Comment on Has the live-service dream crashed back down to earth? | Opinion
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 day agoHard disagree -before it went Free to Play, Team Fortress 2 was a shining example of GaaS!
How was TF2 (pre-FTP) a GaaS? I bought it in the Orange Box for a one-time cost. Where is the as-a-service component to that business model you’re citing?
MoreZombies@aussie.zone 1 day ago
They performed multiple free content updates over several years. I believe Gabe is quoted as saying the GaaS model had replaced the episodic model for them, the idea being that they weren’t selling a product, but a service that would continue passed the exchange of funds. We saw that in their games during that period like Left 4 Dead 1/2 as well.
As time has gone on, we’ve seen approaches to the idea morph to the anti-consumer versions we see and associate with the name, but there was a time when it wasn’t a negative.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I don’t think Unreal Tournament 2004 would have been considered live service just because they occasionally gave out a free new map. It was a form of marketing for the thing they already made. TF2 at least was a product when they sold it up front before it was free to play, when it had no microtransactions and they weren’t the goal for getting paid for having made TF2.
MoreZombies@aussie.zone 1 day ago
It was always the goal, just a different approach. I posted this quote in another reply but:
The thought pattern still has roots in sales/marketing - by releasing more content for the game, you attract new players. I would say No Mans Sky is a good example of this in recent years - its free content updates leading to constant attention and sales. No other forms of monetization are included.
I played UT2004 but was too young to recall things, but if the game did this through game updates I’d consider it an early form of Games as a Service. However, I consider Live Services to be a sub-classification under the banner, which by my definition UT2004 would not be:
So while L4D2 was by definition an example of a Game as a Service, it has a different approach to the concept compared to a game like Destiny 2. From how the game is played (offline/online, hosting servers), to how it is monetized and the updates are delivered can vary significantly.
I believe that all Live Services fall under the GaaS label, but not all games that fall under the GaaS label are Live Services. The lines have just become so blurred that it is hard to consider that games that can be so different fall under that label. We are in the pot, and the temperature is getting higher.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
I don’t think you’re going to going many sharing your definitions. GaaS has just been simply replaced by the term live service in how people talk about this stuff. Perhaps Valve showed their hand early with this interview, but the expectation we had as customers with early TF2 was very different back then. I definitely wouldn’t consider No Man’s Sky to be any form of service; it might be the industry’s best example of being a form of penance for what they promised their customers at the start.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I think you may be using a different definition of GaaS than mine. My definition includes a regular fee to play or a subscription as a continuous revenue generation from the product. From your replies I don’t think your definition does. That leaves me more confused about your definition.
What is your definition of Games-as-a-Service?
MoreZombies@aussie.zone 1 day ago
When I think of Games as a Service, I think of things like:
Games as a Service I think of as an overarching concept based around the idea of service not stopping at the point of sale. After that, the different approaches are almost “sub-classifications”.
There are those games that are touted as “Live Services” - when I use that term, I think of games that provide ongoing content, and maintains the game servers in exchange for varying streams of income. These are games that will typically “stop working” when the official servers go down. I consider games like Anthem and Loadout to be examples of Live Services in this respect. Games like World of Warcraft I consider Live Services, but I go one further and call those “subscription services”, since they require the subscription to play and in theory this is the main income that funds the game staying online.
The way I see it, all Live/Subscription Services fall under the Games as a Service banner, but not all Games as a Service will necessarily be either. To me, it’s more nuanced than one general classification, especially with the way things blend together these days; games can have multiple income streams (subscription, microtransactions, battlepasses, season passes, so on), as well as multiple forms of content delivery (free updates, expansions, DLC).
The lines have been blurred further with “early access” and “incomplete” titles being released that have constant content updates simply to get to a release state. However, these types of games have those stars that typically shine through. Such as No Mans Sky or (contentiously) Fallout 76.
tl;dr To me GaaS is the literal idea of treating games as more than a one-time product, but evolution in how content is delivered and monetized have lead to many different approaches. Unfortunately, the normalized ones (the maliciously monetized and despair-inducing) are so far apart from the “good ones” like L4D2, that it is difficult to consider that they are both actually examples of “Games as a Service”.
It’s long and I’m sorry.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
By your definition, we’ve had Games-as-a-Service since the dawn age of home PC gaming.
This is a game called Temple of Apshai. It was released in 1979 for TRS-80 and Commodore PET home computers. The years ahead would see it released on Apple II, Atari, Commondore 64, and others.
Image
Two years later in 1981 this paid expansion kit (software addon) was released (for Apple II and TRS-80). To use the expansion, you needed to own the original game. It added on additional maps and levels to play using the same game engine as the original. This would seem to match your definition of “not stopping at the point of sale” because obtaining the expansion kit would require yet another trip to the point of sale to continue to play the new content.
Image
Then what you’re citing as GaaS as a new phenomenon has been with us since the beginning.
No need to apologize. I appreciate the time and you took to explain your thoughts. It gave me a more clear view of your vision, and I appreciate that understanding. Even though I only quoted a small part of your post, I read and considered the whole thing.