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[ChorizoPicozo]

Why do a game has to be online only? Create a base game with good SP content, and also offer an MP option. The two are entirely separate entities. If you don't want others to rummage around in your game and don't want to spend extra, then you can play the SP part, while others who are hooked on the SP and want more, can continue their journey in the multiplayer extension. Counterstrike is a Half Life mod... so why not follow this model. Established universe, that sells well, with a multiplayer part.

because the cost to make the two things nowadays is too damn high.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

How many GaaS games currently reside in the graveyard on Steam?

And yet they dominate the industry in terms of the money that they make.

Fortnite makes more money than 50 single player games.

 

[LectureMaster]

LMFAO, the title.
Mods are gold.

 

[mckmas8808]

Depends on how much revenue they expect to see in return long-term.

More importantly, they want players engaged within the PlayStation eco-system.
That's most likely the main goal, as singleplayer games make it hard to have high user retention.

They said they want to rely less on 3rd party, especially after MS acquired ABK.
That means they have to give the PS userbase something in between major AAA singleplayer releases. The best way to do that, are GaaS IPs.

Just feels like horrible planning and a horrible thought process. Making games just for the sake of.......is never a good plan. It's setting good money on fire just to say you have something to play.

It’s because a successful live service game is soooo successful. Think of Apex, Destiny, Fortnite, GTAO, Madden, EAFC, these games pay for themselves and basically everything else.

Just seems insane to "accept" such a high failure rate, just because a corporate suit wants to chase a crack-addicting GAAS game. I'm starting to understand why Sony is now canceling so many of them. It was never a good idea in the first place.

 

[mckmas8808]

He's wrong though.

PlayStations plan was "12 GAAS before FY2025".

They've since lowered that number to "6 GAAS before FY2025".

The first title in that initiative is a smash success. If Bungie is helping Sony prune their GAAS tree, you're almost certain to see all 6 GAAS games be successful.

So it's not 15%, it's 50% (of the original 12) and the ROI is significantly healthier than even that considering many of their GAAS titles never reached full production (the most expensive part of the dev process).

And I'm thankful that they lowered that number to 6 GAAS games before FY2025. Most PS gamers on GAF are actually. Had this been THE number stated 2 years ago, most of us wouldn't have had a problem with it at all. It was the fact that it was 12 GAAS games that most had the issue with.

And what are these 6 GAAS games now? Do you know them?

 

[YeulEmeralda]

If that's the new position of the anti Live Service crowd, then progress has been made and you people are redeemable after all, lol.

I hate live service games and will never play them but I'm not in denial about their profitability.

And there's still plenty of "traditional" games to play.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Just feels like horrible planning and a horrible thought process. Making games just for the sake of.......is never a good plan. It's setting good money on fire just to say you have something to play.

If it's going to a situation like Helldivers 2, or Destiny when it was at it's peak (D1 Taken King), then it's a very wise decision.

They need something to rely less on 3rd party games and that is more sustainable for the business than releasing a major AAA every other year.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

And what are these 6 GAAS games now? Do you know them?

MLB The Show
Helldivers 2
Concord
Marathon
Fairgames
Horizon MMO ???

 

[Toots]

Stop GaaSlighting us with your editorialized threads !
(jk keep doing it it's pretty fun )

 

[WitchHunter]

because the cost to make the two things nowadays is too damn high.

Slap some - reusable between games - networking code on top of existing assets?

 

[yurinka]

In March of 2018, Shawn Layden left his position at PlayStation.

No, in March 2018 he shifted from CEO of SCEA to chairman of WorldWide Studios (now PS Studios), where the president was Yoshida. Back then the CEO of SIE was Andrew House.

He left his job at PlayStation in September 30, 2019.

Was Shawn Layden pushed out because he didn't fundamentally understand the growing Live Service market?

No, maybe the opposite.

He and (Yoshida, president of Worldwide/PS Studios) were ones pushing the live service games and PC strategy, greenlighting the games and PC ports being published (and some of the cancelled, like TLOU Online and London Studio's new IP) in recent times.

He and Yoshida also greenlighted remasters or remakes like TLOUP1.

In your estimation, how many Live Service games had a monthly active user base of over 100k players in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and today?

Do you REALLY think that number has plateaued?

It's worth mentioning that the biggest live service PC games (LoL, Dungeon Fighter Online, Roblox, Fortnite...) aren't on Steam.

PlayStations plan was "12 GAAS before FY2025".

Not true, 12 GaaS before FY2026 (April 1st, 2026). In that original announcement they mentioned that didn't include Bungie games.

They've since lowered that number to "6 GAAS before FY2025".

And what are these 6 GAAS games now? Do you know them?

Not true, this isn't what Totoki said.

He said that as when they made the most recent fiscal report, they had 6 GaaS locked to be released before April 2026 and were reviewing some other the other ones and not all of them were going to be released before that date, so no longer had April 2026 as deadline.

He mentioned that back then were working in the 12 games. Months later, TLOU Online, London Studio's new IP and apparently the Deviation game (if not moved to their new secret SIE team with ex-Deviation employees) got cancelled.

But they could include to their list Destiny, Marathon and Matter (a few years ago Bungie had planned "at least one new IP" to be released before 2025, one of them being Marathon, so pretty likely both would be ready by early 2026) to replace the canned ones barely still have 12 IPs with GaaS as they planned.

I'd bet the 12 IPs with GaaS titles from PS Studios were:
MLB (21 and newer)
Gran Turismo (7, Sport already was GaaS)
Firewall (Ultra)
Helldivers (2)
Concord
Horizon (MP game started in 2018)
FairGame$
Firesprite MP game (Jason said the cancelled Twisted Metal wasn't greenlighted, but the Firesprite MP GaaS was in the work since at least 2021, so apparently is a different game)
TLOU Online
London Studio new IP
Deviation's game (cancelled if not moved to the secret new SIE team built by former Deviation employees)
Insomniac MP game (apparently the not greenlighted Spider-Man Online game)

Now having Bungie:
Destiny (2)
Marathon
New IP under development (Matter?)

Some of the China Hero Project titles to be published by Sony could be GaaS too, even if I assume most of them won't be published by Sony and won't be GaaS.

And why aren't we talking about how wasteful and stupid this idea was in the first place. Why would a 15% success rate be considered good in the first place? If only 2 out of 12 Live Service games were successful, I'd call that a HUGE failure!

It isn't something from GaaS, gaming investors or publishers normally invest in batches of 12 or 20 titles that look promising. They expect a couple of them becoming relatively big hits, a few to get canned or tank hard and the other ones performing ok. The profit of the hits normally compensate the loses from the failed ones.

In my personal proffesional case I saw it applied in investors of mobile games studios/games deciding where they did invest that year, in indie game publishers selecting a new batch of titles and in AAA publisher greenlighting internal projects for the next mid term (3 years) plan.

Games are something very creative and the gaming market trends change relatively quickly, sometimes making big changes. Quite often they start to work in a project that seem to be very promising because matches the new hot thing but when released that trend is already outdated.

Why do a game has to be online only? Create a base game with good SP content,

When Sony did show their plans for the current and the next couple fiscal years, they said that plan to continue increasing their investment in SP, non-GaaS games. The majority of the "more than 25 games"(pretty likely over 30 counting VR) Hermen said that PS Studios had under development weren't GaaS, becase only 12 of them were GaaS.

Most games we know have been greenlighted during the Hermen Hulst and Jim Ryan era (the ones greenlighted / started after November 2019) aren't GaaS.

 

[Fafalada]

Why do a game has to be online only? Create a base game with good SP content, and also offer an MP option. The two are entirely separate entities.

That have entirely separate budgets. GTA:Online development cost alone (not the service costs) was bigger than any full fledged AAA released in the same time-frame. Very few publishers can afford that level of extravagance.

 

[diffusionx]

Just feels like horrible planning and a horrible thought process. Making games just for the sake of.......is never a good plan. It's setting good money on fire just to say you have something to play.


Just seems insane to "accept" such a high failure rate, just because a corporate suit wants to chase a crack-addicting GAAS game. I'm starting to understand why Sony is now canceling so many of them. It was never a good idea in the first place.

So, I think what Sony did here actually makes sense. They funded a bunch of projects and have been monitoring them and are killing them off if they don't pass muster. You're basically operating like a VC here.