Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

@Herculean @KilloWertz
Even though I am detached from the live service side of gaming, I do acknowledge that it takes a different skill set to develop and produce games in that environment. I think that’s become very clear now and a hard lesson learned by many companies, not just Sony. Rocksteady and Warner Bros as well as Crystal Dynamics / Platinum Games and Square-Enix, not to mention major failures by Ubisoft, BioWare, and others.

I suppose Bungie is an expert in the area, and the knowledge and experience of doing it was coveted enough to spend that money acquiring them. But to me, I think it’s becoming apparent that not all live service games are the same. I think what Bungie does well (or at least did well) was keeping a game going through regular expansions and holding onto a dedicated online fanbase. They talk about having a game with “stickiness”, or one that can remain relevant and keep players coming back. I think that’s really a different animal than the big GaaS hits like Fortnite, Genshin and the Hoyo-verse. And I think that GTA online, Minecraft/Roblox, FIFA/NBA2K, and CoD are an even separate sub-genre.

All live service needs stickiness, but that can come from various elements, such as: an engaging gameplay loop, a creative outlet that evolves, a community and social space, an addictive gambling/loot box style dependence, an engaging developing and well realized narrative, a low barrier to entry for consistent new player recruitment, or a popular pre-existing IP that already is established with a rabid fanbase. There’s probably other elements I’m not thinking of too, but the point is — I’m not sure Bungie is good at many of those things, but has really had success only in one little corner of the live-service market. And the slow death of their marquee property Destiny shows that even they don’t have all the answers for colossal success.

I also think that in additional to a special sauce of stickiness, there needs to be an element of luck. The stars need to align in the marketplace, the online buzz and discourse needs to be just so, and world events and economy have to be conducive to a specifics idea’s success. What worked in 2020 may not work in 2025.

All that said, there’s some very obvious red flags that Sony and Bungie really should have seen. As gamers who engage in this hobby on a daily basis and are the backbone of the industry, we could all see the train wreck coming even though we don’t have MBA’s or decades of business expertise.

@KilloWertz @Herculean

Yeah, you can mostly ignore the Bungie element. I just wanted to vent about them at the end of the rest of my comment, because they are and have been atrocious and consistently run by a type of scammer mind set execs (that directly influenced Concord with their ex Bungie execs conning the idiotic Hermen into funding that too) I do think they were in Sony's ear the whole time telling them that 12 live service games are worth pursuing, though, whilst lining their pockets as "consultants" even though these other games were being made by devs that could be making good games, that they already knew how to make, instead. It was only this past year thay Sony had to send in the troops to reorganise Bungie, wasn't it? And it is also this past year that they have realised it has all been for nothing. I'd say Sony are pretty pissed with Bungie, and maybe that was a bit of foreshadowing when they gave them all slap. I'm unfamiliar with the timescale of everything though, hence it was mostly a hot take. I don't think they are innocent bystanders, let's say 😂

But anyway, my other thought still stands. Waste of time and money, and probably lost so much talent by trying to force them to make sh** they don't want to make. Time to go back to supporting the genuine creators rather than the suits

@Ravix The timeline is the real issue now. The projects coming out now were probably greenlit like 5-8 years ago. And likewise, canceled projects have been in the works for many years, most likely. Add to that the general stagnation of development caused by the pandemic, and you have a situation where studio production is going to be a whole console generation behind. It would be possible (maybe even probable) that Bend and BluePoint aren’t heard of again until PS6.

If Microsoft hadn’t fallen on their face this gen with all their own flavor of mismanagement, we could have been experiencing the swan song of the PlayStation brand over the next 5 years. Nevertheless, I think Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and Sucker Punch can keep them afloat, on top of their second party relationships and aggressive pursuit of console exclusives. They have a sizable cushion in the market, so should have time to right the ship. We may have something actually viable cooking from Housemarque, Media Molecule, Guerilla, and Santa Monica. Faith in the system is shaky at this point though.

@Ravix Bungie was acquired 2 years before the release of Concord. Concord was in development for 8 years.

You want these two things to be related, but they're not.

@Herculean as far as Concord it was people who worked at bungie that were in charge there. That's all. Never mind 😅 I know Concord as an entity was a new venture. It was two seperate points, and just for the sake of venting. Take no notice of me 😛 I did think Bungie was acquired way earlier than that, too, to be fair 🤦‍♂️

@Ravix Yes there is a relation between them at least. I spoke a bit too bluntly there, sorry. It's just hard to know exactly how things went behind the scenes; it's been a mess regardless of who did what, though.

Part of me believes Switch would have been less successful if Xbox and PlayStation weren't so busy shooting themselves in the foot.

@Herculean no worries. I know can be a bit exaggerated and miss some actual factual information out when I'm doing hot take elements in posts 😂 I do think a rot has set in, and there are multiple sources of that rot. But it is indeed wild speculation. The whole Concord saga reads like a story about a con would read. And every time bungie change ownership the reasons read a little like they are the problem, but are blaming outside sources for everything, or... playing the victim to get what they want, a bit like a con artist would. So I like to throw some of those elements in sometimes, considering the link between people that worked for both.

It probably boils down to, Big Jim overreacted and overcommited to GaaS and had way too many of SIE's studios working on them. They Bought Bungie to print some GaaS money and help. Then doubled down on the plan. Then Hermen trying to be a good little boy tried to snatch up something he was convinced to be "the one" whether he was misled, or bought into the fact that the devs really thought they'd thought of something unique without stepping back to ponder: maybe there's a reason GaaS don't usually have AAA budgets and storylines unrelated to the gameplay.

I do remember genuinely thinking when the Concord trailer dropped: okay it is a little goofy but I could really buy into a fun space heist game with a crew and a ship and plenty to plunder. And then being totally shocked and disinterested by the reveal that it was in fact a PvP shooter with no connection between the cutscenes and the game play of randomly shooting the people you were just talking to like mismatched partners in crime in a Marvel buddy comedy or whatver 🤷‍♂️ it was properly bananas 🙈

But, yeah. That's why I mostly wanted to focus on the hypothetical of what Sony could have better spent the money on instead of all the massive live service gambles, and what they can do to attone in the future. They have a lot of making up to do, but there is probably still a way to focus on GaaS on a much smaller scale using independent studios with much lower risk, or by using IP's suited to being GaaS in the first place 😬

Amen to this! As much as I have close to zero interest in the multiplayer online GaaS universe, I completely recognize its importance in the market. I don’t expect Sony to completely concede the whole live service arena to the competition. Even though I’ll never play them, I do think it best that they have some efforts to be active in that space. But good grief, use some basic sound judgment and don’t bet the whole farm on this stuff. I wouldn’t even mind a couple of the larger AAA studios to work on a GaaS from time to time, but not 75% of the entirety of PlayStation Studios. Or at least reign in the costs.

And the point about using the right IP is a good one too. Marvel Rivals hero shooter — ok, I think it fits. A Spider-Man multiplayer PvP game?… uh, I don’t think so. A God of War multiplayer game? …also not sure that makes sense. Last of Us Factions 2? … uh, ok but do we have a support studio who can do that instead of our single player A-team? A Horizon MMO? …ok, it might work, but is there a team we can farm that out to as a side project if we still want a Horizon 3 in the next 5 years?

Basically — the right project, by the right team, at the right time, for the right cost. Is that too much to hope for? 😄

@Th3solution it is indeed too much to ask for, a bit like asking for the Celtics to play fast for more than one quarter 🙈 Which games succeed as live service? Low budget, cheap and cheerful graphics, addictive gameplay loop and/or shiny loot. What kind of basketball is more effective than walking it up and being incredibly slow and predictable with your passes? Playing fast, loose and free.

Logic will never prevail, and the forest will remain hidden by all those damn trees 🤦‍♂️😅

@Ravix 😂 … Sorry about your Celtics. Don’t worry. Just like Sony will rise again, I’m sure they will too. 📈