In a new interview with PC Gamer, Joe Tung, the former executive producer on Halo: Reach and Destiny, supports the live service model as something “better for developers and players” when compared to one-off purchases.
The opinion may be divisive to many who dislike the games as a service model, claiming that it can feel exploitative or too expensive in the long run. But Tung believes that the $60 or $70 single purchase model is the real issue with the industry right now.
“I always felt like, in the $60 boxed product model, I was having to make decisions that were not in the best interest of players,” he said.
“It was in the best interest of: ‘How do we sell as many copies in the first 48 hours as we can?’ One of the huge strengths of the games as a service model is you can be long-term, you can think long-term in terms of what is best for the player, and how does that overlap with what is best for the company. I think it allows you to make much, much, much better decisions overall.”
Tung left Bungie in 2012 to join Riot Games, working on League of Legends and giving the developer his first look at the positives of free-to-play live service games.
“I would wager that any developer who has ever worked in the $60 box product model, up until the point where E3 was canceled, has a story about the E3 build,” said Tung. “It’s like, let’s jam as much bullshit vaporware into the build as we can in the next three months because we have to have a huge showing at E3 because it’s our one opportunity to talk to our audience before we launch the game.
“I would have to wager that some hugely significant percentage of those E3 efforts ended up on the cutting room floor because they were half-baked and caused people to crunch and really have to make huge sacrifices to get it in. But I bet a bunch have never even made it into the game because of the way that you develop those things. So that’s my favorite example of hugely impactful decisions that were not about what is best for the player.”
