Playstation's Ill-Advised Investment in online Service Games as a Harbinger of the dark future ahead for GAAS.

[Osiris397]

If rumors are to be believed Playstation has squandered over a BILLION DOLLARS on games the Playstation gaming community would have essentially viewed radioactive if released at any point in the last 7-8 years, but there's a lot more to this and the long history of failure with GAAS.

There is no successful live services sector of gaming there’s a handful of successful games (and that’s being generous.) It’s been the case that the few successful service games are outnumbered by the unsuccessful ones by exponential factors since well before Sony sent itself careening into failure with it’s ill-advised live service agenda, hence the need for all their public defending of live-service…the cloak and dagger organizational “streamlining” and railroading of certain executives that most certainly would not have gone along with it.

Consider a single minuscule VR case of a failed live service PSVR game almost fully funded by PlayStation, Megalith. The game looked good, it was polished butch had few levels, playable characters and enemies. Initially it attracted players, however before the end of it as I recall the rancor the few fans had for the openly greedy publishers/devs in their discord left every one bitter and eroded the user base to zero in like under a week from what I could tell. That was 5-6 years ago and a drop in the bucket. Disruptive games went on to build Godfall and relatively recently announce significant layoffs.

One larger industry long term problem with these GAAS games as a a games initiative, not only is that once the franchise is built exclusively as a GAAS product that runs it’s course the publisher typically kills it and the game vanishes like it never existed, but also it will NEVER be able to come back, like Overwatch. Blizzard learned the hard way with Overwatch 2. Beyond that industry wide irreparable and ultimately fatal reputational harm to ANY FRANCHISE THAT REMOTELY LOOKS OR PLAYS LIKE IT is also doomed because of the player perception of GAAS as predatory. Sony’s wasted $300M-$400M on Concord plus other recently canceled GAAS attest to that.

Consider that the Overwatch Beta, a product that wasn’t yet made available to the public won GOTY in 2016…9 years ago. Uncharted 4 was also a nominee. Overwatch is a worthless franchise and Activision will never be able rejuvenate, they will never be able to build spin-offs from it, Overwatch will never be a trans media product. All of these things that will never happen with Overwatch will and are happening with Uncharted and it will continue to generate hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in revenue for Sony going far into the future.

This franchise erosion aspect of GAAS is a problem for which there will likely be many business case studies made in the future around the question of whether the short term success of the one in a million GAAS game success is worth any investment to any party involved.

Edited January 27, 2025 by Osiris397

[killamch89]

You’ve nailed the biggest issue with GAAS(Game As A Service) - it’s not just about making a good game, it’s about maintaining trust and community over time. The Overwatch example perfectly highlights how even a successful start can spiral into reputational damage. Sony severely underestimated how sensitive gamers are to predatory practices, which could explain their current struggles with GAAS. There's still time for PlayStation to go back to their roots, the damage isn't entirely irreparable at this point but if they continue down this path, Sony will eventually start getting into Ubisoft territory and that's the point of no return.

[Osiris397]

It definitely seems like they're taking a much, much more conservative approach to GAAS.  Honestly they have had non-GAAS success with multiplayer games like Uncharted, TLOU Factions and Ghost of Tsushima Legends.  Many players would pay once for DLC level expansions, but the constant MT along side a completely useless in-game XP system (the standard) just instantly drives most gamers nuts and then drives them away.

[killamch89]

19 hours ago, Osiris397 said:

It definitely seems like they're taking a much, much more conservative approach to GAAS.  Honestly they have had non-GAAS success with multiplayer games like Uncharted, TLOU Factions and Ghost of Tsushima Legends.  Many players would pay once for DLC level expansions, but the constant MT along side a completely useless in-game XP system (the standard) just instantly drives most gamers nuts and then drives them away.

Sony still has time to rectify this and they made a good by firing Jim Ryan but they seem to be doubling down on Live-service games which is a very bad idea.

[Scorpion]

The cautionary tale of live-service games. I think another example worth mentioning is "No Man's Sky." Despite initial backlash, Sean Murray and Hello Games managed to turn it around, but the game's early missteps still linger in the memory of players. The constant promise of future content, which never quite materialized, left a sour taste. Now, the game's reputation precedes it, making it difficult for new players to approach it without preconceived notions. It's a testament to the long-term damage that a failed live service can cause, not just in terms of financial investment, but also its impact on a franchise's reputation.

[killamch89]

19 hours ago, Scorpion said:

The cautionary tale of live-service games. I think another example worth mentioning is "No Man's Sky." Despite initial backlash, Sean Murray and Hello Games managed to turn it around, but the game's early missteps still linger in the memory of players. The constant promise of future content, which never quite materialized, left a sour taste. Now, the game's reputation precedes it, making it difficult for new players to approach it without preconceived notions. It's a testament to the long-term damage that a failed live service can cause, not just in terms of financial investment, but also its impact on a franchise's reputation.

I think Ubisoft is the best example, They've been trying their hand at this live-service games for close to a decade and it has gone horribly wrong for them.

[Osiris397]

On 1/29/2025 at 11:41 PM, Scorpion said:

I think another example worth mentioning is "No Man's Sky." Despite initial backlash, Sean Murray and Hello Games managed to turn it around, but the game's early missteps still linger in the memory of players.

I'm not so sure I would lump NMS in here only because I suspect people that are hesitant about the title are people that generally wouldn't like a game that's primary game loop is exploration and resource mining/farming.  The odd thing about NMS is I feel like every major update has been a mini relaunch of the games for new players and it's VR edition is pretty groundbreaking in VR gaming.