i disagree, for a AAA studio development/maintenance costs are probably quite comparable—it’s not like ubisoft is making decisions between funding 10 small titles or one landmark title, they were already going to do the latter, and this is just a way to wring more money out of it. maintaining support & servers is something you had to do for big AAA multiplayer games before ‘live service’ models anyway.
we’d need to peek at their books to know for sure but i have a suspicion based on how rooted this bullshit is that despite PR failures they’re still largely profitable
The issue is that live service games like MMOs or Fortnitelikes are sticky. The kind of gamer who likes them generally plays a very small number of them over and over. And most LS gamers pick the same games, for community or quality reasons. Live service games either make it big or flop completely. There are no consolation prizes like there are for single player games. Most RPG fans will sooner or later buy Starfield, even though it was a bit disappointing. Most live service fans will never buy cosmetics in The Finals or Anthem.
this is all true, but putting out a new title in games is always a bit of a gamble, so putting out a possible(very unlikely) Fortnite Two makes board rooms clap like seals
The reward is greater, but the risk is correspondingly great, if not greater. AAA single player seems lower risk to me, at least with an established IP.
i disagree, for a AAA studio development/maintenance costs are probably quite comparable—it’s not like ubisoft is making decisions between funding 10 small titles or one landmark title, they were already going to do the latter, and this is just a way to wring more money out of it. maintaining support & servers is something you had to do for big AAA multiplayer games before ‘live service’ models anyway.
we’d need to peek at their books to know for sure but i have a suspicion based on how rooted this bullshit is that despite PR failures they’re still largely profitable
The issue is that live service games like MMOs or Fortnitelikes are sticky. The kind of gamer who likes them generally plays a very small number of them over and over. And most LS gamers pick the same games, for community or quality reasons. Live service games either make it big or flop completely. There are no consolation prizes like there are for single player games. Most RPG fans will sooner or later buy Starfield, even though it was a bit disappointing. Most live service fans will never buy cosmetics in The Finals or Anthem.
this is all true, but putting out a new title in games is always a bit of a gamble, so putting out a possible(very unlikely) Fortnite Two makes board rooms clap like seals
The reward is greater, but the risk is correspondingly great, if not greater. AAA single player seems lower risk to me, at least with an established IP.