I suspect chicken and egg is reversed in a lot of comments like this. Did popularity fall because they increased monetization? Or did they increase monetization because popularity fell and live services are expensive beasts? Gotta say, I expect it’s the latter, especially since we know Bungie wasn’t doing so hot when Sony bought them.
All you have to do is look at Warframe. Bungie had metric tons more money to work with than DE did during their early life. Warframe is better than D2 in almost every way.
I think whoever was driving the core development decisions at Bungie was actively hindering the success of the game, whether intentionally or not.
At the end of the day, the less money that is spent on the IP, the more money goes to bonuses/exec payouts.
I think the difference in money between them is exactly it, but in how many developers it took to make and how many it still takes to continue to add to it. There is no chance that Warframe had the capex or opex of Destiny at any point in either game’s life.
And as much as people’s minds can be blown by the size of executive bonuses, I have yet to see reporting that ties it as a major contributing factor to why games became too expensive to make or maintain. That cost is mostly in just how many people those games employ to make them multiplied across how many years they’re working on it.
I would recommend looking into the development history of Warframe. That, IMO, is the best example of GAAS that works for both the studio and the players.
Dark patterns are dark patterns, even if “the community” is more or less happy. Just means that it’s working. Being owned by Tencent actually does give them the freedom to “just be profitable” instead of squeezing each player for more and more revenue YOY, but the game still uses every retention mechanic in the book and leverages fake value by putting the MTX currency on “really good sales! Look how good the limited time deal is!!!” to keep people shelling out.
Tencent is diversified enough that they’ll probably never feel the need to tighten the screws on the Warframe studio directly.
Yeah that’s kind of the point with dark patterns. That’s not a term I made up either. Warframe isn’t as rife with them as othergames but the “forever GAAS” platform is nearly always leveraging patterns like this in some way.
I am aware that it is a thing, I just don’t see why you are insisting that, because of the model Warframe operates under, the developers are evil.
I think they are doing 10X better at putting the money back into the game and also using it to support the community aspects than any other live service game out there. I believe they have worked hard to make that happen and deserve props for not fucking over their fanbase like other developers, such as Bungie, do.
I suspect chicken and egg is reversed in a lot of comments like this. Did popularity fall because they increased monetization? Or did they increase monetization because popularity fell and live services are expensive beasts? Gotta say, I expect it’s the latter, especially since we know Bungie wasn’t doing so hot when Sony bought them.
All you have to do is look at Warframe. Bungie had metric tons more money to work with than DE did during their early life. Warframe is better than D2 in almost every way.
I think whoever was driving the core development decisions at Bungie was actively hindering the success of the game, whether intentionally or not.
At the end of the day, the less money that is spent on the IP, the more money goes to bonuses/exec payouts.
I think the difference in money between them is exactly it, but in how many developers it took to make and how many it still takes to continue to add to it. There is no chance that Warframe had the capex or opex of Destiny at any point in either game’s life.
And as much as people’s minds can be blown by the size of executive bonuses, I have yet to see reporting that ties it as a major contributing factor to why games became too expensive to make or maintain. That cost is mostly in just how many people those games employ to make them multiplied across how many years they’re working on it.
Both chicken and egg situations say the same thing: live service GAAS is unsustainable at best and garbage at worst
I would recommend looking into the development history of Warframe. That, IMO, is the best example of GAAS that works for both the studio and the players.
Dark patterns are dark patterns, even if “the community” is more or less happy. Just means that it’s working. Being owned by Tencent actually does give them the freedom to “just be profitable” instead of squeezing each player for more and more revenue YOY, but the game still uses every retention mechanic in the book and leverages fake value by putting the MTX currency on “really good sales! Look how good the limited time deal is!!!” to keep people shelling out.
Tencent is diversified enough that they’ll probably never feel the need to tighten the screws on the Warframe studio directly.
You can play the game and not spend a penny on MTX to get the premium currency, this is why I said look it up.
So, the investors are happy, the players are happy, but the developers are actually evil because “dark patterns”?
Yeah that’s kind of the point with dark patterns. That’s not a term I made up either. Warframe isn’t as rife with them as other games but the “forever GAAS” platform is nearly always leveraging patterns like this in some way.
I am aware that it is a thing, I just don’t see why you are insisting that, because of the model Warframe operates under, the developers are evil.
I think they are doing 10X better at putting the money back into the game and also using it to support the community aspects than any other live service game out there. I believe they have worked hard to make that happen and deserve props for not fucking over their fanbase like other developers, such as Bungie, do.