Re: Kingdom Come Deliverance II Wins Big

On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 09:16:28 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 06/02/2025 15:45, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Yep, the impression I get is that triple-A developers have almost backed
themselves into a corner in which they feel they have to produce 'mega'
games as that's just what they do and those budgets also effectively
force them to be risk adverse. You'd think they'd have woken up by now
and realised that just throwing money at a game isn't a recipe for
success and instead is often a recipe for getting a studio closed down
or 'restructured'.

Well, when your company makes literal billions from MTX --far more
than you'd ever make in traditional sales-- it's a career-killing move
to say, "hey, let's turn our back on that sort of revenue".
American-style capitalism always seeks the short-term profit over
long-term stability, even if its obvious that chasing after the former
might kill your golden goose in a few years down the road.

     [Meanwhile, EA is suggesting that "Dragon Age: Veilguard" might
      have been more successful had it been released as a live-service
      game. Because the lack of 'shared world features' in DA:V was
      what held it back, right?]

>
Yes I saw that and well what can you say, just how out of touch are
they. Then again I'm sure the grand formages will be the ones carrying
the can for this costly mistake and not the dev's :-)

The sad thing is: they're not that out of touch. Live-service games
rake in billions of dollars and are immensely popular amongst hoi
polloi. They aren't loved by Real Gamers (tm) but we are a
surprisingly small percentage of people who buy those sort of games.
It's almost guaranteed money, and the much safer bet. In theory, at
least.

Of course, there is an issue that in order for live services to work,
you have get people to dedicate large swathes of their time to the
game, and as there are only so many hours in the day, the market can
only support so many live-service games. Thus, the current trend of
cranking out endless numbers of billion dollar games chasing after
that potential MTX loot is sabotaging itself. It's also increasingly
alienating your core (and even your periphery) audiences as they
become aware as how overly monetized the hobby has become. And in the
current economic environment --when belts are increasingly being
tightened and there doesn't look to be any relief soon-- its these
sorts of products -- the ones that offer least value for the dollar--
which are likely to be abandoned first.

TL;DR: live service games are a very smart move... but the triple-As
really need to diversify. But they don't, which is why they're having
problems and why mid-tier publishers are making a comeback.