Just like software developers, gaming publishers and developers struggle with a steep reduction of cash flows after the first few months of the release of a product. This can debilitate the development of the next game as expenses peak. Software companies found the cure to this problem: Software-as-a-Service. By offering the customer to use the software for a monthly subscription fee, cash flows will remain fairly steady. In turn software developers are able to improve their product in a more incremental way rather than doing it once every two years. On top of that these companies are more closely in touch with their customers for longer allowing the provision of tailored services based on customer feedback and user data.
Electronic Arts was to adopt such a service model as well in order to thrive according to stakeholders. The first two games that were released as Games-as-a-Service were Bioware’s Anthem and DICE’s Battlefield 5 (Both are daughter companies of electronic Arts). Both games were accompanied with a paid ‘season pass’, which gives aces to additional content which was to be released in incrementals. Electronic Arts released massive road maps with the upcoming content. Shareholders were positive about the new approach, however both the games itself and the new monetizing policies suffered huge backlash from fans and game critics. Both games were criticized for the lack of content after the initial release and the withholding of essential content from users only to later add it if you would pay the extra price. On top of that the massive roadmaps were far too ambitious and suffered massive delays, which Electronic Arts failed to communicate towards customers, leaving them in awe. As a result both games underperformed massively and resulted in a worse than expected sale of the ‘season pass’, the most important stake in the Games-as-a-Service model.
Although Electronic Arts first take at the Games-as-a-Service model didn’t go as planned other game publishers such as Activision seem to copy this model for their next big releases. The success factor of such a new business model dependents entirely on the quality and quantity of initial content and the communicate with the community thereafter, Electronic Arts seem to have underestimated this. However since the gaming industry is growing regardless of these failures it will only take a couple of years for the majority of the gaming industry to adopt such models.
References:
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ea-ceo-games-as-a-service-will-be-foundational-to-our-industry/
https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/battlefield-5-fails-to-meet-sales-targets-and-ea-e/1100-6464832/
