Games come out on a frequent basis and always change things from year to year or sequel to sequel; when they don't they become samey and stale. That's where games as a service comes in. Rather than releasing new game after new game, a company will release one game and support it through numerous updates, season passes, and micro-transactions.
Now, that sounds terrible because those are now the things we as gamers have grown to despise, obviously not updates because those we all want to make our games better, but it is all the paid extras that companies want that we've grown to despise. Just look at Star Wars Battlefront 2 for a case of how bad micro-transactions can get (which I called months before release by the way). Yet, if done right none of these things can effect gameplay and some can even extend the life of a game.
The company I want to focus on as the "right way" to do this is Ubisoft and their new model is starting to look like this:
Then one game kickstarted their new business model: Rainbow Six Siege.
The game started off with a lackluster following as most Ubisoft games do but slowly over time with their Year 2 Pass they added more operators and more maps and with their constant updates by paying attention to their audience it has made that game skyrocket in popularity. It was the little things, not so much micro-transactions at first, but the constant updates the company provided the game that kept Day One players like myself so interested because they would always find a way to balance the operators; Valkyrie has too many cameras and her shotgun is too good, nerf her shotgun and take away one camera, oh Thatcher doesn't have a shotgun like his picture sure let's add that. That led to a lot of hype on the internet and soon a budding e-sport, The Rainbow 6 Invitational, e-sports draws crowds and mainstream attention and that brings more sales of the game. Thus their sales for season passes for new operators to go along with the corresponding meta improves.
Using the model above just to put Siege in those points. More development time: there is no plans for a Siege 2 (just for a long continuation of this one). Better Experience: the community loves the time and effort they put into the Operators and changing things so the game is as perfect as it can be. More Engagement: the amount of hours people like me have put into Siege is astounding you see several regular people with levels in the 200's and very high ranks and they aren't even the pro players. More Recurring Profit: those same people that enjoy the game and put all these hours in are willing to shell out $40 for the next season pass knowing that while the maps might be free getting early access to the operators is sometimes essential to the game or these same people are willing to buy R6 Credits to get an Elite skin for their favourite operator, like I did for Mute.
They no long want to hit driven and cyclical business, they want recurring revenue business, essentially they want business that keeps coming on a constant basis without any kind of cycle. For example, rather than on a yearly cycle basis releasing a game like Far Cry 5, adding on to it recurring revenue via: each different and unique expansion in the Season Pass like the Martian one, by adding Silver Bars to acquire unique clothes or weapons, by adding a completely remastered Far Cry 3; these things will keep revenue for Far Cry 5 up and thus they won't need to make a new one this year.
They now want High User Engagement instead of low engagement, which makes sense that you would want your users involved in blossoming a franchise and improving it. The best example is Rainbow Six Siege and them taking input and listening to their users has created a thriving game and community and the best example of them not listening to their users is a game like The Division which died off almost immediately after it came out and took until a late patch for it to begin to do better (which also came out after this talk Ubisoft had about live service). The better engagement the user has with one game the less of that particular title Ubisoft will have to roll out and flood the market with.
They also are going with a multi-platform business model now because before Ubisoft was all about Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. They have now branched out and made PC a huge part of their business model, to the point e-sports have started to thrive, and even touched into the mobile market. Which makes sense with the growing amount of both PC gamers and casual mobile game users.
Rather than a developer centric focus they plan to focus on the player this time with live services. This one I have a hard time believing because players will all want different things from what each other want and different things than developers want. There's no way to please every player and therefore if you have the developer centric model, they push the focus and all the other live service stuff can be built around that. However, it is their call, I could also be wrong in my thoughts.
Game experience to platform experience is another thing I don't believe Ubisoft has thought out because each one of their games has an experience that is shared across platforms already and they always have. I've never noticed a difference in Siege between PS4 or Xbox nor have I seen a difference in Assassin's Creed games; I actually think it would be difficult to make it "exclusive to platform experiences" only PC and mobile would notice a difference.
They want more of a lifetime value than a number of units pushed and this is fair to say where Ubisoft has already seen their live services push and worked. The number of units sold for Rainbow Six Siege was relatively low at launch and over time through their treatment of it as a live service, through their game updates, through their treatment of the community, its number of units sold has gone up substantially. So one does help the other out in a way.
We shall see how they plan on going forward with these kinds of services but if Rainbow Six Siege is any indication or even their plans for Far Cry 5, they will be doing just fine with these ideas of "live services".
How do you go about justifying a larger amount of monetization ??
Well, when you see what kinds of numbers that games you have begin to pull in then it is much easier to justify adding different types of it to your games. When these live services start to truly take shape, people tend to complain much less about microtransactions because they are a part of the process, they exist so these games continue to get better and evolve and not just because of some arbitrary tacked on reason. The different types of currency each of Ubisoft's games contain is all unique to small in store purchases that you can make for specific cosmetic items or sometimes weapons, armor, or cars (not that they effect gameplay) and while
Do I think games as a "live service" is the way of the future ?? For certain companies, like Ubisoft, yes and I believe if, like Ubisoft, done correctly it can be a fantastic thing. However, it can also backfire and will completely turn fans off of your games and your company. Nothing will sour people than thinking you are just milking them for money with a poor excuse of a game and they know because it is a live service that you are not planning to release another for awhile. It will end up like For Honor for Ubisoft, they have no plans to do another, people saw it as a live service and when they got tired and the community died so too did the game.
The same can be said of game franchises in general though, the ones that stick to traditional methods, they can backfire too but with your solid experience games like Last of Us or Horizon Zero Dawn or Gears of War it is a lot harder to backfire on. Just yearly releases are the achillies heel of traditional releases but if these yearly releases end up as live services that will make things much simpler.
So yes, live services can be a good thing though I do still prefer a traditional method, and we can look no further than to Ubisoft for their fantastic work with games like Rainbow Six Siege to prove that they have what it takes to do a method like this. Good work Ubisoft, keep it up !! (Though always tread lightly with microtransactiosn & don't screw up The Crew 2).