If you’ve played the Outriders demo that’s available now, chances are you’ve noticed how much the game feels like other looter shooters like Destiny and The Division. However, one major difference here is, those games fall under the Live Services (also known as Games as a Service or “GaaS”) model. while Outriders does not.
During a roundtable phone interview last week which MP1st was invited in, People Can Fly devs reaffrimed that the game isn’t a GaaS game. When asked if anything changed and why the devs chose this route, Lead Game Designer Piotr Nowakowski and Creative Director Bartek Kmita answered (alternating in some cases) and admitted that the studio was “tempted’ in the beginning to go this route, but ultimately decided against it as it made the game “worse.”
Q: It’s not a live service game and I wanted to sort of check in on that and see if that was still sort of the case, and wanted to revisit that and talk about why that continues to be the case or not be the case.
PCF: That is still the case, so we are not a Games as a Service (GaaS), nothing has changed here. We were temped in the beginning to go this way, but we want to go into the different process and realize that these systems…didn’t make progress for us, and not making the game better and it just basically made the game worse, so we decided to resign from it.
However, this doesn’t mean that the devs will abandon the game. For now, though, they are on a wait and see approach, and mentions that if the player base is there, they won’t hesitate to make more content, quests and more.
PCF: What’s important is when we release the game that doesn’t mean we abandon the game, and we don’t want to work on this game anymore. If we will have the player base, People (PCF) will be willing to work say this works for sure to produce more content, produce more adventures, and activities for the people. It doesn’t have to always as a Games as a Service system, rather maybe fit it into bigger blocks with the daily chores or daily quests or whatever you call it.
Mind, I’m in that group of gamers who don’t see “live service” games as a bad thing (as long as it’s done properly). I have to admit, Outriders does feel like a GaaS game, though the devs are clearly stating it’s not, which means post-launch support isn’t a certainty when it comes to events and whatnot. Perhaps players should see Outriders more as Borderlands or something close to Diablo rather than Destiny?
Are you happy that Outriders isn’t going the live services route or does the game need it in order to make gamers and would-be buyers secure that more content is coming post-launch?
Stay tuned to our complete interview with People Can Fly and our Outriders demo impressions hitting the site soon.
Post-launch support isn’t a certainty for live service titles either. We have plenty of examples of titles releasing as an unfinished and unpolished product with the promise improvements will come only to rapidly lose it’s players and throw in the towel, because it’s financially unsustainable to develop content for a dead or dying game. Games as a service is just the AAA equivalent of early access and it’s just as spotty in it’s success.
Good point. I like what I played so far and would want it to continue after the Expeditions (not sure if PCF has more than one main one planned).
I loved the demo, super excited for release. I believe the video they released in regard to Expeditions says there are 15 of them in at launch, each with increasing difficulty, along with some kind of challenge system associated with them. Sounds relatively robust compared to what I’ve come to expect from the genre.