There will be more gaming-only services. 95% of developers create it or intend to create it

Image source: Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts.

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a job Griffin gaming partners In cooperation with the company VC introduced published a report Analyze different aspects of video game production.

1. The “2023 Games Development Report” explains this Up to 95% of development teams surveyed are in the process of creating a gaming service, already have one under their wing or intend to produce one.
2. Furthermore, as many as 66% of studios believe that only the game-as-a-service business model can ensure the long-term success of a given title.

The basis for creating this study was more than 60 interviews with industry experts, which “were intended to help formulate hypotheses and verify survey questions.” In contrast, 537 studies from all over the world participated in the survey and underwent “exhaustive validation.”

Gaming services are tempted by the vision of huge revenues, but discouraged by risk

Returning to this point, the industry's clear shift towards gaming services is not surprising. Products based on this business model, which – colloquially – “burn”, They are able to provide developers with exorbitant amounts of money.

1. This is quite clear in the example of Electronic Arts, which owes its revenues primarily to games that are constantly being developed, such as Apex Legends (you can also mention products such as EA Sports FC 24 or Madden NFL 24, that is, the latest versions of the famous “annual” EA game, which , although they are not gaming services in the strict sense, they do contain microtransactions, and their later parts are very similar to the previous ones).

On the other hand, in recent years, the competition in this field has been enormous, because each of the “big players” in the industry – for example Blizzard, Ubisoft, or the aforementioned Electronics Arts – already has at least a few popular games. Gaming services in its portfolio. Some of them even have monopolies in this subgenre. Getting a piece of the “service pie” seems very difficult, but it is not impossible.

High production costs

An additional aspect is the ever-increasing costs of producing games. As many as 77% of the teams surveyed noted that from year to year there is a need to invest more and more money in the projects being created. This is mainly due to:

• Increased player requirements, including: Large open worlds.
• The need to design more technologically complex games – including creating better character animations;
• High wages for specialists.

Moreover, according to participants Create “Traditional Games” – That is, those that the player buys only once and the developers do not have to develop them after the first presentation – Gaming services take an average of two or three years to produce, while gaming services take about five years to produce. All this makes betting on the latter now more risky – and at the same time profitable – than ever before.

Gaming Services in Decline (Despite Everything)

However, some analysts predict that despite their enormous popularity, gaming services will become less attractive to developers in the coming years.

1. What's more, According to 68% of studios, their companies are not equipped to release updates and content quickly at this time.
2. Changing this situation therefore requires significant financial outlays and a new strategy – another indicator that the trend towards gaming services will decline.

The dynamically changing situation in the industry, which is still dominated by gaming services, is evidenced by the fact that at the end of last year Sony announced a review of its plans for six of its next 12 productions, which were initially supposed to be long-lived titles.

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