On the Ball: AAA Extinction

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Hmm.

I like the idea in theory, mainly because as my often espoused views on DLC of any kind will remind people, it means other people would be testing my game for me, meaning I would hopefully only reap benefits from this system (as long as the end result was a full copy of a game which had been thoroughly approved by effectively a board of my peers)

But, people on the whole are herd following mindless animals, and the minute anything new or innovative got released it would undersell, perform badly and the publishers would return to making generic bland boringness. This future being predicted is one in which nothing new is ever created, or even attempted, because at least when a new and innovative game fails nowadays, they went the distance to see if it could work, rather than running a hundred metres as a test of whether they could run a marathon.

Some games only work in the absolute, and this has to be recognised, releasing DLC which doesn't reflect the entire nature of the game is a very, very bad idea for anyone who likes newness.

If you love generic though, good on you, I hope you enjoy the next rest of gaming future.

 

[Atmos Duality]

These kinds of games, they will have to be perfect, and do everything right. If there is so much as one flaw then people will reason that they are not worth the money. If current industry models are to be followed, they are incapable of making the perfect game.

And I am glad because of that. However, there is this nagging feeling that keeps bothering me; when I see this sort of subscription model applied to say, something like Half Life 2 episodes (ignoring that it's an effectively dead project now) I can actually see it working.

For multiplayer games, you charge admission for pro-circuits and services, but for single player games, you design it in such a way that it would be ideal to play through it no more than twice while keeping it fun; like designing a semi-interactive action movie that you rent out for a weekend, play, and return.

Hell, most of the new games I've tried have horrid replay value, but would fit that profile nicely. Nearly every shooter released in the last two years qualifies for that, with the blathering, predictable stories, cliche character design and purely-gimmick levels.
The sole major reason to even own most of these games is the multiplayer access (which I'm not a fan of anymore, but that's beside the point).

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

For multiplayer games, you charge admission for pro-circuits and services, but for single player games, you design it in such a way that it would be ideal to play through it no more than twice while keeping it fun; like designing a semi-interactive action movie that you rent out for a weekend, play, and return.

In theory it works, but you have to take in to account the fact there there are technically qualified people out there who can reverse engineer a game's code unlocking all the hidden stuff and allowing for play outside of the official servers.

 

[Atmos Duality]

In theory it works, but you have to take in to account the fact there there are technically qualified people out there who can reverse engineer a game's code unlocking all the hidden stuff and allowing for play outside of the official servers.

Of that I am aware. IP tunneling services and "privateer" (bad pun) servers have been available for well over the last decade.

And yet, the console market still manages to utterly stomp the PC market in sales figures for the multiplatform launches, despite both being pirate-able. Why is that? Well, I suspect that most of the market, by far, isn't aware of the potential black market for these sorts of things.

I concede that the likely backlash against a subscription market would probably push an even greater portion of the consumer base to looking for those alternatives. In fact, I hope that's what would happen because "eternal rentals" are not acceptable as ethical business practices in a PRODUCT-centric market. In any other product-market, we call that a SCAM.

 

[Dhael]

Didn't demos used to be free?

 

[BrotherRool]

I'd say AAA are not extinct and aren't going to be extinct any time soon. You argue that EA lost a billion dollars (surely partly due to a $300 million acquition of a casual gaming company). I argue that a single triple A game made Activision a billion dollars. Maybe AAA games will become less, but Microsoft and Sony sell consoles at a loss because the profits from these games are so good. It's a risky business but the rewards will outweight the loss and do outweigh the losses year on year.

For that matter don't MMO's count as triple A? Because I doubt Blizzard feel that their market is in trouble?

And speaking of Blizzard, triple A games aren't even necessarily a risky proposition. Count on one hand the number of AAA Sony/MS inhouse games that have gone bad. Count the number of Blizzard games which haven't become best sellers. When did Final Fantasy not make a bundle or Madden not sell well? What you're seeing is the danger of breaking into the market, of trying to claim the peak, yet for people who are already established and have the support there seems to be very little risk.

Times are changing, but the truth is record sales are being recorded more and more frequently for AAA games, and whilst the prize is there people will seek it. Excuse me if I don't think making a crud load of money signifies the end ^^

 

[ldwater]

Sounds like you have to PAY to beta test!

They could in theory send out this 'demo' game, receive feedback and never release the 'full' game because the feedback would have made the game 'not commercially viable'.

Even if the feedback is constructive and a 'full' game is released it means that the dedicated players would have to pay AGAIN for the full version, and most likly play through the same content they had before (lets be honest, no game studio is going to scrap 'demo' content when the full version is released - probably just change a few things and give it a new paint job and hope no one noticed )

Why don't they use the money and properly play test games and get honest feedback rather than release stuff that they 'hope' will sell?