Game Developer Collective: 70% of developers are not confident in the sustainability of the GAAS model
"Time is the only thing you can't buy", - as Warren Buffett said.
From February to March 2024, 600 developers were surveyed.
Live-service projects are defined as games that have high update frequency (67%) and microtransactions (53%).
31% are deeply concerned about the long-term sustainability of the GAAS model; 39% have some concerns; 25% of developers believe that service games are doing well. The rest are undecided.
The main problems with GAAS games are cited as user fatigue from this type of projects (63%); competition from other GAAS games (62%); increasing user acquisition costs (47%); rising development costs (34%); competition from other forms of entertainment (20%) and loss of interest from investors (12%).
45% of developers believe that GAAS games harm the industry. 44% have mixed feelings about this.
In front of doubts, developers have shown increased interest in good old DLCs. 30% of respondents said they want to use this type of additional monetization in new games (9 percentage points higher than now). Also, the number of developers wanting to sell their games has increased by 4 percentage points (a shift from the F2P model). The number of physical releases continues to decline.
Seems like GAAS are on a inevitable collision course that could shake the expectations of most of the AAA companies that are beting for them.