Games as a Paid Service is a term coined a lot by various developers and publishers these days. The term itself relates directly to the costs inherent in maintaining the game and the lifespan a game may have based around that subsequent cost.
A major example such games are massively multiplayer online games (MMO's). MMO's take a fee from the player to ensure sustained life and upgrades throughout its tenure. Most companies opt for this as it guarantees the influx of cash to fund extra content, staff and other games.
Now, with the popular one out of the way, we now see it entering the base-arena. Games such as Call of Duty which have been a staple of the first person shooter (FPS) genre are moving towards this model where they may charge a nominal fee each month for new maps, weapons and web-based content.
The Chief Executive of Valve, Gabe Newell, has stated that the future will be "providing on-going value" to the gamer. Allowing this model to be used with the gamers favourite franchises will allow for more play-time, more immersion and a longer lifespan than titles would usually garner.
Now, while the idea is quite novel and the consumer is likely to benefit from much of the shift to this model, I still feel that a full switch for each game could have serious ramifications.
I personally would not buy games to pay for extra services in each one. That would be ludicrous. Many where people buy a good number of titles a year and this would probably drop exponentially leading to issues in funding new games and services by smaller developers.
If for example you paid a subscription fee for Call of Duty or Battlefield, you would gain new content regularly. There would be very few gamers jumping to the latter title to do the same. The same goes for the current MMO model which see's most people sticking with one title at a time.
What I'm saying is while it's not completely counter-productive, it's not a good idea to move straight into these models which will both alienate the player-base and leave people buying very few titles a year. The industry has proven time and time again that they need that financial support from the consumer and this idea could verge on the death of companies if not handled correctly.
While this could be good in some ways, it could well be damning in others. As I have mentioned above, gamers pay for MMO's because most consumers only play one at a time but when it comes to console games, many are bought and played at the same time by consumers.
I'm sceptical but will be keeping an eye on the shift to this model by many companies in the coming years. It will be interesting to see where it leads in terms of sales, lifespan of titles and of course consumer spending.
