A SHORT GUIDE ON GaaS (GAMES AS A SERVICE)

Here is a popular scenario that often repeats itself.

You create a game. It becomes a success. You start earning revenue from it. In the beginning, there is a buzz that slowly reaches a crescendo. At the height of your success, you make a lot of revenue.

But the height then slowly drops into a worse situation. The interest in your game slowly wanes—the money you earn plateaus and eventually settles to a trickle. And people who were ardent players slowly leave your game.

This lowering interest over time has been a problem many game developers have been facing for years now. But, unfortunately, some didn’t even consider it a problem as there was no way to fix it. Instead, people viewed it as a part of developing in the medium.

In recent years, however, things have changed. Games As A Service has emerged.

GaaS or Games as a service is where games, usually free-to-play, offer additional content that keeps the player playing for a long time. GaaS is opposed to Games as a product, where the player gets a game and finishes it.

GaaS (Games as a service) games are usually monetized by either micro-transactions or through subscriptions. With the former, players can buy things like power-ups and armor to improve their gaming experience or buy DLCs that add additional content. The latter gives users access to exclusive content which is not accessible to non-subscribers.

Origins and Evolution

We can trace the GaaS model back to the days when World of Warcraft turned into a subscription-based model. At the time of the transition, the game had a set of genuine fans eager for new content. So, when the company introduced the subscription model, players happily accepted it and enjoyed the new content the company kept releasing.

The model had come around to full maturity once mobile games rolled around. Mobile game developers found out that microtransactions were an excellent way to monetize players by first offering them a free game. Later this slowly evolved as the ability to add new content became a possibility.

Soon, developers realized that you could monetize existing players and keep them hooked for a long time by turning their games into a service that delivers an endless stream of content. Since they already loved the game, players were more likely to spend in the game as well.

It was a win-win for everyone involved. Players were happy to get new content for a game that they already immensely enjoyed. For developers, it meant they could monetize their players better and could also explore the game world which they had already created.

Soon game publishers from other platforms started to take notice. The product model largely dominated the console and PC game industries at the time. When the publishers realized that games as a service model could bring them profits, console and PC game publishers dove in headfirst.

Soon games like Destiny and Overwatch, both of which followed the GaaS model, became popular. The games are now considered cult classics.

Game Development Companies have reported that doing so has increased the revenue that they make overall. As a result, several other game publishers, both on mobile and PC and console platforms, have experimented with GaaS (Games as a service).

The Future

Multi-player is one crucial aspect of GaaS (Games as a service). Most of the GaaS games are multi-player games. So some of the most significant developments that have happened recently in multi-player games will translate to GaaS as well.

Cross-play is the big one. In recent years developers have finally managed, after much work, to make their games available on multiple platforms at the same time and make players from different platforms play each other.

Cross-play will open up GaaS and make it even more significant. A game can become an entire social world. The current game world that is occupied by multi-players is small and walled gardens limited by the platforms. When the platform one plays on no longer becomes a barrier for multi-player gaming, the game world will become bigger and more players will likely play the game.

High-speed 5G internet will be another one that makes a more significant impact. It will allow people from all walks of life to do gaming sessions from their mobiles.

All this means that this is the right time to create a GaaS title of your own.

The best way to do so is with a top game design company like Juego Studios. Juego Studios is a leading team of 200+ who can create games of any type for any platform you want. Our team consists of the best game developers, designers, artists, testers, etc., with experience developing various genres of games for multiple platforms.