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[Ar¢tos]

Sony doesn't need to fund AA games. They get a tonne of AA games from independent 3rd parties. There's no shortage of them.

AA games can be self-published by the studios, which comes with significant benefits for the studio in question, e.g. IP ownership and a bigger share of the profits.

It makes more sense for Sony to focus their FP publishing dollars on AAA games which is a category that's entirely unreachable by AA indie devs. And it especially makes sense for Sony to fund historically AA devs moving up to AAA development. NOBODY else is doing this, and with the slow attrition of AAA devs across the industry, if successful AA devs aren't being backed to take on larger AAA projects, then we'll see fewer and fewer AAA games until all that's left are the AAA first party studios and those 3rd parties under big publishers that shit out annualized sequels.

So again, I don't really see any issue.

Sony AA games =/= indie AA games

The production values and quality are (were) waaaay different.

I did playtesting for a couple of Sony AA games in the ps4 era and the difference to testing other games, including AAA games from 3rd parties was huge.

Even their small games had builds for testing that were basically finished and polished, while others... *cough* Ubisoft *cough* were a massive shit show.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Sony AA games =/= indie AA games

The production values and quality are (were) waaaay different.

I did playtesting for a couple of Sony AA games in the ps4 era and the difference to testing other games, including AAA games from 3rd parties was huge.

Even their small games had builds for testing that were basically finished and polished, while others... *cough* Ubisoft *cough* were a massive shit show.

Yes. Sony has quality control for the games they make.... and?

It's not as if all AA indie games are complete dogshit. There are a tonne of indie games on Steam in the AA category that are top tier in terms of quality.

 

[yurinka]

They're investing more in GAAS than traditional games and it's going to widen. It's not their only focus but it's the "main" one right now.

They will invest more in GaaS because GaaS are more expensive because get supported during years after launch. But they are developing way more non-GaaS games than GaaS games.

And as I said, GAAS is predatory and unnecessary for Sony who has been dominating the competition without it.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about, like a flat earther.

It's nonsensical and laughable to say GaaS are predatory, it's like to blame violence in videogames for the mass shootings in USA. Simply a stupid statement.

And yes, GaaS are totally necesary for a AAA publisher like Sony because AAA games get way more expensive every generation and already are too expensive, to a point so they are a super risky bet, so they have to search for more revenue sources to keep them safer. On top of that, the revenue from game sales keep decreasing while the revenue from game addons keep increasing and already is the majority of the game revenue. So in the future it would be a suicide for AAA publishers to bet only on non-GaaS. This is why all AAA publilshers and all platform holders are starting bet harder on GaaS.

 

[tr1p1ex]

seems like par for the course.

 

[kyussman]

My interest in actively gaming has waned with my passion for PlayStation,I think that might just be a coincidence though.There is only one game on the horizon from them that I feel I really need to play and that's Death Stranding 2......I enjoyed games like Spider-Man and GOW last gen but have little interest in their sequels this gen.Honestly,I think I'm just sick to death of current day media on the whole and PlayStation are fully onboard with whatever the current day thing is(wokeness related).....I'm just listening to lots of High on Fire records for a good dose of honesty,reality and no bullshit,lol.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

They will invest more in GaaS because GaaS are more expensive because get supported during years after launch. But they are developing way more non-GaaS games than GaaS games.

Most of those games will fail and they'll need to reinvest in more attempts or on whatever the new GAAS trend is. Don't forget that they have 12 live service games in development.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about, like a flat earther.

Projection.

It's nonsensical and laughable to say GaaS are predatory, it's like to blame violence in videogames for the mass shootings in USA. Simply a stupid statement.

Your comparison is incredibly stupid, I agree.

And yes, GaaS are totally necesary for a AAA publisher like Sony because AAA games get way more expensive every generation and already are too expensive, to a point so they are a super risky bet, so they have to search for more revenue sources to keep them safer. On top of that, the revenue from game sales keep decreasing while the revenue from game addons keep increasing and already is the majority of the game revenue. So in the future it would be a suicide for AAA publishers to bet only on non-GaaS. This is why all AAA publilshers and all platform holders are starting bet harder on GaaS.

Meanwhile Sony has been posting record profits and widening the gap between it's primary competitor.

 

[yurinka]

Most of those games will fail and they'll need to reinvest in more attempts or on whatever the new GAAS trend is.

Don't forget that they have 12 live service games in development.

This is what you hope, but the pedigree they have in many of their cases says it's very unlikely that they'd fail.

The first two of the dozen were MLB and GT7, which were very successful. The next one is Firewall Ultra, which I assume will have a similar success than the previous one in the VR scale/context.

Then there are Marathon (+minimum another new IP under development, + whatever they do with Destiny in the future) and Concord made by mostly former Destiny and Halo devs, Fairgames made by mostly key Ubisoft staff from record breaking new IPs and GaaS. Then there's Naughty Dog.

And well, Arrowhead has a great record of success even before Helldivers but in a smaller context and niche. Pretty likely Helldivers 2 will be their most successful game ever even if I assume it obviously won't reach Bungie or ND levels of success.

Each one on their context and scale, plus the Deviation (dream team with people from many top shooters, but mostly from CoD) game if wasn't cancelled I think will be successful.

Then there are games that I'm not that confident, and some of them may fail: the Londo Studio game, Twisted Metal and (depending how it ends being and who develops it) Horizon Online.

Projection.

Projection is reading the pattern of the market data in recent years and project it to the next ones, which is why publishers are investing more in GaaS.

Gaming revenue from addons (GaaS) growed to become the main revenue source from game software and its growth is replacing game sales revenue both in the whole gaming and in consoles. And outside console, the top grossing and fastest growing platform is mobile which almost only has GaaS.

So seeing that, all big publishers -not only Sony- saw that and since they aren't stupid decided that also have to invest in GaaS and not only in SP only non-GaaS.

Your comparison is incredibly stupid, I agree.

I tried to find some statement as stupid as the one you made, pretty similar level.

Meanwhile Sony has been posting record profits and widening the gap between it's primary competitor.

Yes, Sony's main revenue and profit source comes from the software of their store. Which mostly comes from 3rd party games, with most of the top performing ones being GaaS.

Revenue from their 1st party games represent a small portion of the total Sony gaming division revenue.