In an interview with GamesBeat, David Haddad, president of Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, revealed that the publisher plans to move everything to games as a service. This is the second publisher that invests as much to GaaS as possible, with Ubisoft already doing this with pretty much all of their franchises.
As Haddad told GamesBeat:
“But more than ever, the tech stack, whether it’s for publishing or BI or marketing, that you build and serve these games on—as we increasingly move everything to games as a service, the kind of enabling technology you need to keep them hyper-social, to keep them serving well, to keep them engaged, to take the innovations of game makers and deliver them, like the Nemesis system—you’ll see a lot of our investment not just in classic development, designers and engineers and artists, but increasingly in the teams that end up serving live games.”
To be honest, the term “games as a service” is not bad provided the launch product is complete, with all its gameplay and storyline featured intact, with the additional story/gameplay content being free and without getting butchered in favour of micro-transactions. The problem is that some studios focus so much on creating a “GaaS” product that completely overlook all other aspects of their games, thus making them feel lacklustre, hollow and soulless.
Still, it’s pretty obvious that more and more publishers will be focusing on games as a service. Whether this will have a negative impact on their games’ quality remains to be seen!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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I like how every one of these companies claim the problem is a lackluster game and overuse of microtransactions/lootboxes due to EAs Battlefront debacle.
Funny sh*t, I’m still not touching a single WB game after all they did.
Yup, I still haven’t played Shadow of War because of what they did with Arkham Knight on PC.
I doubt this will play out how anyone wants it to
It will be a success thanks to console and some PC Gamers who receive with open arms everything AAA companies does.
Exactly, and kiss-up gaming sites’ real customers are publishers (not gamers) in return for exclusive interviews, behind the scenes access social media connections, and millions of $ in site ad placement to keep the clicks and cash flowing. Peer Schneider in an interview with Greg Miller (KF) said IGN would have failed without publisher advertising/ad clicks because the gamer subscription model wasnt working. So I expect all GaaS games to get 8s and 9s by pop gaming sites. Look at their reviews of Destiny and all the other predatory monetized games – where they conveniently leave out “ignoring the microtransactions it’s a great game.” And the games are usually not great at all.
yay for halfbroken and halfcontent games at launch with uncertain possibility of being fixed + loaded with content in following months
F*CK this is bad new for hitman 2…
Bye, less garbage games to buy
even more will be made.
The real question is how long before the general public get board and stop buying?
And if? xD
We’ll see!
Doubtful they ever will. The power of marketing is too strong.
Games as services don’t feel right to me. It makes me feel like a responsability rather than a hobby and I don’t like that. “oh, I should stop to doing whatever I’m doing because this game has a limited event” or like “oh, I need to relearn to play because they changed everything since the last time I played”
I simply prefer to play when I want at my own pace, finish the game and start a new one…
So, only Nintendo is left to completely adopt the corrupted model….
CDPR isnt exactly a big publisher. This decision affects many franchises, included all the DC related games.
Nintendo? They already did. They are charging money to people who want to play on hard difficulty or use cheats…
Amiibos are pretty much corrupted too, after all, they just unlock content that is already in the game,
True, but there is a WYSIWYG transaction and ownership of a physical toy. I know that is a weak argument for them, but there is something tangible that is purchased – though they are overpriced figurines.
But I do not want figurines, I just want the content that is already in my cartridge
For now. After this gen of trusting popular gaming companies like that and ALL turning evil it honestly would not surprise me. Here’s to being hopeful but prepared.
Way I see this, is companies invest less in games up front for development, and if they don’t sell as many copies as they want, they will scrap the development of further content.
2017 = Year of the Loot Boxes
2018 = Year of the Battle Royale
2019 = Year of the GaaS
2020 = Year of Cyberpunk 2077
Hopefully, CP2077 will rek everything and possibly bring back devs to “normal” games.
Game as a service omfg.
Can’t wait for CP2077, but here’s to hoping CDPR doesn’t turn evil like the rest of AAA.
Rockstar was always evil.
So what happen to the dlcs of shadow of war?
Lootboxes, clouds, pay to win,multiplayer-only. If not for indie games (or CDPR) I would be done with gaming.
Mark my words. This. Will. Be. The. Crash. Of. The. Gaming. Industry. This is a very bad idea.
I dunno, I think a crash might be a good thing for the industry right now. They can take their loot boxes, Denuvo, and games as a service and shove em. The small companies treating their customers right can thrive.
Games as a service stinks of playing on gamer’s addiction, made more interesting now that the WHO sees that as a medical condition.
Just imagine the boners the executives at WB had while sniffing cocaine of the next hooker when thinking about how much money they can save and how much they can earn for as little effort as possible.
F*k off WB.
HA I thought I was the only one who viewed nasty, coked out AAA execs like this! The marketplace orc in SoW is a good one too (which I refuse to buy).
Im glad I moved to indies some years ago. Most AAA companies are just trying to fix what is not broken.
Glad I don’t play games anymore.
Because rhey are services, right?
Nice. In the next Rocksteady Batman game…
“The Riddler has hidden lootboxes and DLCs all around Gotham. Play as a true billionaire-playboy Bruce Wayne and buy them all!”
bruce wayne simulator confirmed
The GaaS Infection. It’s all the predatory mobile model rebranded in a prettier package so they can sell less product for 3x the price gouged cost. Devolver nailed in explaining this idea.
Link to Devolver explaining this?
I enjoy games as a service. PS Now has an incredible selection of games. Origin Access has a very small library but it’s insanely cheap and will gain more games. Same goes for the Xbox Game Pass.
I like this kind of thing. It’s the same kind of thing as Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Prime. Anybody complaining should probably just slap themselves.
My issue has always been with microtransactions and DLC.
It is better to download once and keep, and consumes less bandwidth.
100 games for $10. 700 games for $100. Says it all.
If they gonna remove DLC’S i’m ok with it.
I’m pretty sure this means more DLC.
Yes you will.
No. Not buying AAA games saves me money and indie games are cheap.
he might but i wont.
Games as a service – the kind of games where you get no service
“To be honest, the term “games as a service” is not bad…”
Ya, actually it is. It automatically puts an expiration date on any game. The fact this needed to be pointed out to you, is pathetic really.
“Whether this will have a negative impact on their games’ quality remains to be seen!”
No, it doesn’t remain to be seen.
After Ubisoft,it’s WB games turn.. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98560ff73bfa3e56f66921e7dc296e562691d28c0f92b2f5405b1447b0d6482c.gif
Does this mean we will pay a monthly membership to play their games? The world it’s gone crazy after this memberships: look, it’s just $10 Netlfix, just $10 Amazon Prime, $5 for Spotify and so one. In the meantinme, you are left bankrupt by paying $10 for services.