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PotentHerbs on 04 September 2024
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Mummelmann said:

Lots of games made a killing off of loot-box mechanics as well, that doesn't make it a strategy to be lauded. It only takes a few hits to spark a trend, which invariably leads to funds getting funneled into projects of the same ilk, taking it away from other possible venues. Anthem is a prime example - Bioware were still capable of making something great back then, but the EA ghost hovered above them and wanted that sweet GaaS nectar. You mentioning that some profit is made off of what is generally considered a poor trend, doesn't make it a good trend. Heck, even the industry at large disagrees with you, and also subscribe to the "boogeyman" theories.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/70-of-developers-worry-about-the-live-service-models-sustainability-survey-shows/

https://twistedvoxel.com/first-party-studios-upset-playstation-gaas-direction/

Gamers and developers, overall, are not fond of GaaS, it's mostly on the publisher side that the enthusiasm lies. Any publisher and developer has a finite amount of money, it's absurd to claim that GaaS focus won't steer funding away from other projects, such as single-player (and multiplayer) games that people actually want. I also play one franchise that is probably a net negative to the industry (FIFA). I don't play online, and certainly don't purchase card packs for UT, but I would never in a million years suggest that what EA are doing with FIFA is a good thing.

I surely hope that we won't see a future where you not only pay for the connection and the privilege of playing online, but also have to pay subscriptions or regular fees for individual titles on top. It's a very bad development for us as consumers - it will create a market of intermittency and instability, with uneven sales curves and more closures as a result.

Sony's biggest live service game doesn't have loot box mechanics, it doesn't have FOMO, it isn't even F2P.

All this talk about live service taking away from single player investments, but we have Astro Bot releasing in a little over a day, Until Dawn Remake in about a month, and Lego Horizon during the holidays. That's not even including XDev's involvement with Rise of the Ronin or even SIE's increased investment into Stellar Blade. And that's with Wolverine and Death Stranding 2 coming in the future. Where exactly are all these single player games being impacted? I would get the hysteria if Santa Monica Studios or Bluepoint were forced into making a live service game. 

When it comes to your last hypothetical, I just don't see how Sony pursuing GaaS leads PlayStation consumers down that path, when none of Sony's single player games charge you a subscription fee to play them. They didn't even lock F2P games behind a paywall when they could've easily made that the norm last generation.