Gotta Grab That Recurring Revenue Stream
In an outline of financial results briefing for purveyors of Chocobo-riding and slime-killing, Square-Enix, NeoGAF discovered a rather interesting phrase that hints at the way most games will be designed going forward. Namely, it notes that it has earned plenty of moolah from making games that have “games as a service” design, and sees that design to be crucial to future games. The report notes:
Titles that have become global hits recently have tended to be offered via the “Games as a Service” model, and we believe this is going to be the mainstream model for gaming in the future. In developing future titles, we will approach game design with a mind to generate recurring revenue streams.
What does “games as a service” entail? Well, we can look forward to future games with continued DLC support and Season Passes. It’s nothing new for the games industry, but it is slightly newer for JRPGs, which is what the company is best known for. Of course, Square-Enix could supply recurring free content too (they already do some of that with free updates in Final Fantasy XV), but I’m skeptical when plenty of their big games have used a paid DLC/Season Pass model.
I’m also troubled by how it affects their game design philosophy as past Final Fantasy games had a definitive end when you finished the game you bought. Earlier this year, Final Fantasy XV updated its much-hated Chapter 13 to not just simply have a few balancing fixes, but also whole new content too. This update begs the question: “If you’ve finished the game before this update, then, is that playthrough now rendered incomplete without playing this new added content?”.
Sure, the Chapter 13 update could be solely made to address all the complaints about the bog-like experience of playing through that chapter (I didn’t actually mind it too much). However, I’m wondering if that change wasn’t brought on to only fix that section, but to also prolong gameplay so that players will stick around and continue to pay for DLC. It gets pretty muddy as JRPGs aren’t typically designed for “games as service” design.
Of course, new DLC content means the teams working those games will continue to work and that recurring revenue can be uses towards new projects too. Besides that, The Witcher 3 also had some great DLC content too. I believe DLC can be a benign thing for the industry if done right. As long as the DLC content for JRPG remains side story content, then I guess I could live with it. That said, I hope that Square-Enix’s E3 2017 game plan won’t feature new content for Final Fantasy XV as I’d rather see a push towards something new.