. He's a little peeved that in his job he has to work harder for much less.

[harmny]

I work in the film industry. It's pretty fun

[rainslacker]

I write custom tools for game engines as a 3rd party. I don't work weekends, and overtime is rare and usually because I choose to give good service for our clients by giving excellent customer support.

It is boring, but fun and challenging.

I don't get to work from home though. I suppose I could at times, but I prefer working with others.

[jeki]

harmny: "I work in the film industry. It's pretty fun "

No you don't.

[Flewid638]

How is getting paid stress free boring lmao

[TargusX]

Stop releasing broken games on launch and using updates as gimmicks to keep players interested?

[Godmars290]

That the GaaS model...so, no...?

[chris235]

first newsflash: what you describe is part of the gaas business model
second newsflash: you as a consumer brought this model on by buying and swallowing everything not able to draw a line somewhere. so by all means: STFU and change your buying habits. ranting in blogposts only yields clickrevenue.

[Chaos_Order]

But I thought that LiVe SeRvIcEs were the way of the future and the best way forward for the industry?

[harmny]

If you want to make money it is. If you like being healthy it isn't but you can always quit your job

[rainslacker]

They are. At least for those who make a successful product.

The problem is, is that some publishers are putting too much focus on them, and if they fail, then they end up making less than they would off a solid SP game that they've been talking down and taking a crap on, or worse, trying to make into a GaaS for years now.

GaaS is nothing new. It's just a pretty upped marketing term for the same crap that we've been complaining about since last gen, into this gen, and finally came to a head with EA causing them 2 years straight of negative press towards their games.

It baffles me how people were celebrating MS when they coined the term to sell this idea.

Not that all GaaS games are released in a bad way, but many of them are.

If the industry wants these kinds of games that's fine, but they really should diversify their portfolio for longevities sake. A company that relies too much on a constant hit stream, can easily see trouble with repeated failures.

[DillyDilly]

This is what the developers wanted & now its to much ? Reap what you sow bitches

[meep316]

why would developers care if they get more work and more pay? I think you are trying to insult the publishers.

[Nyxus]

Then stop releasing GAAS games. I wouldn't mind (quite the opposite in fact).

[jznrpg]

Make single player or coop games then - if you want to add on you can do a few paid DLC later and make them worth paying for .

[FITSniper]

Are we supposed to feel bad for a situation game developers forced us into more than the other way around?

[rainslacker]

Probably. Remember when EA, Activision, and to a lesser extent Ubisoft, tried to make us feel bad last gen when they said that they need MT in games....which is a form of GaaS....because otherwise they couldn't make a profit on those games? Nevermind the fact that they were raking in 250m to 1 billion dollars for some of those single player games, with budgets in the 50-100 million range, with the console makers footing the marketing bills with their deals.

If these services fail, it's going to be our fault....not the companies fault. They can't take responsibility, because it means admitting that they were wrong about how the consumer really wants these products. It's like realizing that people just want fun games to play is more of an incentive than the actual content being parse out over time, and if people get a short amount of good time out of the game, it's just as good as getting it over a long period of time, but content is dished out in courses.

[knickstr]

I definitely think there needs to be some reform when it comes to game development. Developers should work more regular hours and publishers need to stop pushing deadlines so hard. If a game takes an extra year to complete working regular hours and not the ridiculous hours per week they work now then so be it. It beats developers being burnt out and losing their passion to create a great world to play in. A lot of the publishers have brought this onto themselves when they've made everything about profit and have lost the joy of creating art and fun experiences. I understand that every business needs money to operate, but you can tell that a lot of executives aren't even gamers these days and are pushing towards live services for extra revenue. Then dont see the downsides when they constantly push their deadlines.

[harmny]

All multiplayer games are a service. People would stop playing if they weren't. Sadly gamers are more and more demanding. Look at mordhau por example. Polished, $30, no microtransactions. People are already asking where is the roadmap and when can they expect more content. Who's gonna pay for those updates? There's literally no way to spend money in game

[knickstr]

That's true for today's multiplayer, but about 10 years ago multiplayer games used to be shipped out with enough content to not get repetitive for a long time. Then publishers saw the money benefit of slashing a lot of content out of a game and releasing it sooner and then releasing the extra content in pieces as dlc.

[harmny]

Youre looking at those games with rose tinted glasses. Counter strike shipped with a few maps, 2 modes and no customization at all and it lasted 10 years on the top of the world. Csgo launched and it was the same game and if it wasn't for skins the game would be dead by now. People changed. Same with tf2

[rainslacker]

Counter Strike was a mod to team fortress, which itself was a mod to half life. It was a much different time, and wasn't released as a paid product at first. It also got lots of maps through additional mods.

Game would still get unpaid mods even if it didn't have skins. It may be dead now, but same could be said for a lot of games. One thing I noticed though is that a lot of these paid games which get released with this model built into their DNA, seem to be going the way of irrelevance much sooner, if not failing out of the gate.

One other thing I notice is that with more of these types of games, it's showing that these big MP GaaS games have just as much chance of failing as the SP games publishers lamented on being too risky last gen. Difference is, is that a SP game can eventually maybe return a profit. A dead MP game is pretty much a loss within a month....with nothing left for the player to even partake in the content with.

[Imalwaysright]

Selectively picking Counter Strike won't change the fact that 10 years ago multiplayer games were pretty much complete when they were released. A few map packs could be released later as DLC but that was about it.

[harmny]

Name one

[Imalwaysright]

Ok. Quake, Unreal Tournement, Halo, RfoM, Killzone, CoD 4, Rainbow six Vegas, Gears...

[FallenAngel1984]

Not every GaaS title can coexist alongside each other. Eventually a lot of these titles will succumb to a market unable to sustain an over saturation of titles that demand constant attention from so many consumers

[gamer7804]

make traditional single player and coop experience with less live services, win/win!

[The7Reaper]

Blame the leaders in the industry who keep pushing quantity over quality instead of gamers.

[LOLcheeseORZ]

They wouldn't have to worry about constant updates if they just release a "complete" game from the start and stop copying how smartphone games do microtransactions.

[AnubisG]

They did this to themselves. Most gamers did not want this. All they had to do is release a working game that isn't riddled with bugs on day one. But no, release now fix later model caused this and this stress is caused by themselves.

[rainslacker]

It was never about what most gamers want. It was about how they could make more off a smaller base. They pushed it as the profits being proof that most gamers wanted this, but outside a few apologists, most of the gamers said this wasn't something they wanted. Now that every company is focusing on these kinds of games, the market is getting saturated. When you have a smaller user base for those games, locked behind services like PS+ and GWG which not everyone wants to pay, and more games to choose from, then you're going to end up getting fewer players to go around for each game. Unfortunately, with games like these, most people tend to congregate to the more popular games, because they tend to go where the most players are. But even those players are fickle, and while you could be riding high in revenues one month, every month is in danger of seeing huge drops as something new releases which catches people's attention.

This kind of thing is going to be noticed by investors eventually, and while they may be willing to invest in a sure thing...if there is really such a thing, eventually it's just going to be like SP games where they're unsure if it's worth taking the risk. This means higher returns for them, which means less returns for the publisher, which means these publishers are right back where they were with SP games.

Which is why diversifying portfolios is important, and I think EA right now especially is in a bad place if they don't do that, but at least they have Madden and FIFA to fall back on.

[Imalwaysright]

GaaS is just a fancy name given to incomplete full priced games. Just another way for publishers to throw anti-consumer crapola our way but gamers eat that shit up so they're the ones that I blame the most.

[rainslacker]

Not always. But the good examples of GaaS are few and far between. GaaS games also don't have to be full priced. They can be F2P. In fact, GaaS, is really what we have had for years before they had the marketing term. It's all inclusive of both games which do it right, and the games which we complained about for years.

[sampsonon]

the pressure of getting up at 5am to go and work a 12 hr shift in a plastics factory with minimal pay to support one's family isn't easy ether. devs on average make 4 times more than the average person. it's a dream job

[rainslacker]

There are other IT jobs without the same kind of demands on the workers job which pay just as well, if not better than a game dev makes. Game devs are starting to be taken care of more than they used to though. Money can be really good if you have specialized skills, which go beyond most IT jobs.

[sampsonon]

true, but i compare them to musicians in terms of it being an art form that, if successful, you make millions off of it. they would make games even if it was just a hobby like a musician do.,

if they ever want to trade jobs :) it's better that didn't happen though. if you think people complain about bad games now. lol

[rainslacker]

Maybe. Hobbies are cool and all, but a living wage is usually better. Quality of life is also important to people as they grow older. There are relatively few who make millions at it, and the average engineering job pays around 80K a year with a few years of experience. It's not terrible pay, but it's unpredictable, especially since much of the industry is moving towards contracted work within the studio, which means many people have 1-2 years of work before they're looking for new work. Some dev house can accommodate those people full time, others can, but don't care to.

[AK91]

Or you just don’t release broken games it a lot harder than it sounds but it’ll be worth it in the end.

[Acecalibur]

Do it right the first time then

[bluefox755]

Well, maybe release a full game on release instead of an empty shell, then you wouldn't have this problem.

[rainslacker]

It's funny. Look at God of War. Complete game. People loved it. Sold tons. No MT. had a few post release patches. They made money.

People said they'd be open to DLC, and would have paid for it.

nothing about the game was banked on a GaaS model.

[YourSixStudios_YT]

Maybe the gaming industry should go back to releasing full games at launch???

[Scatpants]

If they made fun single player games it wouldn't. Now they make BS marketing gimmick garbage.

[jeki]

PC Gamer acts like they're an authority on everything.

Does anyone rememeber when they told us SteamOS was the future? They wrote more than a hundred articles on it, every one positive.

If you look carefully, you'll see that most (not all) of their articles are biased and geared toward helping their special partner Valve Corporation. They also help their developers friends.

[meday354]

They asked for it'

[TheGamez100]

Because games always launch broken or with a lack of content lol.

[PersonMan]

Good read. I agree with all of it. Game developers have it hard. Not only do they have to make a good game, but gamers expect it to be even better and for it to be constantly updated with new features and items to keep them playing it.

[Tross]

Don’t push for an industry dominated by GaaS then.

[zugdar]

And its all going to crash because their are only so many eyeballs with only so much time and everyone wants and expects a huge slice of the pie.

If you think I'm off look at the rise and fall of the MMO and those who chased after WoW's success.

[jjb1981]

That's Gaas for you.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Gaas are cancerous by the incompetent publishers

[Profchaos]

This is why I don't like live service games and prefer single player epics like gow, rdr2, Spiderman or Doom for example.

Once a single player game is released the Devs don't need to spend extra time on the game unless they want to patch a bug that was missed (unfortunately that's part of the world we live in with all games being pushed out with missed bugs) if they want to expand on the base game with additional content they can but it's not needed and often feels like the b side story

Last week I booted up GTA San Andreas in my PS2 for a bit of a nostalgia trip the same retail V1 disc from launch day 2004 and honestly I miss those days of getting a fully finished product there was no patch no DLC and no shared open world with annoying aspiring rappers on the mic.

Gaas titles take Devs away from future releases and tie them down to a single title for years imagine how much bungie could have achieved if they weren't tied to Destiny for this entire generation. EA might have actually has some successful titles also if they stop focusing on online experiences and treating their sp stable like the ugly stepchildren of their house

[Lord_Sloth]

The fact is there isn't any pressure being put on developers to make GaaS titles though. See God of War, Dark Souls, Uncharted 4, Resident Evil 2, and many other successful games that don't follow that model.

[Dirtnapstor]

The ongoing support winds up being minimal or few and far between installments.
I know everyone poo pooed on a season pass for $50, but at least you were guaranteed substantial content installments unlike now (I exclude BLOPS4 from this observation). I thought it would work, but no, this IV feeding us is no good.

[warriorcase]

Well, no. They use the live service to draw out content for players in the exchange for money and continued IP support (Staying in the news). Plenty of games release like God of war and are just all ghere from the get go. It's just a dofferent business model.

I doubt many people bought GoW and expected continual story updates and content drops for 2 years. Devs and players know what to expect if you either do or don't announce a game as a live service.

[feenix-5]

well dont put out a half assed game and you wont need to update it

[RizBiz]

Developers have two options: Finish their game and release it, or release a half-assed version and update it later. It's their choice to take the later option.