Unfinished & Unstable: How SaaS Changed Video Games

Modern software is about rapid continuous improvement. Speed is the priority even at the expense of stability. Updates are constant and features are regularly introduced. You can see software as a service in nearly every facet of modern life with Netflix, Spotify, and many more.

But what most people missing is that while SaaS is becoming more popular, the standards and quality of software itself has been declining. The “ship fast, fail fast” attitude has meant that SaaS products often launch way before they’re ready with severe bugs and broken functionality.

There is one particular industry that has taken advantage of the declining standards to deliver aggressively monetized yet progressively worse, unfinished, buggy SaaS products (also known as "live services') for maximum profit year after year after year. That is the gaming industry.

This episode dives into the traditional video game business model and 3 very different gaming companies (CD Projekt Red, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive). We'll look at how SaaS has influenced these companies and how each of them have evolved their products, strategies, and business models over time.

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Chapters
0:00 Software is Eating the World
10:39 The Isles of CDPR
17:28 The Curse of Square Enix
22:09 I Never Asked for This
28:05 More Money, Less Titles