These days, it’s simply a fact that overly monetized live service games make more money than simply selling a good finished game. It has been years already since mobile gaming surpassed the earnings of consoles and PCs combined. Tencent knows this, it’s how their publishing arm makes most of its money. It’s how they became the 2nd largest game publisher.
Frankly, I can’t see that side of their business staying uninvolved as they invest on other gaming companies. I can’t see them just being happy they don’t have to do anything, if they could pressure them into more monetization for more profits. To me it seems just a matter of time that this investment will have its cost.
Yeah, as you mentioned, it’s quite a split interns of mobile vs console/pc market. And we have games that fails(just look at recent EA/MS games that tried to push mtx/battle pass) because there simply isn’t enough time in the world’s console/pc game population to commit to 2+ more pass/weekly event games. I play only rocket league + whatever single player games and only dip into other multiplayer short term. So guess what kind of game I don’t spend money on or even trying when it’s F2P?
Your assumption is based on once you switch to live service model you will make more money, however that’s not true. You can only do live service model when you have enough player retention, player that keep coming back because you have enough new content to play, and that player base with carefully done monetization makes you money(player willing to spend money is proportional to the player base and social impact). Look at Halo Infinity, such a big IP that fails spectaulary, and if you are investment company, you willing to push the same self destruction button?
We are talking about people that handling billions of fund and try to make their career looks good, not worse.
Would they push for monetization once they hit jackpoy and have good candidate that can make the transition? Sure. Is that something you can see from Kamiya’s past games? I don’t think so. So if it is Tencent give money to Kamiya and let him do his stuff, I am sure that they trust him enough to make quality games that turns profit.
We are talking about people that handling billions of fund and try to make their career looks good, not worse.
Yeah, and it’s because I see what investors do that I cannot trust their good sense. They make stupid mistakes out of not understanding the market, or callously profitable but ultimately destructive decisions for short term gain all the time, and it only got worse in recent years. If investors thought long term and were easily satisfied, we wouldn’t see nearly as many companies declining in quality as we do. A chief concern for them is always making a greater profit than before, and there is only so far that can be pushed without negative effects to the customers.
Too many live service games are not viable? That definitely doesn’t stop their publishing arm, and again, I see no reason why they would be so separate in stances. They know how to make that work best, after all. I agree with you that it wouldn’t be wise, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t do it.
Thankfully, so far Tencent hasn’t done that yet. But people also had a lot of hope for Embracer Group reviving neglected studios, only for it to fall apart and close a bunch of them. I wouldn’t put that much hope on financial interests swooping in and saving the day. It’s not what they do.
hope for Embracer Group reviving neglected studios
I am not quite into that accquisition sub-culture but remember when there were a lot of acquisitions that seems semi-malicious? They resulted in key figures departure, sequels flop hard, and projects eventually stopped existing. My personal take on Embracer is that they wanted to buy existing IPs that they can do the following:
license out IP to people studio that wants to do remaster(ie. like recent Quake 1/2 remaster by Bethesda license to Nightdive ) or prequel/sequel/reboot
restructure companies they have and make new ones, these company have experienced creative leads/devs that can push new IPs they wanted to do
sell on good old games, humble bundles to milk some left over values.
sometimes owning old IPs comes with some perk like Hollywood run out of ideas and then start making game movies.
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I wish I could have that amount of optimism.
These days, it’s simply a fact that overly monetized live service games make more money than simply selling a good finished game. It has been years already since mobile gaming surpassed the earnings of consoles and PCs combined. Tencent knows this, it’s how their publishing arm makes most of its money. It’s how they became the 2nd largest game publisher.
Frankly, I can’t see that side of their business staying uninvolved as they invest on other gaming companies. I can’t see them just being happy they don’t have to do anything, if they could pressure them into more monetization for more profits. To me it seems just a matter of time that this investment will have its cost.
Yeah, as you mentioned, it’s quite a split interns of mobile vs console/pc market. And we have games that fails(just look at recent EA/MS games that tried to push mtx/battle pass) because there simply isn’t enough time in the world’s console/pc game population to commit to 2+ more pass/weekly event games. I play only rocket league + whatever single player games and only dip into other multiplayer short term. So guess what kind of game I don’t spend money on or even trying when it’s F2P?
Your assumption is based on once you switch to live service model you will make more money, however that’s not true. You can only do live service model when you have enough player retention, player that keep coming back because you have enough new content to play, and that player base with carefully done monetization makes you money(player willing to spend money is proportional to the player base and social impact). Look at Halo Infinity, such a big IP that fails spectaulary, and if you are investment company, you willing to push the same self destruction button?
We are talking about people that handling billions of fund and try to make their career looks good, not worse.
Would they push for monetization once they hit jackpoy and have good candidate that can make the transition? Sure. Is that something you can see from Kamiya’s past games? I don’t think so. So if it is Tencent give money to Kamiya and let him do his stuff, I am sure that they trust him enough to make quality games that turns profit.
Yeah, and it’s because I see what investors do that I cannot trust their good sense. They make stupid mistakes out of not understanding the market, or callously profitable but ultimately destructive decisions for short term gain all the time, and it only got worse in recent years. If investors thought long term and were easily satisfied, we wouldn’t see nearly as many companies declining in quality as we do. A chief concern for them is always making a greater profit than before, and there is only so far that can be pushed without negative effects to the customers.
Too many live service games are not viable? That definitely doesn’t stop their publishing arm, and again, I see no reason why they would be so separate in stances. They know how to make that work best, after all. I agree with you that it wouldn’t be wise, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t do it.
Thankfully, so far Tencent hasn’t done that yet. But people also had a lot of hope for Embracer Group reviving neglected studios, only for it to fall apart and close a bunch of them. I wouldn’t put that much hope on financial interests swooping in and saving the day. It’s not what they do.
I wonder why?
I am not quite into that accquisition sub-culture but remember when there were a lot of acquisitions that seems semi-malicious? They resulted in key figures departure, sequels flop hard, and projects eventually stopped existing. My personal take on Embracer is that they wanted to buy existing IPs that they can do the following: