More and more development studios and publishers want to jump on the “Destiny train” and offer “Game as a Service” games that are structured similarly to Bungie’s successful shooters Destiny and Destiny 2. But does this not lead to market saturation? Is another bubble looming?
If we look back about 13 years, Blizzard’s MMORPG World of Warcraft created a wave of online role-playing games. Development studios and publishers believed they had found the new Holy Grail of the gaming industry, one that could delight millions of gamers and rake in even more millions of dollars.
Too much competition is not good either
More and more MMORPGs were developed, which ultimately led to the entire market being flooded. This has somewhat stabilized now, but even today new MMOs are regularly released. In a market that is actually saturated.
An MMORPG thrives on many players, but in a saturated market, the customer base gets spread across many products. This causes weaker games to be filtered out. As can be seen, many MMORPGs have not managed to hold their ground in the market – simply because the competition is so fierce.
Are we facing the same situation with the upcoming Destiny-like games?
- EA wants to increasingly focus on the “Game as a Service” system.
- Remedy, the developers of Max Payne and Quantum Break are apparently working on an online game that sounds very much like Destiny, according to a job posting.
- Bioware is developing Anthem, a game that apparently heavily resembles Bungie’s shooter.
- Even CD Projekt Red wants to provide the upcoming RPG Cyberpunk 2077 with an online component, which, according to rumors, also has Destiny-like features.
- Additionally, Borderlands 3 is in development with more online components.
- The Division should soon be continued or expanded.
- And Red Dead Redemption 2 could also take this direction in its online mode.
A lucrative game model – and everyone wants to join in
Destiny is a successful game and has a gameplay structure that is gratifying for developers. It combines online elements with single-player content. Missions can be completed either solo or in groups, and in the hub, players meet each other. Microtransactions can also be integrated well. It seems to be an excellent model that connects many players.
And yet, do we want to see a wave of similar titles in the future? Where is the variety then? Do we not want to experience completely different things when trying out new games? New game systems? New worlds? New mechanics? Something we do not already know inside out?
“Another game like Destiny?”
Game companies are primarily businesses and are therefore focused on profit. When a lucrative business model comes up, it usually has to be imitated. We can only hope that it does not “get out of hand” like it did with MMORPGs: For a long time, the nth WoW clone only elicited yawns from players, and developers invested a lot of time and money in games that hardly anyone wanted to play.
Wouldn’t it be a shame if one day we thought, “A game like Destiny? Again?”
