The Future of Game Ownership?
Games System or Money Making Machine?
On the one hand, games gross more than films, and have done for a few years, but on the other hand developers & publishing houses cry foul at everything from second hand game sales to piracy and the cost of providing online play.
These factors combine with the ever increasing availability of pure digital content, streamable films, downloadable games, online TV etc. to create what will be a defining “perfect storm” of gaming econopolitics.
Gamers want to pay a fixed, affordable, one-off fee for a fantastic gaming experience which increasingly features ongoing, top quality, reliable, ranked and statted, lightning fast online play featuring staggering levels of accuracy, realism and / or immersion. Developers and publishers simply need to make more and more money to keep their shareholders happy. At first, there seems to be no common ground in sight!
But are we far closer to a solution to all these problems than we think, can we glimpse the form in which gaming will evolve and continue to devour all other forms of media?
Yes We Can!
In the words of a certain American president; “Yes We Can!”
If we consider the above factors and look at lessons of the past we can indeed divine the way of the future.
My fellow gamers, here is an econopolitical prediction for the future of gaming. Dissect, discuss, ridicule, dismantle & destroy it, but at least cogitate on its content and let it feed your ongoing thinking concerning the future of games.
First let us consider a few of the ways that some current ownership and usage systems work:
1. I have money, but do I own a safe? Do I have hundreds of pound coins lying around? No I don’t. We have money, yes, but we entrust it to a third party to store it, keep it safe, and further trust them to manage the transfer of it to any number of other third parties when we shop, pay bills or invest.
2. I listen to music, but do I use a CD player? You don’t. You may burn a CD to MP3 once, but your store your music in a complex device you don’t fully understand and actually listen to your music via a small, anonymous, electronic device which stores thousands of your songs. You trust these systems not to lose your songs and most often buy your music from a central, virtual music library whose location and function you have no comprehension of.
3. I know what is happening in the world, but do I buy a paper? Nope. You keep up to date on the news online, via both general and subject specific websites. You don’t pay for or control these, but you do consume their content… voraciously.
Quit this download jibber jabber and get my floppy disks, Fool!
These are just a few of the examples one could provide for the changing model of ownership in modern society. So what do these well understood social paradigms tell us about game ownership? This is actually surprisingly simple; the only assets which persistently remain physical in tomorrow’s society are those it is impossible to digitise. We will always have to buy food in some form, we will always have to buy clothing, but game ownership will continue to follow its current course of virtual ownership, leaving only the die-hard few, like their vinyl owning brethren, to actually own physical game media. Why is this so definitely the case? Well the “benefits” of digital distribution speak loudly for themselves;
1. Games are tied to you only; no second hand market or piracy for publishers to worry about.
2. Much cheaper, faster and easier than conventional box shifting.
3. Easier alpha and beta testing and better integrated, community led development.
4. Better and finer control over “package” content (i.e. Standard, Elite & Collector editions).
5. Easier, faster and more granular automated patching and updating.
6. Games built on common engines only require installation of customised components.
7. More developers can access huge audiences easily and economically.
8. You can never “lose” or suffer faulty / damaged install media.
9. Gathering of usage statistics by the gaming platform is easy and powerful.
10. Encourages community connectivity via innately shared gaming platforms.
11. Additional content very easy to deploy / access. (DLC)
12. Tracking and rewarding of player skill and loyalty far more organised and effective.
As with anything commercial there will be options as to how you licence your access to these games. You will either buy permanent access to a single game or pay a monthly fee to play as many games as you want, as we do now. Full integration with rewards and discounts based on on-platform referrals will grow as peer-based social marketing really kicks in. Furthermore, with download speed worries to contend with, more options will be opened up for “insta-play” technologies; evolved versions of our current intelligent streaming, allowing you to start playing games before they have fully downloaded. We will also see terminal emulation, such as features that allow you to begin play instantly, via remote systems upon purchase, whilst the full game downloads in the background.
They may be about to die out, but they'll always be fun to microwave!
So if physical media is dead, what do we know about game financing going forward…? A Lot.
As we continue along this fixed path, we will see micro-transaction financing of games take over the market, be that in the form of payed-for DLC, optional functionality, cosmetic and prestige purchasables or “fast track” access to higher levels / better strategic options. The rise and rise of online games, achievements and stats clearly points to a future where even the most “single” of single player games will be fully connected to leader boards, stats services and achievement libraries. We’ll talk about achievements and stats in a later piece, but for now let us concede that these continue to grow exponentially in popularity as we go forward.
Publishers are foolish if they believe that “official servers only” is the right way to enable future gaming. Do people play Scrabble only in “official scrabble rooms”? Or football only when an “official” FIFA representative is on hand? Of course not! Hasbro and FIFA may be big, but they don’t have the resources to provide this level or control; it would be ridiculously expensive! Having said that, FIFA still manages the official rankings and competitions globally; something they afford by the use of sponsors and advertising. Sound familiar?
Charge us to play as well as buy, we'll love that!
Games publishers / platforms / networks should indeed be providing statistics, ranking and achievements, but they should not be restricting people’s ability to play the game they have payed to access. If players will not pay for these services separately / directly, then it must be financed either by the aforementioned micro-transaction model or by more robust advertising. No one complains about the advertising around every inch of the football pitch at the World Cup, and we should expect to see more of this in server browsers and in-game moving forward. Equally, Hasbro doesn’t charge you £1 a game for Scrabble, but if you really love scrabble you might pay £50 for the deluxe wooden board and tiles. This is the way forward in terms of game sale economics.
In terms of gameplay, publishers must simply take into account the cost of maintaining rankings, stats, achievement and matchmaking services as part of product cost, much as cars manufacturers now include increasingly long warranty periods in the initial purchase cost of their vehicles, whilst ensuring they do not start trying to charge to play the game as well as purchase it. Your bank doesn’t charge you to use its online banking facility. Instead it ensures it makes enough money elsewhere in its operation to cover the cost of you using web services.
The future is simple.
- Game ownership will be entirely virtual.
- We will either “buy” access to a particular game “permanently” or pay a fixed monthly fee to access all the games delivered by a particular platform / publisher (or a hybrid of these two).
- We will pay specifically for the level of “extras” we want to make use of in each game.
- Stats, achievements, rankings, multi-player hosting, distribution and patches will all be managed by the platform, not the publisher, in return for the current model of taking a cut of sales and by selling advertising.
- Developers will continue to refine all games to feature far more DLC, in-game advertising, statistics, and micro-transaction, cosmetic, prestige and time saving options.
But this is not the end, oh no!
Use the Force... or, alternatively, this funky, futuristic, controller thingama bob...
For the next evolution of game ownership we can see that one of the most important aspects of a publisher’s strategy will be the removal of barriers to attract new and “target” gamers (gamers playing similar games from different suppliers). To this end, the cost of entry to a game will come right down to nothing and the only source of revenue will be micro-transactions, be this for additional story, cosmetic, functional or time saving elements / opportunities.
So there will be no more “demos”; you will simply start playing the new game you are interested in (as ever, via some form of “insta-play”, most likely either advanced content streaming, or initially, whilst it downloads; some form of terminal emulation). Also, if you like it, you’ll pay to unlock certain aspects of it for your use. This could be through extended competitive options, greater customisation, access to more accurate / detailed statistic and achievement logging, alternative load-outs / tactical options, or to decrease the amount of time you must spend to access higher / greater capability in-game.
With this change in approach to the provision of content we will also see the end of “sequels” with a move to a much smoother curve in-game / franchise technical innovation and DLC becoming the norm. Game companies will be more cautious about re-inventing the wheel and alienating existing fans, but also aware of the need to constantly innovate and ensure game engines stay current. The 200 hours you spent on your character will never again be lost to the sands of time, your in-game time (and money) investment will live on through countless iterations of a game’s engine and likely, eventually, be portable across to competitive franchises (much like you not having to take a driving test for every type of car you want to drive). If you are already level 100 in one FPS, you’ll be able to “port” all, or at least some, of these levels over to another, competing FPS.
Essentially, this will mean a merging of all game types into a model very similar to the currently very successful MMORPG / casual game micro-transactional and update model.
An example of this might be:
You start playing the latest FPS game, like it, and decide you’d like to access achievements for it. For this you pay a one-off fee of $4. Later, you feel like joining a squad, so you pay $6 for the ability to do this (including use of text and voice chat etc). You progress so far, but feel like you’d like more flexibility, so you pay $2 to dual-class any of your classes, giving you med kits and ammo resupply abilities at the same time. Finally you really get into it and get all your friends involved, clubbing together to pay $20 for the ability to create a Clan, $10 for the ability to create and use custom clan insignia on character clothing and $20 to access the daily regional / global clan tournaments for the month, which can award you special achievements / prestige ranks. Later, another friend joins and they pay $1 per level to immediately catch up to the level you have achieved. Then you all pay $2 each to double the rate at which you accrue experience for a 48 hour period and buy a 5% armour upgrade across the clan for a further £10 for 24 hours (not usable in ranked clan matches, and anyone killing you in “normal” matches gets 10% more experience). Finally you pay $4 to get a player profile page with full stats and load-out info, screenshots and images onto the official game website. A few months down the line the developers refresh the engine, adding improved physics simulation and players who have paid more than $50 into their account get this for free whilst others must pay $6 or be restricted to a smaller selection of maps.
OR
You start playing the new RTS. You enjoy the resource harvesting element so much that you pay £4 to have access to a more complex method of managing it. This is more laborious, but rewards you with a 3% increase in maximum resource collection rate. Then you find your options a bit limited so you pay £6 to gain access to a whole new player faction. You gain confidence in your play style and decide to join a “Commonwealth” of other players to share tactics, resources and battle together against other “Commonwealths”. Eventually the developers release a further playable faction which you all buy for an additional £10. You spend £4 to customise your Commonwealth’s banner / flag and £3 to access a couple of new, larger maps and then £2 to allow you to use your favourite faction’s alternative unit skin set. Then you feel ready to take on the world and club together to pay £15 to gain a 3 month pass to access an instanced, global, planetary struggle mode where large battles lead to area domination. Eventually the developers improve the engine, adding far better zoom level control and AI improvements. Everyone gets this for free as long as they have used £30 of upgrades, otherwise they will not receive the new tactical zoom out capability and their single player games will not feature such sophisticated AI unless they upgrade for £5.
OR
You jump into the latest driving game. Having ripped up the opposition on the easy tracks you find yourself struggling against more seasoned players on the harder tracks, so you decide to spend €8 to upgrade to the next level of cars instead of investing 40 hours of play to unlock them. You are now instantly competitive, but lack the prestige ranks you crave to confirm your driving skills to the world, so you spend €4 uploading your unique decal for your new ride and €6 doubling the rate you gather prestige points for 7 days. After this you decide to pay €10 to create your own “Car Pool” with your in-game buddies so you can share each others hard earned rides, upgrades and decals and €4 to create and upload your first “Private Track” which rewards you with “Respect” points every time a player car races on it. In turn this can be used to upgrade various cosmetic elements of your garage, which others can visit and is displayed on the games website. In month 6 after release, the developers upgrade the game with vastly superior distant object rendering, free for anyone who has processed €35 or more of in-game purchases, with others having to pay €8 for this new eye candy.
So what do you make of this version of tomorrow’s gaming word? Share your thoughts with a comment, below, or or our forums so we can be ready when the day comes…
Richard “Rax” Burley
One Ping