Best explanation on how Games-as-a-service is either fraudulent, or at least a violation of consumer protection laws. Too bad Zink doesn't want to take such a nuanced approach (or admit that MMOs were actually legal because their licenses were structured properly - oops!).
Consumers will continue putting their money on products that work for them. GoG is there waiting to sell games like hotcakes once people realize that they want a fully-functioning game license on games that will continue to work even if the publisher/developer goes out of business. For people who are less-concerned about such things, there's . . . everywhere else.
It's interesting, a technology/legal issue intersects with gaming.
I remember when games were largely designed to be 'played once' mostly, when a replay was mostly 'play again because you really liked it' or to do better. E.g., platformers like Apogee/ID games you could play start to finish, and replay trying for a better score. 'Adventures' and RPGs were sort of 'play and finish'.
That's changed as games have found ways to more more 'an activity' people can do over and over; that's always existed for example for arcade type games designed to eat quarters, but now games like Overwatch or World of Tanks and MMOs are meant for thousands of 'replays' or as an activity. MMOs have more of a challenge, needing 'more new content'.
Those limits - replay when the dev goes out of business - are less of an issue when you look at how much games of the 'play once' type seem to have a short shelf-life. Most people don't go back to most of those games much of at all after playing it, and that's not as big an issue as it might sound like.
It's a bit rarer where there's more of a conflict - when an MMO has shut down quickly after release, when a game like - 'A. P. B.' shut down quickly, when Hellgate: London sold lifetime subscriptions for $300 and then quickly shut down.
But companies leap at the chance to make a lot more money. Games are a very competitive industry, and consumers often reward and fund things that aren't really good things.
For example, games realized the word free was attractive, and began designing games they could sell as 'free to play', which were intentionally crippled, with things like built-in slowdowns designed to frustrate gamers, where they could buy the solutions.
Terrible pretty much, yet gamers did tend to pick the 'free to play' games over the 'subscription' games which gave gamers everything. And so almost every MMO went 'free to play', with 'optional' DLC and subscriptions.
'Games as a service' seems to be another 'more profitable' model. One they can do because the technology allows it and it benefits the seller.
And it's not totally invalid as an idea. When you buy a ticket to a movie, you don't get to watch it in the theater for years. There are lots of rental products. For gamers who want to play a game once and that's it, it might not be a big deal to do it as a 'service' instead of a 'purchase'. Only some will care much about some games.
There's even an element of the issue that companies would rather not compete as much with games from years before for gamers' time. Sell them a new game instead of their re-playing an old copy of Command and Conquer.
For some gamers, games as a service, and game subscriptions, might be a better deal.
Because there is a place where it's a successful model, whether because gamers benefit or simply because they want to play a game only available as a service, and companies benefit, it seems unlikely it's going anywhere.
Facebook
Twitter