BioShock creator says "audiences reward" single-player games that don't have "other methods of monetization," like Baldur's Gate 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
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I would say its less that they’re “rewarded” and more like they’re turning every customer upside down and shaking them until the money falls out
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Gamers reward good games
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Thing is, I’ve seen funbucks stuffed into various single player games over the years. The first was probably Mass Effect 3, but some of the Assassin’s Creed games have it too.
But who are they for? Who buys them? They’ve never really felt like anything that would be useful. It’s usually just some crappy cosmetics, or something you can get through normal play. It’s like they’ve been stuffed in at the request of management, but also like nobody has ever checked up on what they actually put in, or whether anybody bought it…
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I don’t buy single player games with other monetization. You want another $30 you add another 30 hours of good content.
CDPR get this, at least. Phantom Liberty, Hearts of Stone, Blood and Wine. All well worth it.
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That info came as quite a bio shock
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$ for hours on VS is insane, even with all the DLC it’s pennies. I feel like I’m stealing from the dev.
No, that is what “made for fun”-monetization looks like
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Oh and they were what weekly spawn on top of that too that were also open world spawns to boot, so quite often you had competition just laying claim to it.
Our server had some quite… colorful guilds that didn’t play nice and would train attempts, or bum rush it in an attempt to do more damage to steal the claim, among other nastiness. Imagine you spent hours getting 80 people together, prepping, and then getting ganked at the last minute. lol pure chaos.
The GMs were constantly involved sorting out the aftermath. Which was funny in its own right I suppose. Which is probably why they leaned hard into instances in later expansions.
Fun times. Dont think there will be another experience like it was its hayday.
Sounds like my experiences with Ultima Online. Right before they added paladins and necromancers, the shard where I played was quite “raw”. You really got the human experience, with everything: misery, dignity, psycopaths, etc.
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And Multiplayer games like Helldivers 2
It is my favorite software as a service model.
They run a continuous story based experience that is extremely well done. They do offer the ability to buy in game credits, but if you play regularly there is no reason to as they show up frequently in game. Their cosmetic store only has a few items, but they cycle around so there will always be another chance to get them.
And when the devs did fuck up the gameplay, they admitted it and changed course. When Sony forced them to add in the PlayStation login the devs supported the players in pushing back and we now have an official review bomb cape.
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I don’t buy single player games with other monetization. You want another $30 you add another 30 hours of good content.
Wish granted, but it’s just 30 dlcs each around a full-game price and you gotta wait til they go on sale for $1 once every year at a random time.
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Thing is, I’ve seen funbucks stuffed into various single player games over the years. The first was probably Mass Effect 3, but some of the Assassin’s Creed games have it too.
But who are they for? Who buys them? They’ve never really felt like anything that would be useful. It’s usually just some crappy cosmetics, or something you can get through normal play. It’s like they’ve been stuffed in at the request of management, but also like nobody has ever checked up on what they actually put in, or whether anybody bought it…
The game industry was assaulted by the MBAs long ago. They have this financial concept of leaving money on the table. That if you aren’t skinning your customers alive for all they have then you are losing money.
Then there was that infamous power point slide that got leaked where, basically, the plan is to use games to bring in audiences then use gambling techniques to hook on whales then cash them for eternity. Thus “live services games” were born.
It feels like uncreative, predatory shit because it is. It’s a finance people idea, not a creative game developer idea.
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Wish granted, but it’s just 30 dlcs each around a full-game price and you gotta wait til they go on sale for $1 once every year at a random time.
I wish you were less evil.
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Sounds like my experiences with Ultima Online. Right before they added paladins and necromancers, the shard where I played was quite “raw”. You really got the human experience, with everything: misery, dignity, psycopaths, etc.
And honestly I think that’s what’s missing in “modern” mmos: the human element. Or rather the social one. Which is ironic.
They are now way too friendly towards solo play and systems like ff14s duty finder removed the social aspect by automating group comp with complete randos that you will probably never see again since it was cross server.
In evercrack and even ffxi you were required to shout for groups from a pool of players on your own server so you got to know people. Who was good and who was not so good. You built a reputation.
It was a lot harder for sure, but it felt more meaningful.
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The game industry was assaulted by the MBAs long ago. They have this financial concept of leaving money on the table. That if you aren’t skinning your customers alive for all they have then you are losing money.
Then there was that infamous power point slide that got leaked where, basically, the plan is to use games to bring in audiences then use gambling techniques to hook on whales then cash them for eternity. Thus “live services games” were born.
It feels like uncreative, predatory shit because it is. It’s a finance people idea, not a creative game developer idea.
I think the last few years has left them struggling with the reality that landlords and supermarkets also have that concept, and when it’s a choice between having a roof, food, or entertainment, then they’re way down the list.
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Thing is, I’ve seen funbucks stuffed into various single player games over the years. The first was probably Mass Effect 3, but some of the Assassin’s Creed games have it too.
But who are they for? Who buys them? They’ve never really felt like anything that would be useful. It’s usually just some crappy cosmetics, or something you can get through normal play. It’s like they’ve been stuffed in at the request of management, but also like nobody has ever checked up on what they actually put in, or whether anybody bought it…
Who buys them?
Play Nice by Jason Schreier mentions that the “Pay to Win” style of monetization is very popular in Chinese markets.
I’d wager that, since other markets strongly oppose that, public companies focused on profits over player sentiment needed to find a middle ground. (That dichotomy is the main focus of the last half of the book)
We revolted when Battlefront 2 had loot boxes at the center of game progression, so companies hoping to make the most money in both markets need to make the purchasable items either purely cosmetic or only helpful in early game progression (starter packs).
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Thing is, I’ve seen funbucks stuffed into various single player games over the years. The first was probably Mass Effect 3, but some of the Assassin’s Creed games have it too.
But who are they for? Who buys them? They’ve never really felt like anything that would be useful. It’s usually just some crappy cosmetics, or something you can get through normal play. It’s like they’ve been stuffed in at the request of management, but also like nobody has ever checked up on what they actually put in, or whether anybody bought it…
Who buys them?
- People who dont game buying a present who just go “oh deluxe version, not that much more expensive, lets treat them”
- wealthy people that just pick the priciest option
- people with completitionist tendencies
- streamers and wannabe streamers for whom the extra cost is a trivial operating expense
- children and others that dont understand the value of a dollar
- people whose primary draw to the game is the photomode
- “i like game, I want more game therefore I pay more” (yes this logic is terrible when applied to microtransactions)
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I love the game, but I’d like to point out that baldur’s gate 3 does have a single microtransaction, it gives you a custom dice skin, a tie in item from divinity original sin and a bunch of low level potions. It costs 12CAD.
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I started playing warframe recently. Yes it’s free to play, yes there’s monetization, but I feel it’s one of those games you really don’t need to buy anything for. you can pretty much obtain everything via grinding. I can see how that wouldn’t appeal to a lot of people today but I used to play everquest and anarchy online etc so I know about the grind and I don’t mind it.
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I appreciate the sentiment but the (very shitty) reality is single player games don’t come any where near the profitability of these multiplayer games in the current climate. Like no where even remotely close in terms of effort to profit. You can straight up clone call of duty every year, or add a few maps to fortnite, or add a new operator to siege, and monetize every tiny fraction of the game thru micro transactions and people will keep on playing and keep on paying.
Single player games operate pretty much the opposite. You buy it once. Play thru it. Beat it. And generally never touch it again unless maybe some dlc comes out and you might add a few more hours to it and then never think about it again.
I say this as a giant fan of single narrative games, it’s just a much smarter business move to pump out shitty online multiplayer games.
Fortnite was released in 2017, last year it netted almost $6 billion.
Call of duty has been dog water for like a decade. Its been the best selling game every single year since 2009 unless Rockstar releases a game (and Hogwarts legacy randomly dominating one year).
World of Warcraft came out in 2004. Last year they announced they had over 7 million active subscribers… Over two decades later.
Apex legends came out in 2019, last year it made over $3 billion.
The list goes on and on and on. You just can’t compete with weirdos obsessed with showing off a wizard hat on their character in an online game or busting open a loot box to get a new weapon skin or something.
Reading the article, where did you get “audience rewards” == “maximal extraction of cash from the audience”?
IMO having a very profitable game that will comfortably fund your studio for the next 5-10 years AND that has universal critical acclaim and a devoted fanbase is reward enough. You didn’t lose because you didn’t make the most money out of all your competitors.
Different games have different audiences. Some people want arcade slop and slot machines to play with friends, they were never going to play BG3 or E33 anyway.
Important to the conversation as well is the fact that plenty of live-service games have recently failed spectacularly. Remember Concord? Within the industry, that is a clear signal that very high budget online slop isn’t as risk-free as previously assumed, which makes ambitious narrative-driven single player games an interesting diversification strategy for studios.
It’s not either or. Executives could spend 100M€ on “nearly guaranteed” online slop, or 80M€ on online slop and 20M€ on a good narrative game. And the critical and commercial success of games like BG3 and E33 are definitely moving the needle.
Especially when micro-economically, there are diminish returns when scaling dev teams. It’s kind of obvious but the first million euros does a lot more for a project than the 100th million. That further strengthens the case for a move away for big players from ONLY funding live-service slop. -
Who buys them?
- People who dont game buying a present who just go “oh deluxe version, not that much more expensive, lets treat them”
- wealthy people that just pick the priciest option
- people with completitionist tendencies
- streamers and wannabe streamers for whom the extra cost is a trivial operating expense
- children and others that dont understand the value of a dollar
- people whose primary draw to the game is the photomode
- “i like game, I want more game therefore I pay more” (yes this logic is terrible when applied to microtransactions)
The type of monetisation that especially confuses me as a guy brought up on pre-internet era gaming is any kind of pay to win. You’re buying a game then paying extra money so you don’t have to then go through the tedious task of actually playing the game.
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I started playing warframe recently. Yes it’s free to play, yes there’s monetization, but I feel it’s one of those games you really don’t need to buy anything for. you can pretty much obtain everything via grinding. I can see how that wouldn’t appeal to a lot of people today but I used to play everquest and anarchy online etc so I know about the grind and I don’t mind it.
The thing about Warframe is it tempts you but doesn’t force you to buy. You can sell your time to people who paid actual money, and then buy things you want for that money. The only issue with Warframe is the fomo - them locking warframes behind relics that are “deprecated”. Sometimes they unearth them again, but it’s an artificial attempt at “I need to buy this or it is gone”.
Also the process of getting parts is 100% gambling on low odds. You can get lucky immediately or have to “reroll” by running the same relic over and over and over again. It sucks if you want a very specific thing and often leads to people just buying it outright.
