Poll: Do you think video games are products or services?

[Johnny Novgorod]

I associate services with "intangible commodities" that you pay for over and over continuously, expecting the same result month after month. Gas. Water. Electricity. Internet. Land line. Mobile service. TV signal. And so on. An apple isn't a service just because you can buy one when you're hungry, nor are games a service because you buy them, no matter how regularly.

 

[Irick]

... neither?
I think they are art.

Is art a product? Is it a service?

Is Chess a product? There are chess boards I can buy, but the game itself is a game. It exists outside the confines of a simple manifestation. This is the same as with video games. The rules of the game are interpreted by a computer, so it's not as immediately obvious but what we are playing is just a single implementation of say, Borderlands. The game itself exists not as a single product or service, but as a construct of interaction between our minds and the minds of the gamewright.

Think about a reskin of quake 2. Is it still quake 2? It plays like quake 2, it uses the same rules as quake 2.

If I replace the pieces in chess with stacks of various height checkers, it's still chess.

In this context, a videogame is but one implementation of the rules using one implementation of the assets. The game itself can be emulated, changed, expanded, or faithful. Look at HD remixes. These specific implementations may be products, or you can choose to see them as the products of a service, but the games themselves transcend the medium and exist outside of it.

Consider in the future when doom is no longer covered by copyright. If we use one of the many source forks of the game engine, and use one of the many upgraded sprite sets, it's still DOOM. The rules are the same, it plays the same... the assets have changed.

I see the original intent to draw attention to these sort of self-destructive games that rely so heavily on DRM servers and the like, but I feel it's important to remember that games are not the bits that we buy on a disk, or pay for the right to download. Eventually these games will lapse back into the public domain, and there they will be.

I do think, though, that we should try to ensure that source code and assets be preserved for this hand over. Consider that publishers of books in the US are required to give a full copy of any book that they wish to publish to the library of congress for the express purpose of transference to the public domain, wherein it can be reprinted and reproduced. I believe that we should be fighting for similar measures with games (as well as software in general).

... but, the poll is too limited. :3

So my vote is unrepresented.

 

[Ambitiousmould]

I'd say a product, whether a downloaded game or a physical copy. That's the game itself though, and some services are available because of that product such as online and updates. I sort of think about it like a mobile phone. You get a product (the phone) then can take advantage of a service it can provide (such as paying for credit).

MMOs are a different kettle of fish though. Because you generally pay monthly (or some other form of subscription system) and because the game is entirely based around the running of servers (which are a service pretty much by definition) and because of the constant moderation and updating, I would call them a service

 

[sturryz]

Video games are garbage at the moment, they have done nothing but piss me off. I honestly wonder sometimes why I bother with them when they provide just so much frustration on part of the end user. More often then not it's not the games themselves but the services and companys around them.

 

[Maximum Bert]

... neither?
I think they are art.

Is art a product? Is it a service?

But cannot a product or a service be considered art or an art as well? Do they have to be one to the exclusion of the other?

For me games are definitely a product they are in no way shape or form a service its a work that is put out and you buy for X amount even if that X is 0. Now some games most notably MMOs continually add new content that they fund through subscriptions and/or microtransactions so the line could be seen as blurred here but I still say they are adding to the product but we accept the product has a finite life.

Games like fighters also receive a lot of updates and tweaks this is not a service this is them tweaking the product and then giving it to you or selling it to you.

Years ago this wouldnt have been an issue but now its bigger business a lot want more control and you dont really have much control over a product when its sold over the IP yeah definitely but over that one specific product no. With a service however you can do much more change the price at anytime take things away and then sell them back or literally just take it away for no reason other than saying they no longer provide that service.

If in the future games were to go onto something much like Netflix and you pay for access to a client and then have access to a plethora of games I would be more inclined to say games are a service or rather I would say they are products that can be accessed through such a service.

The trouble is as well that we are being sold broken or incomplete products and then to get round it they are saying its a service and that it will be fixed or added to in the future which is complete BS as a service should also not be incomplete anyway. I also dont get how some so called services can get around not giving you your money back if you are unhappy regardless of if its a product or service that is your genuine right in many countries if you have a legitimate complaint.

 

[DEAD34345]

A video game is nothing but information. Sometimes it's packaged onto a CD (or whatever), so that the CD with a copy on it can be sold as a product. Sometimes access to the video game is restricted and sold as a service. The actual video game part itself though is really just information, and it could be potentially be passed on or sold any number of different ways.

...

(Eat that, poll.)

 

[fix-the-spade]

I'm quite curious as to what people think

They're both.

You pay your money and you get content, that's the product.

But that content (unless it's purely a single player game) requires ongoing upkeep to run, central servers, stat tracking, community features are all service.

 

[agent9]

Product, even with the updates and tweaks. I don't consider those to be service. I expect the product to be what's advertised, a fully functional working game with all the parts included. updates shouldn't be services they should be expected since companies choose to release buggy unfinished games. this would never pass for any other object at retail so I don't think games should get special treatment.

 

[DoPo]

Video games are not like that.

Yes, you are correct. To expand on your point - it seems that, shockingly, video games behave like software. And software, shockingly, is not non-software. Why is this shocking, I don't know, but it certainly seems there are people who never conceived that.

Also, personally I think "games as a service" just sounds wrong. Just because software as a service (SaaS) is a different concept related to cloud computing and not completely applicable to games.