Sony’s Biggest, Dumbest Live Service Gamble | Castle Super Beast 303 Clip

[@gibmeaway100]

"If we have 20 fortnits we truly will have infinite wealth" someone at Sony

[@hapi4714]

INFINITE WHAT⁉️ *pretend there's an image of Yakuza 8's box art*

[@cam8552]

@@hapi4714 If they attain enough wealth, they truly might become....{Image of Yakuza 7's box art}

[@cyberninjazero5659]

​@@hapi4714Each one of us will soar, Like A Dragon

[@sbfh014]

INFINITE WHAT

[@leithaziz2716]

This truly is: Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth

[@daveclarke1990]

Making 17 single player games makes sense cos the hypothetical customer could buy one, be done with it in 3-4 weeks and then want a new one. Making 17 GaaS games is so absolutely insane I can only assume the person making the decision didnt know what a GaaS game was.

[@HelixSnake]

People are realizing that we truly live in an inverse meritocracy and the vast majority of people running huge corporations are as qualified (or less) to do so as a random person taken off the street.

[@Goblinio168]

Makes sense when you remember the only qualification really needed to be a shareholder or producer is money to pump into the company/project.

[@Gatherway]

​@@Goblinio168 Pretty much this. I'm willing to give Sony the benefit of the doubt and say that the people who actually work inside the Sony offices still know a thing or two about what makes video games work. Unfortunately, the people who really call the shots are the shareholders who invest in the company, who all they do is look at Fortnite and Genshin and demand Sony make their games like that.

[@SockMasterFloe]

As an ineffectual corporate employee, this really makes me encouraged. I might just make it after all.

[@ROFLdude_Lv.99]

This is called the Peter Principle if I recall.

[@Biodeamon]

so basically just an aristocracy then?

[@Roronoa2zoro]

No wonder the PS5 has felt like such a waste of a console generation. None of the stuff they had in the pipeline for it was gonna be good even before they cancelled it all and didn't wanna tell anyone about it.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Essentially. The only thing this gen will be good for is playing smaller 3rd party games and rereleases because almost the entire AAA space has been collapsing

[@logangraham3689]

PC has been growing because only Nintendo has a decent console.

[@jayhillraps]

Yakuza series + Tekken box

[@Disco4ia]

Yeah. Really it feels like the only thing the ps5 had going for it was the FOMO hype that the pandemic + scalpers created. When I was finally able to get a ps5 2 years later, I played it for like a month and then went back to PC gaming

[@kip_c]

I love that Sony still doesn't understand the idea that the reason that live service juggernauts like Fortnite and Marvel Rivals explode like they do is because they are CROSS-PLATFORM

[@zombiecopx778]

Also both of those games dont require ps plus for online play, yet helldivers does and concord also did lmao

[@randominternetsurfersurfin7595]

​@zombiecopx778 That's cuz all paid games need PS+ for their online.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@@zombiecopx778 What next level galaxy gas was Herman Hulst on with that, jesus

[@DeelognaPleeni]

Sony: “I don’t understand! We gave them Kratos and Aloy doing the flossing and the ducky emotes why is this not rolling infinite money!!” International Players: “Uhm… I can’t play this in my coun-“ Sony: “THE DUCKY!!!”

[@squid_superstar]

and also they're not region locked

[@JasonRoofie]

Sony: Let's Go Gambling!!! Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it Aw dang it

[@agent5333]

17 aw dangits

[@agarciahunter]

@@agent5333 (hell divers 2) Hey wait we got something going here! Next round: And we lost it… aw dang it.

[@conspiracypanda1200]

​@@agarciahunterWinning $50 on a $5 scratch and spending those winnings on more scratch tickets that win you _nothing._ (I work at a lottery shop and I'm quitting this week! ☺️)

[@sirlenemodesto2665]

They wanted a live service game for EVERY SINGLE ONE of their most recent a major games!? What the fuck were they thinking?

[@khanhnguyen-tt3ff]

cause Sony have been losing money or barely even on their triple a single player game. if only we all wish they did what Nintendo do releases like 4 single a game ,2 double a, and 1 triple a game per year

[@luan.galaxy]

I'm not convinced they were going for games of all of them, I personally think that they were trying to see which one would take off first. "In development" doesn't really describe at what state it was. I didn't read the article tho

[@Northmark-l2v]

suitbrain thoughts

[@bioforest6602]

​@khanhnguyen-tt3ff they could make back that money if they manage their games better and not spend $300 million dollars on mediocre games. They should just be like, "Insomiac, you only have $50 million to spend. And we will not go over budget, so what you have is what people will get. Good luck." Rachet and Clank Rift Apart was $80 million, but if they scaled back and got the same sales, it would've been fine. Instead of losing $8 million. But they have to have the shiny graphics. So they spend too much money for mediocrity. Which doesn't sell consoles. Nor is it worth $70.

[@unamusedrohan1666]

"Can we make the games we want to make?" "No, we want you to make these games." 5 years later: "We don't want those games anymore, you're all fired."

[@EternalYoshi]

I get the feeling that Sony chasing this live service nonsense contributed to why it seems like this console generation has stagnated and lacks any meaningful progress.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

It didn't contribute. it's THE reason why this gen is essentially the lost one. Sony is the only company outside of Nintendo that consistently outputs their own games, but thats no longer the case with this live service thing dead in the crib. It was their ENTIRE slate outside of Yotei Flatout, they're going to look like XBOX for the next few years. I suspect they're gonna fund 3rd party efforts to fill the time until they can actually get any products out

[@felixdaniels37]

​@@Dasaltwarrior Fund third parties with what money though? They literally going to lose BILLIONS from this Live Service initiative. It'll be a miracle if Sony doesn't scrap the Playstation brand outright, because this is a biblical screw up.

[@ClixonTheOne]

It's amazing how despite all these 100 million dollar fuck ups, they still get silver compared to Xbox just giving up.

[@shiethegal]

"I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are payed more to do less, and I'm NOT KIDDING." _-Sonic The Hedgehog_

[@dreamcatcherpone]

They're also fighting against free to play GaaS titans Tencent and Mihoyo. Whoever is steering Sony is blind and deaf and mute and numb.

[@leithaziz2716]

Hoyo made so much money that they made two other gacha games that also print money. Let that sink in. Tencent is kinda different because they hold stock and shares in most games published today. They make money through ownership.

[@zztzgza]

This live service push is from the Jim Ryan era of Sony

[@jmrboosties0]

im glad they can at least taste stuff

[@JohnDoe-cc3rk]

They should've played it safe and made money from hosting those games on their platform instead of chasing the same pie to that extent

[@Biodeamon]

or just REALLY hates their job

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Not content with murdering Xbox in the games market, Playstation decided to go "hold my beer" and proceed to give Phil a run for his money in "how fast can I tank a brand for a solid decade"

[@hosvet_animation]

The difference is that Playstation learns from its mistakes, and Xbox fumbles once then sits on its hands saying they can't do anything.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@@hosvet_animation "Playstation learns from tis mistakes" 2006 "599 USD" 2024 "699 USD"

[@gorimbaud]

they were, at best, an accomplice in xbox's murder, or even an excited rubbernecker. xbox was murdered by xbox.

[@miguelnewmexico8641]

@@Dasaltwarrior what's the mistake? not making it even *more* expensive? you know, that might actually be what you're saying, because that 599 in 2006 is worth over 900 in 2024.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@miguelnewmexico8641 That is not taking into account that wages have not kept up with inflation, nor the fact that 599 was the starting proposition for PS3. We are about to be 5 years into the current gen without any real price decreases from either of the console platforms The PS3, for as insane as it was, at least tried to be an Iphone-esque value proposition but largely spent that price on features the market did not care about. The PS5 Pro is a similar price, if not more if you want a disc drive, for the proposition of "it'll maybe fix the temporal uspcaling ruining your games" and nothing else The mistake isn't even fully the price. The mistake is Sony's refusal to read the market / unwillingness to take the slightest loss on hardware, and that IS hurting them in the long-term as the base PS5 has been trailing behind the PS4's lifetime sales because the price of admission is too damn high. Even after that, they will shake you down with PSPlus if you want to play online Neither the PS3 nor both PS5 systems are sensibly priced hardware

[@KuroeNezumi]

11:12 don't think "incestuous" is the proper word as much as "self-cannibalistic" or something along those lines. If it was trying to make a superslop out of mixing all sony properties together (a la astro bot but with much less grace or charm than that game) I could agree to the original. As is, they are (were?) putting as many of their properties to compete with each other for an extremely similar player base, which would only end with very few people playing each, and probably all of them dumping whichever game was left alive after seeing how Sony would pull the plug without even a single moment of pause for all the "failures".

[@The5lacker]

I’m reminded of a certain species of shark that uniquely has a live birth, unlike most other fish. The eggs develop and hatch inside of the mother, and then the unborn fledgeling sharks *cannibalize each other in-utero* because despite developing inside of their mother, there’s no placenta or anything to get nutrients from the mother to the offspring outside of what was initially contained in their eggs. So you just have all these fledgeling apex predators crammed together, tearing each other apart in desperation before they’re even born. Not sure why I remembered that just now.

[@LockheedLazar]

autophagy

[@hosvet_animation]

@@The5lacker That's an extremely apt analogy.

[@invaderpez12]

Xbox: we're shutting down a bunch of studios Playstation: we're making and then cancelling a bunch of live service games Nintendo: heres a better switch.

[@themajesticmoose8147]

Damn the Mario Kart looking decent.

[@joshuar1639]

Nintendo wins by not losing.

[@WillisDCade]

Nintendo doing the bare minimum and somehow winning again

[@LockheedLazar]

luigi wins by doing absolutely nothing

[@brendanb2982]

" I've been in cryostasis since 2014. What year is it? " " Well, Sony and Xbox tripped over their own asses and Nintendo made a million dollars by doing nothing. " " ...I'm going back in the chamber this shit isn't working. "

[@theotherjared9824]

Sony coincidentally also announced they are ending production of blank Blu Ray discs and a few older types of physical media. This isn't confirmed to be related, but it definitely looks like they are cutting anything they perceive as fat to not incur the full wrath of the shareholders.

[@brendanb2982]

To be more specific, it's for data storage discs and not for multimedia like movies, games, etc.

[@The5lacker]

CEO: “No you don’t understand, there’s definitely infinite players out there with infinite money, so we gotta make infinite GaaS that each ask for infinite time! That’s four infinities!” Shareholders: “That sounds reasonable sure. Next quarter can you do five?”

[@CodeNameX001]

Since the dawn of the games industry, there has been a dream: to stop making games forever, and profit. This is just the latest grift.

[@zombiecopx778]

"God of War / horizon mmo" really sounds like Clueless investor: so what are the most popular videogame franchises that you own? Sony: well, we are pushing for horizon, god of war is also really popular... Clueless investor: ok, what is tha fork knife game like? Sony: well, its like an online live service game- Clueless investor: Do that with those 2 game franchises.

[@zombiecopx778]

@@RicochetForce I remember hearing the story about an investor asking satoru iwata "why dont you make it so the player can spend more money to make mario jump higher?" Its probably fake. The problem is that we can even entertain the possiblity of it being real.

[@nomoon327]

@@zombiecopx778 I remember years ago some EA exec outright going "We could charge them money for extra ammo" or something along those lines so I wouldn't be shocked if some investor asked that.

[@sdbegotist]

@@nomoon327not just any CEO, John Riccitiello. Also the reason why Unity was in the media either last year or the year prior due to wanting to change per download after a developer hits a certain total downloads mark, and Suda51’s vendetta with him as well.

[@bahskintimulholde6191]

KRATOS HITTING THE GRIDDY BABY

[@Dragonsmana]

Corpo math is the worst. Glad this stupid trend is starting to finally go away. What a damn waste of time and money.

[@blackmagemasher4031]

I mean, it gave alot of people jobs.... and they got paid experience from it....

[@Dreamfillah]

@blackmagemasher4031 Whether how much merit a failed project gives on your resume in an industry with an increasingly volatile degree of job security, that's another matter entirely.

[@Dragonsmana]

@@Dreamfillah People are clearly taking this the wrong way, I meant chasing the live service trend that wasn't even there is a waste lol. Didn't say *anything* about the work being done on the projects themselves. Though I hope they get to put the cancelled stuff in their portfolios anyhow.

[@Samael1113]

Starting to go away? Pfft, Square tanked itself to the point of selling off everything to Embracer over Crypto investments, and we are in the infancy of the new "G-AI is THE FUTURE!" pivot. And if even a single Crypto or G-AI game manages to break in to the gaming culture, you best believe the AAA companies are going balls deep chasing that trend just as hard as the MMO and GaaS trends. Corpo Math never goes away, it pivots paradigms.

[@Dragonsmana]

@@Samael1113 At least Sony trying Live service is going away.. hopefully.

[@WraxTV]

I think I remember hearing that internal communication within Sony was basically saying "Hey, it's fine if we release a dozen live-service games and eleven of them fail, as long as we get one that succeeds, it'll pay for everything."

[@miguelangelucsanchez183]

This reminds me on an interview with Jim Ryan in 2021 for GQ magazine in which he explains that because of the increased budget of making games they were gonna start putting some of their games on PC, later in another interview in 2022 he explained the shift to Gaas because the profits of their AAA while good weren’t enough anymore, i’m genuine convinced he was forced to step down rather then quit on his own terms

[@BobbyHopp]

Jim Ryans damage to sony will probably take atleast another half decade to work through. He really did fuck them up horrendously.

[@miguelangelucsanchez183]

@@BobbyHoppthat’s selling short considering how long and how expensive Sony games are to make, Spider-man 2 had a budget of 315 MILLION dollars and we know this thanks to the Insomniac hack

[@BobbyHopp]

@@miguelangelucsanchez183 sony comeback by the ps7 with a 1 billion 10 year developed game (trust)

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@miguelangelucsanchez183 Thats likely what happened, but large swathes of Playstations C suite were also all in the gas craze, like Hulst supposedly pushing Concord so hard he killed it Shuuhei Yoshida did an interview talking about how he was looking at all of these live service projects being thrusted onto devs not suited for them. He jokingly implied the reason he left was due to the pushback he gave on the intiative

[@felixdaniels37]

​@@BobbyHopp Worst part is you could've saw this coming as far back as the PS4. The moment they decided to go out of their way to alienate their Japanese audience and developers, it was clear they totally lost the plot. We're basically seeing every issue with the PS4 era coming back with a vengeance.

[@jansenart0]

9:20 what he's talking about here is the concept of "saturation". We may have 200-thick Steam libraries but you can play at most 3 games at a time, max.

[@prowlingmonkey]

Haha, 200. try 1500. From my own experience that is true. Usually I am juggling 2, pick up and play games, like Balatro or a basic arcade type game, and 1 more focused narative or hardcore gameplay, like Final Fantasy.

[@ColtComanche]

@@prowlingmonkeyI have 2,176

[@HelixSnake]

In regards to the last thing said by Pat, the most pathetic thing is that most of the time if someone has ttv in their name and you go look them up they're not even streaming at the time

[@jamesk2325]

I block and then refuse matches/rematches with anyone whose name is an advertisement. I block ads everywhere else, I'll block 'em in video games too!

[@GnollFool]

I am going to say something that fucking tears my heart into pieces..... As a die hard Twisted Metal superfan, I will fully concede that the only game on this list that had a chance to really take off if it was done right would have been a live service Twisted Metal. The ingredients are all there for the type of game it is.

[@MrBda241]

The main takeaway from this is knowing Sony really does not have much, if anything, plans to release in the PS5's lifespan.

[@Sol_00007]

This whole console generation has felt like a waste. Makes me wonder why I still have my PS5 and Series X.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@Sol_00007 They can play anything not AAA real good, so at least there's that. Hope we all like B tier games and rereleases cuz thats almost all we'll get for the next 3-4 years

[@just_matt214]

​@@Sol_00007Sell both, buy midrange PC, be set for 10 years.

[@blackholeJ_Media]

​@@Sol_00007 I'ma be honest the only things worth having is the switch and A computer because Nintendo may not be kind but THEY SURE DO GOT GAMES say what you will about there varying quilty From the Best to the worse "Pokemon let's be honest it's just Pokemon being the worst" THEY ACTUALLY MAKE GAMES look up a list of how many actual games released a compared to every other console and it IS BAFFLING

[@Andy_ARBS]

​@@blackholeJ_Media I hate that Vanillaware games don't get ported to PC but fuck me is it a pull.

[@BobbyHopp]

Sony is being like someone seeing a popular burger restaurant across the street thats making so much money then resolving that to make more money they need to open 8 burger restaurant across from the original to cash in as well. And then see people still only go to the original place because its better, what they're used to and they can only eat lunch once a day.

[@lashoxcin9348]

Genuine question: is it a stretch to say that Fortnite fucked over the entire AAA Game industry?

[@Dasaltwarrior]

No, Fortnite was just the latest of the trend chasers to succeed The AAA industry has been collapsing hard for about 15 years now, with releases like AC Unity, Mass Effect Andromeda, and Cyberpunk increasingly becoming the norm. The industry's current state was inevitable, but it got put on a fast track by covid skewing the expectations of publishers and venture capitalists beyond reality

[@ryangallagher8194]

If it wasn't Fortnite, it would have been something else. Maybe they would have gone back to chasing GTA5 and lost all their money copying that big, expensive game instead.

[@corwinchapman4565]

"because they had Final Fantasy on the box! They weren't ALLOWED to be a complete failure! Most devs don't GET that kind of access!" a great point, and probably the only comparable franchises would be some first-party Nintendo franchises. Outside of the legacy of a storied company like Nintendo, that kind of world-shifting, word-of-god access to time and money is practically unheard of.

[@datonkallandor8687]

Yeah, imagine if Nintendo did a big Mario MMO and it was bad. They would spend all their money making it good, because it's *mario*.

[@TyranusRex721]

We all make fun of Microsoft for having shitty management (and rightfully so), but we rarely talk about just how bad Sony's management has been for like the past 10 years. They have spend, probably a billion dollars or so, on live service games that have ultimately gone nowhere. They spent $3 billion just on Bungie, who was bleeding money for years! Both Microsoft and Activision let them go because they were nightmares to work with and spent too much damn money. And now we have had like 12 live service games announced and, what, 8 or 9 have been cancelled. These were multi year projects, spending millions of dollars, using top talent, and now they have literally nothing to show for it. Their well of games has literally run dry because of this. Their profit margins are almost non existent because of this. This is a monumental fuck up and yet so few people in media talk about how just fucked awful Sony has been these past several years. Why? Because they sold consoles? What about the damn games?!

[@pimper7000]

Thank you!!! Console war stuff has always been lame to me, and as a person in their 30s, I find it even dumber. Still something doesn't sit right with me when one company's fuck ups are magnified, scrutinized blown up because of their major fuck up a decade ago. Regardless of the strides they've made since then. While the other is treated as great, or at least okay, regardless of their fuck ups and no one is nearly as critical of them, even as they currently in mid fuck up. Like, I'd hate to defend a billion dollar company here, but it seems like their is some bias in how they are talked about(not saying from Woolie and Pat specifically) when both of them should be trashed for it.

[@TyranusRex721]

@@pimper7000 The Xbox One was an absolute disaster (and Microsoft was rightly canned for it), but Sony was literally going to do the same thing! And yet somehow they have been given positive press after positive press despite being just as poorly run as Microsoft is. This whole gen has been a shit show for both of them, but you only ever hear people talk about Microsoft because they are an easy target. I am not saying we should be defending Microsoft either. God knows they suck at communication and marketing that has lead to a lot of their issues. But can we please cover Sony's massive fuck ups the same way we do Microsoft's?! I am tired of everyone soft balling Sony. Like, these same media outlets gave Nintendo endless shit back during the Wii U era for how much of a failure that console was, but we see Sony wasting billions of dollars on projects and it is either radio silence, or them even trying to defend Sony's actions! No! Call them out for their stupidity!

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Journalists barely talked about how Xbox's mandatory contractor nonsense has killed its output this gen, I doubt they're so on the pulse or have the balls to air Sony's dirty laundry

[@MrDanlancelot]

best case scenario - they put out a really good one (like Helldivers) which grabs players; now they aren't interested in trying out the other 16 games you put out. if someone did really like the God of War live service and moved from Helldivers to GoW......then they're just spending the battle pass/microtransaction money on GoW INSTEAD of Helldivers. any success is just the same money being spent in a different place. Sony basically spent 17 times the cost building 17 storefronts on the high street, even though every person will exclusively pick 1 of the 17 to shop at. if you'd built 1 store, then all 17 people would be shopping there and still giving you their money

[@nicklee3917]

This is true to some degree, though taste does come into play. For instance, a “mature” fantasy service game may appeal to different people than the satirical sci-fi of helldivers. You could say one store would bring all the people, but maybe it would only bring a portion due to taste and you would want to diversify to catch more of the audience.

[@chriswest6988]

It does seem like 10+ of these could have been seasonal content in one of the remaining 3-5. You know, Helldivers gets Horizon-inspired weapons, enemies, and cosmetics for a while, or if Concord had been successful you make Kratos and a valkyrie DLC Concord heroes. Concentrate on making a few mechanically solid games in this genre and then put the weight of your IP into any of them that survive.

[@MrDanlancelot]

@@nicklee3917 This is somewhat true. But at the end of the day there are only so many people interested in the live service model. They were expecting 17 times the Fortnite money from 17 games, but the audience doesn't multiply like that. I'll admit the "everyone would go to the one store" was an oversimplifaction, but let's estimate that maybe 60% would show an interest in the single store. Making 16 other stores just to capture the remaining 40% was a ridiculous strategy, given the costs and the dev time of so many studios

[@Gatherway]

Corporations take one look at the infinite money glitch that is Fortnite and just can't help themselves, it seems.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Happened with WoW too. They all threw themselves at that wall, and only FF14 came out on the other side by not really competing

[@maxav2727]

​@Dasaltwarrior The only reason ffxiv was a success, and this is something marketing people don't realize despite there being a ton of papers on it, is because it WAS something different. You can't get wow/destiny/fortnite players to play your game, even if it's better, because they already have a monetary commitment to one game. You need to create a new market for your product, but Sony and all these other doomed live service trend chasers just want to steal fortnite's player base away from them.

[@fluidthought42]

​@@RicochetForceI think what we're all forgetting is that Blizzard fell on it's own ass by allowing abuse in its workplace and has been run by fools for a minute now, so their properties have been weakened enough to allow for viable competition. Remember the decent not Overwatches that came out shortly after the first one? People only barely remember some, I remember only one or two. But Rivals succeeded because it was solid and also Not Overwatch 2, which nobody likes.

[@blackdragon227]

​@@Dasaltwarrior Didn't ff11 do decently, in spite of its various jank?

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@ FF11 pre-dates WoW

[@joshuagroom7068]

15:33 Pat, what you are describing are called USP's (Unique Selling Point) and UVP's (User Value Propositions). These are considered the BARE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS that you need to be able to explain when you are developing a product or brand. ... And these millionaire executives and CEO's can't even do THAT.

[@Foostini]

It's nice to see the bubble starting to burst, especially one that A. Nobody wanted and B. Started off the promise that Destiny was supposed to be and never was. It's the most bizarre gold rush based on a rumor of gold that was never there.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

I recently had the poorly articulated thought that Destiny felt like an industry plant, and even though thats not technically true, its reception by the wider industry feels incredibly forced Everyone wants to be Destiny because it was a big deal leading up to its initial release, but no one really can because not even Destiny knows what Destiny should be or why people like it

[@Foostini]

@@Dasaltwarrior It's the "10 year game" marketing that really screwed it and everything else

[@Mr.Faust3]

Sony made a good call cancelling half these games who would play a live service horizon game

[@sonicboomers122]

No the good call would be not wasting untold billions and years of time.

[@zaneseibert]

I could see a Monster Hunter game set in Horizon would work. Just break Aloy's moveset into 3-5 classes then add a few more. God of War on the otherhand...

[@Mr.Faust3]

@@zaneseibert only for it to fail

[@Renoistic]

When the first Horizon trailers showed up I expected it to be a more story-focused Monster Hunter-like. Probably would have enjoyed it more than the open world structure, honestly.

[@superbad8008]

Even though I despise the idea, the Spidersona craze after the Spiderverse movies may prove that a Spiderman MMO may be worth pursuing.

[@cinnis5670]

I primarily use my PC for games, but I also bought a PS5. I bought it because I figured it'd just be an extension of my experience with the PS4, which had a handful of exclusives that made buying it worth it. Persona 5, Bloodborne, Shadow of the Colossus Remake, Death Stranding, lots of great games that made a PlayStation worth it. However, my PS5 is my Demon's Souls machine (and recently Astro Bot). I'm looking forward to Intergalactic and Death Stranding 2. That's it. There's nothing else that justifies a PS5 purchase to me. And sure I'll get those games and I'll enjoy them. But when the PS6 rolls around, I'm not buying it. Cause I think it'd just be an extension of my experience with the PS5.

[@WiCharizard]

Not having Bluepoint working on a Demons Souls level visual remaster of BloodBorne is a massive L.

[@chaosjoey123]

9:40 my thoughts everytime Bandai makes a new TCG despite already having 8 live TCGs.

[@Mrinsecure]

If you don't have enough time in the day to play 15 live service games, just increase the number of hours in your day, easy.

[@Szriko]

Sony and Microsoft blow themselves up- While Nintendo continues to forget they're even in a market they're supposed to compete in.

[@rept7]

Its nutty to me cause like, are there even that many different niches for live service games? I'm currently waiting for a MMO-like game with great combat and fun multiplayer content without rotations, so theres at least ONE niche to satisfy. Yet everyone thought to make even more competitive shooters in a crowded market and whatever Suicide Squad was, a product nobody wanted. What niches are they even aiming for?

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@rept7 The reason why niches aren't being filled are 1. Execs have brain rot 2. Devs have been trained over the past 15 years to make a small range of games 3. And even expertise from that is miniscule considering the average amount of time a dev spends in the industry is 5 years thanks to churn

[@ToastyMozart]

Isn't that supposed to be Warframe's schtick?

[@Dasaltwarrior]

@ToastyMozart Sorta, yeah

[@rept7]

@@ToastyMozart On paper. In practice, you need to build your character for absurd DPS and if you play with other people, they WILL spam bullet jumps past everything they don't need to melt. So "great combat and fun multiplayer" can't feasibly happen for folks like myself who have fun when success isn't guaranteed and the gameplan is reactive to the situation.

[@Foostini]

@@rept7 Yeah even as an active veteran for Warframe it's not what you're looking for when you look past the surface level. Really what i'd suggest is Dragon's Dogma Online, it's probably the closest though still imperfect thing i can think of.

[@TheRTDZ]

“The slot machine says I can win infinity dollars? I’d have to be an idiot to not put all my life savings in there!”

[@RoboticDev]

This tactic of making 12 of the same style of game and self-cannibalizing sales sort of reminds me of old capcom releasing 6 fighting games a year...

[@hosvet_animation]

Or Konami releasing 3 Silent Hill projects in one month way back when.

[@4Wilko]

I was wondering if three Ninja Gaiden game announcements in quick succession recently was too much.

[@fluidthought42]

​@@4WilkoThey're sufficiently different and released at different times to not be as much of a concern. A 2d, a remake and a sequel all coming out across the year appeals to different player bases and gives them time to actually play the damn game.

[@HyperFerret93]

Nearly everyone: Hey Sony, can you remake Bloodborne? We'd certainly buy it. Sony: We had to cancel most of our pipeline because we cannot tell what people want!

[@tiagomain1409]

99% of publishers quit right before they make the next Fortnite

[@hosvet_animation]

Hello future CEOs!

[@Gh0stWh33l]

THIS is why PS5 has no Games!

[@thepenguin55]

To clarify, there were two Horizon live service games in development. One made by Guerilla and one made by NCsoft. The one made by ncsoft (the MMO) is the Horizon live game that was cancelled (and it seems like that may have actually been a decision from ncsoft, not Sony). The Horizon live game made by Guerilla is still coming out. One of the only Sony live service games on the books that hasn't been canceled.

[@ApexGale]

Just keep producing live service games, surely one of them will finally hit the mainstream right? Right? Right?

[@Mr.Faust3]

Throwing things at a wall and see what sticks

[@randominternetsurfersurfin7595]

"Oh Helldivers 2 actually did it" "Quick, fuck over the playerbase by restricting regions!"

[@Solidus113]

@@randominternetsurfersurfin7595 "These are huge numbers, but they aren't OUR numbers. We want those PSN accounts!"

[@zaneseibert]

If you dig deep enough you will find precious minerals. Just ignore all the money destroyed by the magma.

[@Mr.Faust3]

@@zaneseibert and accidentally mine the stable parts of the cave

[@nickhentschel7015]

*BZZZT* Aw dangit.

[@Shadar22]

AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW DANGIT AW-

[@HatsAlEsman]

Helldivers 2 dodged a bullet so much by releasing before Concord.

[@fluidthought42]

Helldivers 2 didn't even have that big a development budget, from what I've heard. It was expected to have middling success not... well not what it became at launch.

[@HatsAlEsman]

@ sony probably wondered “How can they think it’ll succeed with no unique characters only one expensive cg cinematic? Don’t they know you gotta be like Concord and frontload dozens of them!”

[@fluidthought42]

@@HatsAlEsman Sony really did look at Helldivers and not understand what they were looking at and how to benefit from it.

[@Shrilack]

Couldn’t they salvage some assets from those failed projects and make smaller scale, non Gaas games to recuperate at least SOME of the money spent here?

[@garsedj]

Bullshit, those 17 games would've been a massive success and made an exponential infinite amount of money forever.

[@Velkin999]

I just want another Sly Cooper.

[@hazardrider8317]

Jim Ryan did irreparable damage to Sony, it’s a sabotage unlike any I’ve ever seen

[@megasilverspeed]

Sony's Ronald Reagan

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Likewise, I'm shocked Herman Hulst hasn't been jettisoned out of his position yet, given he was just as on board with this nonsense

[@LordOfWizela]

So... my question is: did all of these studios make the decision to make live service games around the same time to chase trends because executives want Fortnite money? And then once Concord failed, the head of Sony had to ask everyone "hey how many of you people are making one of these", and when everyone said "yes", he panicked and shut it all down? Or was Sony asking everyone to do this from the start because they wanted Fortnite money times 17?

[@Dasaltwarrior]

This was 100% Sony giving orders to pivot to gas. You don't have literally your entire lineup studios become a part of an initiative like this overnight I sincerely doubt anyone at BluePoint was like, "Yeah, we can GAS it up" after a decade of specializing in making immaculate remasters

[@hosvet_animation]

@@Dasaltwarrior Thank you for calling them remasters instead of remakes, this is meaningless but it bothers the shit out of me.

[@Renoistic]

Every time someone says "studio X WANTED to make a live service game" remember that the in most cases the overlords have to agree on the studio's direction. So what do you think happens when they refuse to greenlight single player games but throw money at GaaS?

[@Muninnnr]

I recently read an article which said that 1/3 gaming studios are currently making a live service game. That's insane.

[@ricardomiles2957]

For decades making games was a gamble, and in many aspects still is because even if a studio have beloved IPs and invest quadrillion moneys on it does not mean a pay off, unfortunately with the industry growing the corpos seek safer and safer returns and GAS is the closet of safw returns the industry ever got.

[@wand222]

What’s crazy is that SONY had live service games in the form of EverQuest and Planetside but let them go

[@felixdaniels37]

Hell, Fat Princess was right there. As ridiculous as it sounds, it was one of their biggest online PS3 games, it would've been perfect for Live-Service.

[@drdiabetes7469]

Explains why PS5 gen is empty compared to ps4. PS4 was focused on narrative single player games and indies, PS5 was SUPPOSED to be a live service era.

[@Bupernox]

This whole billion dollar debacle can be summed up with "The risk I took was calculated, but boy am I bad at math"

[@GreyGiger]

Free market capitalism's logical conclusion be like.

[@miguelnewmexico8641]

grow up.

[@GreyGiger]

@miguelnewmexico8641 You first.

[@KurstKensei]

I wonder if all these live service games are partly responsible for the whole "The PS5 has no games." bit

[@felixdaniels37]

The massive focus on AAA games probably had just as much to do with it. Their AAA just wasn't sustainable in the long run, the Live Service disaster only really accelerated that.

[@gorimbaud]

the ps5 only has no games if you do a lot of gaming on pc. if you don't because you've always preferred console, ps5 has tons of games

[@fluidthought42]

​@@gorimbaudUnique games is the implication. Killer app type shit. Things that make you go "well if I want to play X I *HAVE* to buy Y". PS5 has games, but they're games you can play on anything else short of the Switch. And even then with the Switch 2 coming that lead will start shrinking too.

[@MichaelH3948]

The PS3 and PS4 had the same bit as well

[@fluidthought42]

@MichaelH3948 Nah. PS3 was disregarded because it was more expensive and because it was harder to develop for/port to, but it had a solid library underneath the jank. PS4 had bangers early in its lifecycle, Bloodborne not least among them. Hit after hit, no joke. Meanwhile the Xbox for that generation had its CEO say all the wrong things at its announcement that they're slowly climbing out of to this very day.

[@decus478]

A ton of gacha games are also already on PS5 and eat into the same market segment. Genshin, Star Rail, Wuthering Waves, Infinity Nikki, etc. And then outside of gacha/MMOs there's stuff like Palworld or Minecraft. They always stood zero chance and that writing should have been on the wall even in 2020. And yet, somehow, these games were 2022 projects.

[@56kModemNoise]

Gretzky said it best, "Don't chase the puck. Be where the puck is going to be. "

[@BlueMarsalis]

Destiny kinda ruined the industry.

[@jojak0512]

Destiny is its own thing when it comes to the whole live service/gaas trend in gaming. Destiny 1 released with a more MMO style of content release of major expansions a few times a year with content droughts between them. They didn't actually switch to a live service model until a couple years into Destiny 2 when it had already become popular because of games like Fortnite. Hell, I remember back during D1 when there was a huge controversy within the community when Bungie started adding microtransactions, there were people quitting the game forever over what would now be considered an extremely generous cosmetic shop. Basically what I'm saying is that Destiny has contributed to the whole live service thing but they definitely didn't start it.

[@carlschrappen9712]

Everyone is chasing the Fortnite money, they just try to copy Destiny because they don't have any ideas for what they want thier live service game to be and copying Fortnite would get them atomized by Fortnite.

[@Lonequacker]

Jim Ryan doing literally nothing positive while in charge of PlayStation after stealing the position away from Shawn Layden, only to make some of the dumbest decisions and then stuff as much cash into his pockets before jumping out of the burning plane with his golden parachute. I mean I'm still mad that I can't play Everybody's Golf online anymore because he shut Japan Studio down.

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Flatout, I think he deserves more hate than even Don Mattrick gets when you take both Japan Studios' deaths and this live service nonsense into account Heck, the decision to not highlight the playstation classics program anywhere when they're all such nice conversions is insane

[@shoxy-the-pinecone6113]

If Sony is gambling and losing on live service games and Microsoft is seemingly bowing out of the console market, are we coming towards another Nintendo led era?

[@blackholeJ_Media]

And the only reason being THEY GOT GAMES fr Having a PC and a switch Is the greatest choice ever PC is for all the basic shooters and Minecraft And the switch is for variety Like look up how many games they released on the thing AND THE BEST PART BACK WORDS COMPATIBLE I'm going to a next generation of consoles without having to Look at most of my old games and be like Useless. Also Nintendo online

[@PunishedDad]

​@blackholeJ_Media and minecraft is fine enough*** on the switch that I can make an argument for playing on either

[@gna2724]

The worst thing that could happen to Sony and MS is the Switch 2 being able to run Modern AAA acceptably. People will purchase and spend on all those 3rd party live service titles where the most exclusives are.

[@Sol_00007]

Sony was never paying attention to the rot that always existed below the surface of Bungie/Destiny.

[@cryocranberry512]

Crazy how much of an impact Jim Ryan left on Sony after he retired

[@doremiancleff1508]

Inability to understand that you can't infinitelly milk the audience, because there isn't enough audience to go around is such a low level mistake. It's like "planned obsolescence" in reverse - big Companies trying to create forever game they can milk forever, just to find out that people already have all the games they will ever need, so investing in more is completelly pointless.

[@percivaldotburgers]

Remember when the PS5 launch titles led us to believe the console would be home to good single player games that run at 60fps with no noticeable loading times?

[@zgSH4DOW]

27:22 literally Two Best Friends Play Radical Heights

[@aricvinyard]

The industry chasing motion controls from Nintendo was the best time.

[@kyuboxincubox7556]

"You're competing with all of the Mihoyo games" How is it that Mihoyo has managed to crank out so many gacha games, all of which are successful, and they HAVEN'T cannibalised their own audience? They aren't eating into each other's profits, they aren't stealing the share of the pie from each other. It's truly bizarre. In my friend group I know several people who, somehow, play multiple Hoyo games at the same time. Hell I have a friend who plays Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai Star Rail and for some reason Wuthering Waves from Kuro which is basically genshin impact. And speaking of which, they play Genshin with me over the weekend too. Its not as if that one friend is an outlier, I know several people who play 2 or 3 of these at the same time. Gacha games are basically GAAS but somehow they don't consume each other? I honestly don't understand what the difference is when gacha games are all huge time sinks. Like, some of us play FGO and that's a MASSIVE time sink. FGO is literally a visual novel with JRPG and gacha in the middle, they seriously expect you to sit down and read for an hour in-between fights sometimes. And somehow people have other gacha games they play on top of FGO. Why do people not have time for multiple GAAS but they do for gacha? Are weebs just built different?

[@Renoistic]

Weebs are completely insane and would walk over burning coal for more AI-generated waifus no matter how identical they look and act. The manga/anime industri has to be one of the most intellectually corrupt one - 99% of all products seem to follow a very strict and specific template and I got bored of it almost 20 years ago.

[@nachohangover5104]

Mihoyo makes doing dailies relatively quick and easy and that's all you really *have* to be doing. Missions can be held off on aside from ones needed to unlock temp events. And even then you usually have a pretty big time window. Mihoyo also schedules their games' content releases to not eat into each other.

[@music79075]

Microsoft in regards to the Xbox reminds me of The Architecht in Matrix Reloaded. "There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept." Meanwhile Sony reminds me of Los Angeles during the wildfire right now. Except the Fire has already consuned the Hollywood Hills and is eating its way straight to Disneyland

[@loco_logic]

26:00 To be fair, Shuhei did let Media Molecule waste nearly a decade of resources on Dreams. So he does have some experience with massively misguided flops.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

Pat is right on the money in that this core idea of trying to make so many Gaas games at once is just so fundamentally flawed. They're just going to end up competing with themselves. The vast majority of people aren't going to play more than like 2 or 3 live service games at once and even that's probably pretty generous. This strategy can work for single-player games, because they're usually cheaper to make, and they don't inherently compete with each other. Tons of people are willing to pick up an extra single player game that looks cool because they can just add it to their backlog and play it later. And since they're cheaper to produce and manage, it's a lot easier for one big breakout success like Astro Bot to help cover for a number of other less popular releases. Not to mention that last gen it seemed pretty clear that if anything Sony was more about the big budget cinematic single player games. That's what most of the more noteworthy titles on the PS4 were. So pivoting to this huge focus on live service doesn't even really match the audience that they had cultivated for years leading up to the PS5. It was entirely born out of greed because some suit wanted a Fortnite of their own and apparently thought "What if we had 17 Fortnites..."

[@chriswest6988]

Hybrid answer: things are only somewhat dire, and that's all it takes for people to start making dumb moves with really bad EV that could dig out of the hole if they get lucky.

[@ilithid]

Man it was reallll fucking cool catching your panel at MagFest this year man

[@lockbotirl2394]

Theres no way Pat is saying the Contact quote again

[@Spicypuff]

Sony should just make a pachinko machine if all they want to do is chase the big bucks

[@IamtacoZZZ]

The choice between the Live Service Game machine or Gamepass machine is wild.

[@bahskintimulholde6191]

Will you reignite the fire of GAS games to burn for another thousand years, Chosen Flawed? Or will you take your rightful place as the Lord of the Couch Co-op?

[@lethargicrush6203]

Drives me mad that huge companies like this feel the need to make infinite increased profits forever or anything falling below that is considered a waste. Just a reason to hold onto any semi-successful IP so it can be bled ad nauseuam.

[@silverroddo1468]

Sony: the chase is better than the catch-?

[@superboomn]

0:50 wait a minute who pointed it out?

[@Argascend]

"Dethrone the gods" amusing given, well, the original God of War.

[@ricardomiles2957]

i stopped being a sony fanboy years ago because no matter how they would make good stuff that i really like they would take 10 steps back by make stupidiesr decisions possible. If Sony had unlimited money they would be like google

[@pattyayyy]

Untold riches down the toilet. And the service games tick on

[@alephnole7009]

sony is like a smash character with 999% holding on for dear life trying not to get hit by a heavy attack

[@Tyberes]

I mean I kind fuck with the idea of a Horizon MMO ***IF*** it's just robo-Monster Hunter and everybody's a Bow main.

[@PunishedDad]

This sounds shit man

[@ab2aasd]

17:00 League and TFT are also basically the undisputed kings of their genres

[@Th4tOn36uy]

I thought hearing Bungie having 5 incubated projects sucking the life outta destiny was bad but 12 live services is insane

[@themissinggene]

If only bluepoint had done nothing when they were porting shadow of the colossus

[@dylan_oby0284]

Every single day continues to build my undying vehement hatred for Sony.

[@ricardomiles2957]

@@dylan_oby0284 nothing beats my hatw for microsoft for normalizing paying for online on consoles

[@hexedcrab]

truly one of the most wasted console generations of all time I've never regretted getting a console more than the ps5 I'm so glad I got it half price

[@optiprimal4280]

I know this is mainly about Sony but Bungie basically went/is going through the same thing. They kept taking resources and talent away from Destiny to try and incubate other game projects and ended up slowly killing the game with the lack of meaninfgul updates and new FRESH content, I honestly don't know if Bungie and Destiny is going to still be around in like 2 years.

[@Shrilack]

Btw Sony HAS some licenses that would work well with the GaaS model. Yet they chose the worst options, canned the one that would’ve worked (twisted metal) AND wasted years of dev time from their best teams.

[@EsperPinion]

Why didn't they instead try to make only 1 gas game but with all those characters in it

[@Dasaltwarrior]

Brain worms

[@wetbiskit]

They could do that... BUT if they made two THEN they make double the profit! And if they make three then they make TRIPLE the profits! Just ignore the fact that idea is insane and has no bearing on how reality works.

[@demetriustrismegistus4367]

love that dog

[@darkdude9248]

The year is 20XX, the 16th corprate war kicks off due to Concord reboot #84 not meeting sales numbers in the billions when set against the new Xbox one series gamma. Millions are sent to the front and none return. Their families are eligible for 99 super tokens in the Concord cosmetic shop