A few months back it was a popular talking point to exclaim that live services had finally run their course. A whole slew of games were permanently taken offline, and so every pundit in a 5 mile radius took a kick at the can. “The live service is dead! I was right!“, they exclaimed from their ivory towers. And look, I don’t disagree with the sentiment. These games need a stable playerbase that returns daily. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to balance playing several of these titles simultaneously.
As a result, any new titles in this space need to work extra hard to succeed. Or they’ll just die on arrival. Usually that second one.
Regardless, this past week Sony made it very apparent that we haven’t seen the end of live services. Far from it. During a PlayStation Showcase event, the publisher showed what’s next for their console: an avalanche of live service titles. To be fair, the event did feature numerous third party offerings too. However, Sony’s own offerings were almost exclusively live services that will launch day, and date on both the PlayStation, and PC.
This pivot away from strong single-player offerings may seem a bit odd. Such titles are attributed to being a key part of why Sony was so dominant in the console space over the past decade. However, back in 2021, it was reported that the publisher wanted to expand their portfolio to include live services going forward. They also put out an investor report ahead of their May presentation which outlined their anticipated revenue for the coming years.
As you can see, Sony intends to make more money from micro-payments than digital game sales, and subscriptions combined. It’s also worth noting that I didn’t add that wonderful green circle – they did. They’re so excited about the prospect of making a fuck-load of cash from these titles that they wanted everyone to know about it.
That excitement makes perfect sense too – live service titles allow for a theoretical infinite amount of spending. That’s why every major publisher is so wet over the prospect of having a game in this space. Why waste time, and money developing original ideas when you can milk your cash cow until the heat death of the universe? The potential payout is so huge that publishers can afford to squirt out several of these turds, as long as one of them eventually sticks to the wall. Then they’ll be set for life!
Make no mistake, while I’ve been fairly focused on Sony, this extends well beyond them. Need examples? Square-Enix is making a Splatoon knock-off, and published the disastrous Babylon’s Fall. All of Capcoms releases in the past few years have had some kind of expansion pass, or a microtransaction infested multiplayer mode. Bethesda has both an Elder Scrolls MMO, and whatever the hell Fallout 76 is. Even old man Nintendo is in on the action with Mario Kart 8’s numerous expansion passes, and their gacha filled mobile games. Everyone’s gotta have a piece of that sweet, sweet live service pie!
This is all to say, we’re not out of the woods yet. While we’re collectively sick of hearing about live services, publishers aren’t sick of making them. Not yet at least. So hunker down, and prepare for more uninspired marketing material that explains how the 12 different currencies work within a title. As long as there is a perception that there’s money to be made, publishers will keep trying to make games in this space.
Frostilyte Writes 
True and real…. Heck just the fact that you have Bungie overlooking the work of Naughty Dog says everything.
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There’s a whole other conversation to be had about that, which kinda goes beyond the scope of what I covered here. You’re right though – many of these fucking studios aren’t even equipped with the skills, technology, or experience to make titles in this space, and then they roll up like “we’ve made a handful of award winning video games in entirely different genres, so obviously we’re qualified to rule the roost here too.” I almost wonder if they do make such sweeping, arrogant statements before starting a 5 year death march toward farting a stillborn game out.
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Honestly I found that PlayStation Showcase very underwhelming. Of course, the developers clearly put a lot of effort into these games – but the overall shape of the games is suffocating whatever individual creativity goes into it. There were so many generic-looking FPS titles in the show.
Like you say, the strong single-player first-party offerings are part of what have made the PlayStation image so strong over the past decade. They’ve built a stable of IP that people will buy into an ecosystem to ensure they don’t miss out – which is something Xbox haven’t managed yet. Sony would do well not to forget why they’re doing so well now.
Who knows, maybe some of these games will be great. But that’s just it – these games seem to consume each other and there’s always a loser. For every Apex Legend there’s an Anthem or a Redfall.
Also I find it very amusing that they felt the need to put a green circle on that graph, haha!
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I think that’s really the big problem here – these games don’t actually expand the existing audience of people playing games in a meaningful capacity. Thus, the only people they’re going to have playing them are either people who’ve either a) already dedicated themselves to another game, b) people who’ve been burned and swore off these titles, or c) people that haven’t yet invested in one of these titles. There’s definitely room to make some money at launch if these titles aren’t F2P, but there’s no way you recoup 5+ years of development time off a botched launch for a game that’s built around recurrent spending. So you’re stuck trying to steal people away from the games they’re already playing cause we don’t have infinite time to spend doing daily missions in each of these things.
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If people wonder why some of us prefer to dig around in the indie game scene, here’s yet another example: the interests of platform owners and publishers too often don’t line up with those of a lot of customers. But I’ll grant I’m not in this audience anyway, since I have zero interest in multiplayer games much less games offered on live services. As long as there’s still room for the kinds of games I like, I’ll just play those when I have the time.
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It’s not exactly like any of this is new either – publishers have been pushing more, and more toward multiplayer stuff for a while now. This is just the latest iteration of a money seeking behaviour pattern. At least the entire industry isn’t following suite, and there are still plenty of titles around that provide those more…curated experiences.
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GamingOmnivore and I were talking about a tweet we saw the other day that said “Fortnite ruined gaming” and we both agreed that what that person *should* be saying is that “capitalism ruined gaming.” As long as companies get the sense that they can create a game that prints money for years and years, of course they’re going to test those waters. When your biggest concern is your bottom line, it’s inherently better for them to have a “live service” than to sell a single-player game for a one-time $60. Single-player/narrative games aren’t going away, but I think it makes sense to expect an increase in live service games moving forward. Unfortunately.
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I’ve seen similar sentiment aimed at Destiny for much the same reason.
It kind of is what it is at this point. I think the thing that I personally find the most disappointing is that a lot of these games seem really neat. There are mechanics, or themes that are used in the world/character design that would be enjoyable to explore, but then they’re saddled to these games that either need to become the next Fortnite, or die in 6 months. It just feels like a lot of potential is being wasted, ya know?
Who knows – maybe if we ever get to a point where the industry stops simply chasing the most profitable trends, we’ll see games rise out of the ashes of all these fallen live service titles.
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