3 ms·

At least in terms of media, profits are higher (due to increasing mainstream acceptance rather than opionated subcultures), budgets are also higher (hence more

At least in terms of media, profits are higher (due to increasing mainstream acceptance rather than opionated subcultures), budgets are also higher (hence more risk), so why put in the effort? It's not the West, same thing is happening in Japan, even in places like mass produced literature and Webtoons in China & Korea. Gacha games/Live-Service unfortunately is alot more profitable for less effort than an ambitious single player game like BG3. Then there's also poignant quote by the Square Enix CEO that any sort of investment into media needs to be compared to with the opportunity cost of just investing in the S&P500 instead. It's not enough to just be profitable, you need to make at least 2x/3x over that 5 year dev time to break even. So alot unfortunately is a choice that consumers have made. Even in terms of media again, alot of modern viewers watch media more as self-insert fantasies, so quality of writing or novelty is often going to worthless or even detrimental to them. I don't believe that mindset, but having talked to many on /a/, /v/ or reddit, there's many who are just there to consume rather than actual interest.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
It's hard comparing GaaS to Single player ganes. It's not less effort, it's different effort. Your average gacha may look lower effort, but it has to sustain thst effort longer instead of patching the game for a few months and moving on. It has to do a lot more marketing to get players in, because many are this pseudo-MMO experience, completely with PvP and Guild content to manage. At the highest end, Hoyovervese's operating costs would even make Activision blush. But those games make billions to compensate.
- corimaith 2y ago
  Well in the same vein, we can directly compare the decline of fully fledged MMORPGs to the psuedo-mmos that are Gacha games with essentially all the ambitious parts of the mmo that is stripped off. That very much is an indictment of ambition and progress here.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

It's hard comparing GaaS to Single player ganes. It's not less effort, it's different effort. Your average gacha may look lower effort, but it has to sustain thst effort longer instead of patching the game for a few months and moving on. It has to do a lot more marketing to get players in, because many are this pseudo-MMO experience, completely with PvP and Guild content to manage. At the highest end, Hoyovervese's operating costs would even make Activision blush. But those games make billions to compensate.

corimaith 2y ago
Well in the same vein, we can directly compare the decline of fully fledged MMORPGs to the psuedo-mmos that are Gacha games with essentially all the ambitious parts of the mmo that is stripped off. That very much is an indictment of ambition and progress here.