Video games should not be treated as products but as "services", with a "conscious design effort" going into its every aspect from support and patching to updates, DLC and installation.

That's according to online gaming consultant Thomas Bidaux, who spoke at the Develop 2010 conference. "At the moment, the majority of games are sold as products... like a book," he said (via Shack News). But he says games are actually "consumed as services".

"The game experience goes beyond gameplay," said Bidaux, explaining the importance of the complete package from installation to post-release support and DLC. "Every component of the service needs a conscious design effort."

He pointed to Valve's Team Fortress 2 as a prime example of a good service, which the developer is still updating two years after launch with significant new features and community-driven content.

"They keep making it better and better... You would think they only promote to people who are playing the game and using the service but by having that constant presence actually it's promoting with word of mouth and sustaining the success," said Bidaux.

He touted several issues with a bad service including, in Shack's words 'bad installers, games launching external browser windows for registration, lengthy registration processes, bad localisation, single-language clients, limited payment options, insufficient chat filters and poor patching.'

No, they're products that just aren't quite finished yet when you buy them. Hence the need for patches.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=255827

He's got a point, but I'd like to live in a world where games had QC testing before shipping, as opposed to using the customers as guinea pigs

Of course such a classification would be of enormous benefit to the games industry - consumers have far less rights with regard to services than they have with regard to products.

Of course such a classification would be of enormous benefit to the games industry - consumers have far less rights with regard to services than they have with regard to products.