What about people who want to play multiplayer games? Like, when I play Counterstrike in a ranked fashion I sort of expect the service part… Same for games like Overwatch, Valorant, Dota, League, etc.
I feel like you’re missing a clarification of “No one wants Always Online or GaaS in single player or coop titles”?
I’d prefer it release with modding tools so the community could make maps and skins. I’d also prefer it to release with the ability to host my own server. I also don’t give a shit about meaningless ranking. All this shit is a poison pill for me.
Every game should have this tbh. A lot of the big genres and games in recent years came from literally this. Modern mobas and battleroyals come to mind .
Instead what we have is Epic delisting all the Unreal and Unreal Tournament games from all the stores and shutting down the master servers for the multiplayer games. There was a time when games were going to be restricted, but managed to survive on the basis that they were art and therefor protected under free speech laws. You can’t even get American McGee’s Alice legally anymore and it was absolutely art created by masters of the engine at that point.
When I played counter strike I expected no such thing. If I wanted skins, I could go get them for free on csbanana. I expected nothing more than a game and a dedicated server client. The rest was provided by the community.
Well yeah. Games that are inherently multi-player and not split screen and feature an aspect of matchmaking are obviously fine to be always online games as a service.
Although personally the games-as-a-service model is something I avoid even in those. Overwatch was made objectively worse when it went from the buy-once model to the pay-once-a-season-or-you-dont-get-the-new-hero model. Mauga is completely busted right now and every new introduction of a hero since 2 launched has felt exactly like this-- busted while paid-only players have access and then fixed after the free players get a chance.
It’s the model. Squeezing money out of players is slowly killing even multi-player games like Overwatch.
It’s completely and utterly unacceptable for single player games.
You’re right. It is a matter of perspective though. For the actual players, absolutely. It’s always better to have self hosted matches and control the content yourself. But even in my example above, Overwatch could not sustain itself as a studio on the buy-once model, even with loot boxes. I still think they’re doing it wrong and it fucking sucks, but the buy-once model lead to a developmentally dead game for a few years.
From game dev perspective, having a model that makes money over time allows the game to continue being updated without investment from outside sources.
You can get money over time with the traditional model, just release content DLCs. I’ve spent hundreds on EU4 over the years, and I just treat their DLCs as buying a new game since it freshens up the experience for me. For MP, players get access to whatever DLC the host has, which works really well.
Overwatch could totally do that as well. DLCs could have:
playable characters/classes
game modes
maps/settings
SP campaigns
Nothing about the game requires an evergreen format. Some games do, such as CCGs like Hearthstone and Magic: Arena since they have frequent card releases and the games are designed around scarcity, but most of these don’t.
Well, I’m sure there are plenty out there that do want multiplayer only games.
Personally I avoid them like the plague. I would love it if Valorant, overwatch, etc came with a single player campaign that could be played offline, or an option to play against bots.
I hate people. Especially random competitive online people.
What about people who want to play multiplayer games? Like, when I play Counterstrike in a ranked fashion I sort of expect the service part… Same for games like Overwatch, Valorant, Dota, League, etc.
I feel like you’re missing a clarification of “No one wants Always Online or GaaS in single player or coop titles”?
I’d prefer it release with modding tools so the community could make maps and skins. I’d also prefer it to release with the ability to host my own server. I also don’t give a shit about meaningless ranking. All this shit is a poison pill for me.
Every game should have this tbh. A lot of the big genres and games in recent years came from literally this. Modern mobas and battleroyals come to mind .
Instead what we have is Epic delisting all the Unreal and Unreal Tournament games from all the stores and shutting down the master servers for the multiplayer games. There was a time when games were going to be restricted, but managed to survive on the basis that they were art and therefor protected under free speech laws. You can’t even get American McGee’s Alice legally anymore and it was absolutely art created by masters of the engine at that point.
When I played counter strike I expected no such thing. If I wanted skins, I could go get them for free on csbanana. I expected nothing more than a game and a dedicated server client. The rest was provided by the community.
Well yeah. Games that are inherently multi-player and not split screen and feature an aspect of matchmaking are obviously fine to be always online games as a service.
Although personally the games-as-a-service model is something I avoid even in those. Overwatch was made objectively worse when it went from the buy-once model to the pay-once-a-season-or-you-dont-get-the-new-hero model. Mauga is completely busted right now and every new introduction of a hero since 2 launched has felt exactly like this-- busted while paid-only players have access and then fixed after the free players get a chance.
It’s the model. Squeezing money out of players is slowly killing even multi-player games like Overwatch.
It’s completely and utterly unacceptable for single player games.
Pretty much any GAAS MP game would be better as a self-hostable game. Even ranked matchups can work well that way.
Games are designed around GAAS not because of the design of the same, but the profit model. GAAS is there to sell cosmetics and whatnot.
You’re right. It is a matter of perspective though. For the actual players, absolutely. It’s always better to have self hosted matches and control the content yourself. But even in my example above, Overwatch could not sustain itself as a studio on the buy-once model, even with loot boxes. I still think they’re doing it wrong and it fucking sucks, but the buy-once model lead to a developmentally dead game for a few years.
From game dev perspective, having a model that makes money over time allows the game to continue being updated without investment from outside sources.
You can get money over time with the traditional model, just release content DLCs. I’ve spent hundreds on EU4 over the years, and I just treat their DLCs as buying a new game since it freshens up the experience for me. For MP, players get access to whatever DLC the host has, which works really well.
Overwatch could totally do that as well. DLCs could have:
Nothing about the game requires an evergreen format. Some games do, such as CCGs like Hearthstone and Magic: Arena since they have frequent card releases and the games are designed around scarcity, but most of these don’t.
I don’t disagree with you. All I was really saying was that Overwatch specifically wasn’t making money with its model
Hmmmm no, no one wants always online on anything. Why should you ever have a piece of your property that has no use without an internet connection?
At the very least, you should be about to play against bots offline.
Well, I’m sure there are plenty out there that do want multiplayer only games.
Personally I avoid them like the plague. I would love it if Valorant, overwatch, etc came with a single player campaign that could be played offline, or an option to play against bots.
I hate people. Especially random competitive online people.
I think if you own a copy of Counterstrike, you should be able to play offline