Games as a Service | Lawrence van Rijn

Tag Archives: Games as a Service

January 4, 2024 · 18:57

Wanna go fat?

That is the weird but very apt question. Of course I could ask Laura Vandervoort implying if she wants me (my delusional side in action). Yet this is not about women, this is about gaming. It is 2024 and internet congestion is starting to become a much bigger issue. As such, if Amazon with its Luna wants to stand out and equal if not surpass Tencent with its handheld, it needs to reformulate some settings. I truly believe that Gaming as a Service (GaaS) has the future, but the brains behind this are too much about the monthly fee and when congestion hits that monthly fee becomes a problem. Tencent with its handheld has a solution, now Amazon needs to find a roadmap to set itself apart. They cannot rely on player like Ubisoft to figure things out, it will be too late for them.

Now consider an upgraded and remastered version of some of the Commodore 64 greats. Fort Apocalypse, Wizard, Jumpman, Wizard of Wor and so on. You might find that amusing, but you only have to face one wall of congestion and it suddenly doesn’t feel that weird anymore. Now each of these games was less than 354Kb in total. Now with upgraded graphics (and much better sounds) it will easily fit a 2Mb marker. Consider the controller now with an SD card slot and a 64GB card is less than $15. Now consider that the controller is the fat client. It will use the servers, but in some cases it can download a partial frame and a whole host of games can be played from the controller. Not Ubisoft games and not many ‘new’ high tech games (or whatever they would call them) but others could be downloaded and other games could be downloaded whilst you play. It is a larger station to consider. In the age of congestion, the one that allows you to play is the winner and Amazon needs a real win. Microsoft is spinning the fact that they are losing. They made arrangements with Ubisoft. So what happens when Microsoft desperately wants more? Amazon better get ready because if they are not, it all goes to Tencent and they are at present in a stage where they could get millions of gamers, all because some were asleep (OK, Google walked away from this).

The larger setting that we see (at https://www.androidauthority.com/amazon-luna-1170676/) is only part of it. They are set on relying on monthly prices and that is good. The moment that players and families will have to consider $12 for Netflix or $10 for Amazon Prime, Amazon will lose members. The controller is either $70, or $83. So what happens when people get the one time additional $10 for the fat client version, they need to buy their own SD card, but it comes with a free setting of these ‘download’ games and as that list improves the people will select the Amazon equation. You can all go into denial that this will never happen, but a setting where bills are strangling you, that $10 can given you dozens of games and a gaming setting that families can afford. Yes, when they cannot afford one, they cannot afford the other either. But there will be a large group of people who can only afford one. And that will escalate. Now take congestion in the mix and people are paying for something that cannot be delivered for whatever excuse the telco gives us and in Australia Optus has had its share of excuses, so much so that there is a senate hearing on Optus. And it is the first one at present. I reckon that soon enough others will have their congestion and outage issues, this might be the year it comes to blows all because too many were sitting on their hands and it is not merely Australia. EU and US will have their own issues soon enough. In addition to that Germany and France have massive rural area’s where the minimum bandwidth is seemingly an issue. That issue is seemingly and there is no real open data. Those who have the issue are (as I personally suspect) hiding this. As such a fat client solution could decrease bandwidth pressures and allow people to game there, at least those lacking a console or PC.

As I personally see it, going fat is not the best way, but it is an option into the future, so how about it Laura ;-)?

Now consider the Amazon solution with dozens of awesome remastered games added to the mixture? As I see it it is better than what is now, the Microsoft spin only holds water for so long and whilst too many are following that Microsoft cult, Tencent with its handheld is about to gain real gamers globally and that was what I always predicted. They question becomes which of the two is gaining the additional 50,000,000 gamers the quickest in phase one? When that part becomes reality Microsoft will have lost another battle, all set to meaningless banter like ‘We have the most powerful console in the world’ which is not a lie, but Nintendo with its weakest console surpassed them with great ease and now Tencent is about to become the next favourite taste of gamers. Amazon has options but it is not clear for how long. They are establishing themselves, yet outside issues like congestion will halt them for some time and this is the kind of game that standing still get you to lose the race.

Enjoy this Thursday, the first weekend of the year is only a day away.

It is more than a ban

It has not been an easy rise for game makers, now that Microsoft has shown its initial hand, now it is time for some of the game makers to show theirs. It starts with “Apple and Google both removed the hit game from their app stores after Epic Games bypassed their payment systems, to avoid giving them a cut of sales”, I get the sentiment, and the BBC article ‘Fortnite: Epic Games sues Google and Apple over app store bans’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53777379) gives part of it. We got some of the other side in the GamesRadar article that I discussed in ‘the Silent reason’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/13/the-silent-reason/) where I gave “Xbox Game Pass is the next generation of Microsoft gaming, not Xbox Series X”, in this we see the start of the big players to set a new generation of GaaS, Games as a Service is the next thing and it allows Microsoft to set another revenue bar, it is the one realisation on top of the other ones that made me give up on Microsoft and now the larger players are using GaaS to gain revenue. In this, I have nothing against the approach that Epic is making, even as I am not a Fortnite fan, it is a free game and as such it has every right to make this approach, yet Google and Apple will not be left out of any revenue loop. Gpay and Apple Pay are their own devices and they have a stage and it requires their view or perhaps the stage is their vision on the services offered. I am not sure how to react, in favour or against the ban laid on Epic, but both the Google store and the Apple store have their own rules and the idea that Epic circumvents the stores might be seen as optionally cheaper to the player, but the downside is that as third parties get their own direct access, their store access becomes available to come under fire and that is not a good thing.

The article gives us “Fortnite’s latest update offered all players a 20% discount on its in-game currency V-bucks – but only if they paid Epic Games directly rather than using Apple or Google’s payment systems. This broke rules applied by both stores”, The danger of a third party is something neither Google or Apple find appealing and I feel certain that their fees avoided is equally unappealing to them. And lets be clear, as GaaS evolves over the next 2 years, we will see the players exposed to all kinds of ‘direct from the source’ deals, because it allows the gathering of data and data is more revenue for whomever has it. The problem as I see it is not the fact that there is GaaS, the fact is that the stage will be overwhelmingly younger players. Even as 63% of Fortnite is 18-24, there is a stage where there are supposed to be 12-18 year old players and there are supposed to be a large following of them too, yet the toppling charts I saw does not reflect them properly, in light of 350,000,000 players I wonder how large that 12-18 group is and even as it is not their credit card, someone is paying that bill (most likely their mommy), yet that stage also gives Google and Apple a larger concern and I reckon that they are programming the stores to raise all kinds of red flags before they fall in a trap that is not unlike the one Electronic Arts is facing with their loot boxes. In all this there is a lull in the life of the lawmakers, GaaS is new, so new that most laws are riddled with holes and that is not a good thing. A lot needs to happen to bind and limit financial institutions from allowing gamers to be used and exploited. Now let me be clear I do not believe that loot boxes are gambling, in that same stage I believe that Epic Games has done nothing wrong, but consider other games that pushes for additional movements and choices that come at a price, whilst their algorithm is set to always set the bar at your effort +1% (speaking figuratively), so how is that fair? I reckon that Google and Apple are set against that stage (whilst getting their own grains of revenue) and that is perhaps not the worst idea, yet I see the other side too, especially as Fortnite is free to play, to gain the upper hand you can buy V-bucks to buy loot boxes and skins. It is one way to get the income, it is of course a risk, but knowing you have 350 million fans, the stage is set in a decent way and when you consider that they made $1.9 billion in 2019 gives rise to the GaaS platform. It is a platform that does allow for more than one game to be part of it and that is what players like Microsoft are hoping for, I reckon that Apple and Google are on that same train. And it is there that we see the balancing act that both Google and Apple face. It is appealing to lock the door to players like Epic Games, but they are not alone and over time, other options will become available, of that I am absolutely certain

Tag Archives: Games as a Service

Wanna go fat?

It is more than a ban

Recent Posts

Archives