For a long time, publishers chased after live-service games because
it was seen as a road to instant and constant money. And why not; you
had examples like "Fortnite" or "GTA Online" which were raking in more
cash than Croesus would know what to do with. 'Obviously',
live-service was the magic ingredient that, when added to a game,
would elevate you to instant success and profit beyond imagining. Or
so publishers thought, as they started to stuff live-service mechanics
into every game they could get their hands on.
But, as it turns out, live service ISN'T magic and a lot of these
games failed. Some of them failed spectacularly; others scraped by. A
lot of the games did okay, but that was often despite their live
service additions. Often --even when they were profitable-- the live
service mechanics were a source of aggravation for the consumer and
may have driven many players away (either from the game itself, or
from any sequels), making the publishers ever more dependent on the
small minority who enjoyed the mechanics. And even when the game was successful, their very success locked out other games from
succeeding... because the market can only support so many live-service
games.
There are, after all, only so many gamers and so many hours in the
day in which to play. With an old school game, a customer might
dedicate only 20-80 hours on a game before looking for their next fix;
live service games demands months and months of play before that same customer even considers moving on to the next game. Publishers who
might once have had four or five hit games -and the profits that came
with each- were now increasingly reliant on single games to keep them
afloat. And if their next game couldn't match the success of the
previous one, things could go sour for the company real quick. There
was no back-up to keep them afloat anymore.
None of this is news; people have been writing and warning about
this for years. But the reality seems to finally be sinking in for
some publishers, who are scaling back their live-service dreams.
Capcom, for instance, moved back from making their next "Resident
Evil" game an open-world live-service game originally planned and
shifted it back to the single-play mechanics that made the franchise
so popular in the first place. Microsoft recently cut back on a lot of planned live-service games (most notably canceling an entire MMO that
was already in production at its Zenimax/Bethesda studios). Other
publishers are doing similar.*
[ There was also a quote from a developer -alas, I can't
find the reference so forgive me the lack of specifics-
that basically said that any new live service game is
essentially competing against the same three or four big-
name live-service games ("Fortnite" was one, "Roblox" another;
I forget the other games mentioned)that have dominated the
market for nearly a decade, and unless you think you can
beat those your new live service game is probably going to
end up being a flash-in-the pan, and not reach the levels
of success necessary that you can base the whole company's
survival around it.]
So there is, slowly, some awareness amongst the publishers that live-service isn't the cure-all to the financial struggles many
companies are facing. Certainly, the success of strong single-player experiences ("Baldur's Gate 3" being the most prominent) are good counter-examples too. More important, I think, is just limiting the
scope of many of these games; every release doesn't have to be a
half-billion dollar expenditure. Smaller titles can sell just as well,
and you can crank out more of them to boot. Sure, some will flop...
but as we've seen, there's no promise that your next $400 million
online shooter will succeed either (just ask Sony about "Concord"...
if you dare).
On Sat, 19 Jul 2025 12:32:17 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
So there is, slowly, some awareness amongst the publishers that
live-service isn't the cure-all to the financial struggles many
companies are facing.
Then again, there's always an exception, and whaddaya know, Ubisoft
insists on being "it". Back away from live-service mechanics? No way!
After all, says Ubisoft in their most recent financial report,
"monetization within premium games makes the player experience more
fun!"*
And you know, they aren't actually lying. The monetizations DO make
their games more fun... but only because Ubisoft drains the enjoyment
out of their games with mechanics that all but demand you choose
betwein either grinding through tedious and repetitive gameplay, or
paying up to get the goodies. "Paying us for mouthwash makes this shit-sandwich taste less disgusting!" is a true statement too**
I'm not against live service games; they aren't my favorite thing
but I think they add a certain spice to the hobby. But the way they've DOMINATED the market over the past five years has made for a much
worse experience over all. If the big-name (and small-name publishers
too) back away from this obsession with making EVERY game a live
service behemoth, I think the overall effect will be good not only for
the play experience, but the industry as well.
The TL;DR was that a lot of these companies didn't have the
programmers and artists who had years and years of game development
skill which let them know what made for a good game. It was as if
every game was their 'first game', and that was one of the reasons for
the diminishment of quality in game design. And it was only going to
get worse as attrition takes out the older programmers what had
learned their necessary lessons before corporations started treating developers as fungible units.
On 20/07/2025 16:39, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
The TL;DR was that a lot of these companies didn't have the
programmers and artists who had years and years of game development
skill which let them know what made for a good game. It was as if
every game was their 'first game', and that was one of the reasons for
the diminishment of quality in game design. And it was only going to
get worse as attrition takes out the older programmers what had
learned their necessary lessons before corporations started treating
developers as fungible units.
I never worked on a game in my life but in my experience there is a
general lack of understanding of what software development entails and
just how important domain knowledge is. A simple example is I had a
project manager who had bought into the whole idea that it was like
building a house so once you had the design in place it was just a case
of cranking the handle and the product came out effortlessly.
I read an article a month or two back (long ago that I can't find it
anymore; sorry, no URL footnote this time) that touched upon this
issue. It pointed out that one result of big publisher's tendency to
fire its development teams so quickly after release is that the
developers no longer were building up necessary skills over long
periods of experience.
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