'Gaming as a Service' Could be Microsofts Next Stumble

The gaming industry has been experiencing a bit of a quantum shift for awhile now. Independent developers, through the use of Self Publishing and Kickstarter, have learned that they no longer need to take on publishers as overlords, and gaming has slowly but surely entered the vast arena of 'General Entertainment'. Consoles are no longer just gaming machines. Now by design, and perhaps necessity, they are entertainment centers.

This is not by accident.

Microsoft has stated for years they want their software to be the very core that powers our daily consumption of technology, and after a few offsets this past decade they are finally beginning to see the fruits of their labor. Now as they begin gearing up toward the inevitable launch of the new Xbox -currently codenamed Durango- Kotaku has recently unearthed job listings in Microsofts Interactive Entertainment Business that point to the direction that Microsoft might be headed.

In short, Microsoft is prepared to invest heavily in subscription based entertainment with Lionhead Studios taking the helm.

“Among the copy in a Lionhead business strategy and analytics manager opening that went up last Wednesday is a line under the "Key Success Criteria" for the role that states the employee will hopefully be a "Key participant in the transformation of Lionhead from a retail focused game developer into a provider of Entertainment as a Service." “

Entertainment as a Service is the key phrase here. This somewhat clandestine phrase points to a subscription fee based model of the sort that streaming game service Onlive was considering before their eventual semi-demise, and a move away from a traditional retail-based model. Ensuring a predictable monetary haul -away from those annoying sales figures- is just one of the benefits they probably see. We've known for a long time that production costs have been a bane for publishers who would rather send you off a digital download -at virtually no cost to them- and charge you same price to pocket the larger profit. Entertainment as a service goes even farther. Ensuring payment to them, or in this instance Microsoft, whether you buy all their games or not.

And you thought the exclusion of color manuals was bad.

To choose Lionhead studios in this charge is certainly in alignment with the announced direction of that studio. Making Fable into an episodic franchise was a move they found advantageous years ago, so there is little surprise that this ideal would be pushed even further with Microsoft standing firmly behind them as wayfarers of this model.

Now Microsoft is also currently expanding its Entertainment as a Service divisions in Windows 8 with Rare, and an additional UK studio deeply involved. The fact that Microsoft intends to expand Windows 8 to all platforms certainly puts the new Xbox firmly and positively into this mix, and a current job listing at Microsofts Redmond HQ is asking for a Producer with "Deep Experience Shipping Free-To-Play Games/Services" to work on "a gaming service based on a AAA game for core gamers that both keeps them enthusiastically engaged while also driving financial success"

In case you missed that, “enthusiastically engaged while also driving financial success” is a spinny way of saying “insert more coins to continue”.

The emergence of gaming as a service shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's been watching the free-to-play market expand. But it goes well beyond that. We've had Entertainment as a Service for awhile now. We pay monthy for Netflix, Hulu, and people have payed for cable for years. Not only that, but Gaming as a Service began the moment we started giving Microsoft money every month for Xbox Live. Like it or not, we're well down this road even if we never realized it. Microsoft, however, might be making a huge mistake if they take steps to completely remove the physical component in favor of a purely digital one, especially if it's all tied to a subscription that acts like a key to our content in much the same way that PSN does and turn our game libraries into one big rental service.

So what does this mean for the new Xbox? I believe we might be looking at a console that will at least partially -if not wholly- work on a service model with the retail portion of its library paired down significantly over the next 5 years. A console whose purpose is more of a hub to services -gaming, movie, tv- rather than a holder of them. And I think this will inevitably lead to the consumer -the gamer- getting less for their money as the corporate entities profit exponentially. And the most perplexing thing about this is that there are people within the gaming journalistic community that herald this time with great excitement. How you can hold this position and still call yourself an advocate for gamers is beyond my comprehension.

My gut reaction is that most gamers are simply not willing to give up the physical copies of their games. That when they open up the case and find nothing but a small pamphlet, there is a hole in their stomach that opens ever so slightly, and they will find the idea that you no longer own games as completely repugnant. Gaming, unlike other forms of media, is best when enhanced by physical materials that both add to, and augment its character and design. To deplete this entirely simply takes away from the magic, and I don't think gamers -with all of their passion- will stand to take it that far.

Of course, then I look at whats happened to CD's.