Games as a service and how you experience them

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When collecting games, particularly when trudging back to the past to play iconic games I haven't played yet, I always try to experience the game in its original format. Especially if you're trying to capture the same sensation that others felt who did play them at their respective times. In an industry full of ports, remasters, and remakes, I always wonder about if my first experience of a game is sullied or deceptively better because I didn't start with the original.

But a prominent aspect of the industry today is games being a bit more like a service. I first thought about this after playing and thoroughly enjoying Yooka-Laylee. When it first released, I remember seeing a bit of backlash that it wasn't as polished as people were expecting: glitchy, poor camera angles, etc. I don't know the full details because, well, I never played it until several years later! Several years and several patches later. I actually haven't gone and done the research on what exactly has been patched into Yooka-Laylee, but I know for sure there were at least some mechanical tweaks and glitch fixes, and I'm assuming more content was added too, making my first experience more fleshed out compared to others'.

I've also played a fair bit of New Pokémon Snap since getting it for Christmas, and it would appear as though a decent chunk of free content has been added via free updates since release. More areas to explore and more Pokémon to snap. My initial thoughts were being pleasantly surprised by how much content there is and the length of the game... alhough, that may just be because I started playing it much later! :lol:

Sometimes it seems the intention is to drip-feed content so the experience is drawn out over a long period of time. But of course, if you're not there at the time, it all gets dumped on you in one go for your first experience! It is a little jarring sometimes when you start a game for the first time and get bombarded with update notifications for new features and levels when you don't even know anything about the game yet.

Similarly for Skyrim, been wondering which version to play because there's like a gazillion versions and I'm sure a gazillion patches for each one. It seems most people tell me, iirc, I'm usually pretty drunk, the remastered version for PC? Definitely a PC version anyway so that the option for third-party mods are there... Which also change the game in a variety of ways... Let's not go down that rabbit hole lmao.

But what do you guys think? Are there any games you've played and wondered what the original was like? Or played games late and wondered what they may have been like without game changing patches?

As a side note, even games from the N64 and GC era got ghost updated and had different versions released over time. Smash Melee had quite a few character tweaks between regional versions, essentially like balance patches they do today. Always find it funny that the version usually played at the biggest tournaments is the NTSC version, not even the latest patch!

Destiny 2 is the real killer for me. As much as I'd love to get into it, the mass of different expansions that have been released make it utterly confusing as to where to start (or even which versions to buy). And making it infinitely worse is knowing that content has also been removed from the game. Every time I look into it, I walk away feeling that they don't really want new players to join in.

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rinks wrote:And making it infinitely worse is knowing that content has also been removed from the game.

You WHAT!!? Never heard of that before, why would they even do that? Not like timed-events or anything?

Yep, they "vault" them. Whole sections of the game. Supposedly so the team don't have to maintain as much content. It's a load of bullshit. strawberry float knows what people who have paid for it feel like, or why they'd carry on supporting it.

I remember the furore when XCOM got a reboot and the common opinion was it was going to be impossible to replicate. It turned out pretty darn awesome.
Now would someone going from the modern version to enemy unknown get the same pleasure in going back? Possibly not, because of the graphical shortcomings, but it's an amazing game.
I played it when it was all we had, and there was no other yardstick to measure the GFX against.
People may not want to walk the hard yards when there was something better to play.

I do wonder occasionally if "Games as a service" might somewhat water down the "Games = Art" argument. It's harder to maintain this idea that a great game can be considered a standalone piece of artwork on a par with a classic movie or legendary album (I'm thinking other disc-based entertainment media, not artwork in the classical sense like sculpture or paintings) if the version playable today differs from the original release by seven or eight iterations. I know we have remasters and director's cuts and the like within those media too, but to me that doesn't seem comparable to patches.

It's an interesting idea, Jezo!

I do like GaaS... overall. Of course, I'm not a fan of how most of these types of games charge so much for additional products - especially for those when you're paying a monthly fee already - but I do enjoy the "living" nature of the games. It's fun to experience the additions and developments.

As for more general updates to games, I think it's good that it is now possible to deliver updates but I dislike the growing trend of games being released in "broken" style with day one patches and then a few months of updates needed to bring the game up to a reasonable standard.

Games can sometimes change significantly; Fallout 76 was a very different experience during that first year to what it is now; as was No Man's Sky. Final Fantasy XIV was infamously poor at launch with the A Realm Reborn update transforming it. Drive Club is another example of a game that had big issues for a while before improvements were made.

It's an interesting question, and a relatively recent game that immediately comes to mind is Halo 5. I only bought an Xbox One for the first time in Spring 2020. One of the first games I played was Halo 5. I loved it. Smooth, slick and played very well indeed. For that I personally rank it highly within the overall series. So once I'd completed it, I went to look at reviews and opinions online, and I was surprised to see if got a lot of gooseberry fool.

I didn't realise at the time, but at launch there was a somewhat misleading advertising campaign, and many missing features. Since I didn't experience in it's 'original' form - and only played it when all of the issues had been sorted - I had a much better first impression of the game than many others. So that was similar to what you encountered yourself with the games you mentioned. Whereas someone at launch may have hated it, given I first played it in a more 'complete' state, I almost played a different version of the game and really enjoyed it.

These days with the reliance on online features and updates, I think developers do have a lot to fall back on when the launch isn't as smooth as they'd hoped. Before the late 2000s a developer would have had no hope if they'd launched a game in a broken or incomplete state (baring an expansion pack). These days, a developer has a chance to redeem themselves with stellar post-launch support. So in terms of GaaS on the whole, I think it has pros and cons.

I would personally prefer a return to buying the game on a disc/cartridge and that's the final version. Code is final, reviews a final. Pop in a disc and away you go. You buy a disc these days and you generally have a multi-GB update waiting for you. However, I also know that with technology as it is, we should embrace it and allow for the best possible version of a game if the launch was less than stellar.

What I absolutely do hate is what happened with the Master Chief Collection, which is where they essentially rely on almost re-releasing the game over time. I bought a physical disc copy to minimise the strain on my relatively slow connection, and still had to download a 100GB patch! :evil:

How I typically experience GaaS is:

Buy the game at launch.
Try to keep up with the “meta” and timed objectives.
Immediately fall behind because I have a life.
Stop playing the second I miss a time-limited thing.
Come back months later.
Get absolutely bombarded by pop ups explaining what’s new, what’s ongoing, what’s changed.
New tutorial quest markers everywhere for new activities I’m either not interested in or am not qualified to begin.
Discover all my hard-earned items are downgraded or useless now.
Try and fail to ignore the seasonal event going on because I am unable to take the main scenario seriously while everything is Christmas themed, there are giant candy canes in the main hub and everyone’s running around dressed as Santa.
Log off and swear I’m done with it.
Buy the next expansion and start on even ground again.
Repeat the whole process.

jawa_ wrote:Games can sometimes change significantly; Fallout 76 was a very different experience during that first year to what it is now; as was No Man's Sky.

I'm actually really glad I played both of these on release to be honest! Especially Fallout 76 where I really appreciated the lifelessness of the world.

No Man's Sky is interesting because with the physical version you can jump back and play the game in its pre-launch state, without even the day one patch. I think there is value in that.

jiggles wrote:Buy the game at launch.
Try to keep up with the “meta” and timed objectives.
Immediately fall behind because I have a life.
Stop playing the second I miss a time-limited thing.

I feel this.

Also the nonsense with seasonal events ruining a game's atmosphere. Assassin's Creed Valhalla had a Christmas seasonal event that transformed just the main settlement, literally putting it in a bubble of snow despite the surrounding area being in (iirc) autumn. Why are there seasonal events in a singleplayer game? Worse yet was how it bugged out the game until the event was turned off :fp:

OrangeRKN wrote:
jawa_ wrote:Games can sometimes change significantly; Fallout 76 was a very different experience during that first year to what it is now; as was No Man's Sky.

I'm actually really glad I played both of these on release to be honest! Especially Fallout 76 where I really appreciated the lifelessness of the world...

Oh, absolutely, Orange! I loved F76 right from launch and I was hugely frustrated when - maybe a year later? - enemy-levelling was introduced across the gameworld. I still really like the game but the difficulty in tackling enemies is so dang harsh now.

OrangeRKN wrote:Also the nonsense with seasonal events ruining a game's atmosphere. Assassin's Creed Valhalla had a Christmas seasonal event that transformed just the main settlement, literally putting it in a bubble of snow despite the surrounding area being in (iirc) autumn. Why are there seasonal events in a singleplayer game? Worse yet was how it bugged out the game until the event was turned off

DC Universe Online launched in January 2011 and they actually ran a strawberry floating Valentine’s Day event for it 2 weeks after launch. The overwhelming majority of players were arriving in areas for the first time ever to find them overrun by endgame-level deranged Cupids firing hearts everywhere that spawned all the damn time. The devs had clearly overestimated how many players would have hit the level cap and be able to despatch them easily and it was an absolute mess.

Valentine's Day Event 2011 was a set of missions and items unique to the event. It occurred throughout the month of February of 2011 and was discontinued due to being infamous by many DC Universe players for being a ridiculous and "un DC like" event.

https://dcuniverseonline.fandom.com/wik ... Event_2011

Have to laugh at that, but yes it sounds like a great example of a bad seasonal event :lol:

The game wasn’t even F2P at that stage. I paid £40 for the game and a paid sub, got to Metropolis to see what’s going on with Lex Lut- oh no it’s all Valentine’s Day gooseberry fool and I never played it again

Jezo wrote:
rinks wrote:And making it infinitely worse is knowing that content has also been removed from the game.

You WHAT!!? Never heard of that before, why would they even do that? Not like timed-events or anything?

Content that this been removed from the game:

Original story campaign
First 2 DLC campaigns (Curse of Osiris, Warmind)
5 (FIVE) locations
5 (FIVE) raids
11 (ELEVEN) multiplayer maps
10+ activities including some of the best game modes
A gooseberry fool load of seasonal content (cutscenes, lore, weapons, armour)
The Forsaken DLC campaign (best campaign in the game) and locations/activities associated with that will be getting removed in a few months when the new expansion comes out.

Basically it's a combination of the game size getting too big because of their dogshit game engine that's been giving them trouble since Destiny 1, and them not being able to maintain so much content since their split with Activision resulted in them losing Vicarious Visions and High Moon Studios who helped Bungie out with development.

Never known anything like it. Dropped the game for good a while ago.

I’ve preordered that expansion he’s talking about :fp:

I think you can still play the base campaign though Maf but it doesn’t make it remotely obvious…obviously.

rinks wrote:Destiny 2 is the real killer for me. As much as I'd love to get into it, the mass of different expansions that have been released make it utterly confusing as to where to start (or even which versions to buy). And making it infinitely worse is knowing that content has also been removed from the game. Every time I look into it, I walk away feeling that they don't really want new players to join in.

You're right on the money here, rinks! Totes agree; I bought Destiny 2 and the Forsaken expansion... and my downloads don't even seem to be available any more. I looked on the Store and, as you say, it's so confusing as to what the different packs are and what elements have since been removed - I can't imagine that too many folk would bother trying to work it all out.

Mafro wrote:Content that this been removed from the game... (list of loads of stuff)...

Wow. It seems amazing that folk have bought that stuff and now can't play it.

Mafro wrote:...Never known anything like it. Dropped the game for good a while ago.

Yeah, a couple of times I've spent a few minutes trying to work it out but I think I'll just forget about it!

Metroid Prime has five different versions available (worldwide). Each one fixing a different set of bugs (including the "fast loader" that crashed early US copies of the game).

I believe Zelda OOT has a few different cartridge versions available too.

The GaaS aspect meant that I bought Dread as a cartridge as I could then always revert back to the "original" version if later patches ruined key glitches I enjoyed exploiting. Digital copies don't (easily) have that option to undo patches and new copies bought digitally will likely be auto-patched to the latest version.

rinks wrote:Destiny 2 is the real killer for me. As much as I'd love to get into it, the mass of different expansions that have been released make it utterly confusing as to where to start (or even which versions to buy). And making it infinitely worse is knowing that content has also been removed from the game. Every time I look into it, I walk away feeling that they don't really want new players to join in.

Destiny 2 is the game that killed "looters" for me.

Especially when it became obvious that you were earning the same stuff over and over again. I've noticed it's often just used as a way to hide shallow/poorly balanced combat (Cyberpunk, Borderlands, Skyrim)..

I've no interest in games that follow this kind of model. However, with so many games out there, it's an easy way to identify those that I can avoid, so it's an easy "nope" when I know a game is like this.

Games as a service and how you experience them

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