Live Service Games are Terrible. These Games Show us Why!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- Hi all. I'm back with another video on my thoughts about live service gaming, and why several new titles are showing us that there's still passion left in the games industry.
On a more meta level, I've tried to improve the editing and audio. Please let me know what you think. This is something I'd love to do more often when the time comes. (and something a little less negative, but as I said, I was inspired by seeing people mald at baldurs gate so I made this real quick) Suggest something if you want. Or don't, I'm not your boss.
The music is Alkaline Tears from Blue Archive.
Credit to GameSpot for the Star Wars Battlefront 2 Footage, as well as the respective providers of all trailers and other game CG's shown.
Credits to Destructoid, GamesRadar and GameDeveloper for their articles
Thanks to / @charlatanwonder for dropping that art and content quote that also inspired me. Love your videos dude.
All other footage is mine.
#liveservice #gaming #destiny2 #baldursgate3 #deceiveinc #battlebit #fortnite
Thank you for 1k views! I thought this video was gonna do worse than the destiny one to be honest. Seeing this makes me incredibly happy and that it was worth it to make this.
Another example in my opinion of a indie game out doing triple A titles is “The Binding of Isaac” it’s a game you can sink thousands of hours in and never get bored cause the people who made it had such passion behind it,there’s no micro transactions,no loot boxes,and the only paid content is DLC that adds even more of what you love without making the game worse it is truly a masterpiece in my eyes.
I could never quite get on the Binding of Isaac train, but I have friends who keep playing that game to this day. So I get it! That game I can sink thousands of hours into for me is a game called Clone Drone in the Danger Zone, the level editor + updates always make it fun. Thanks for the comment, appreciated!
Great writing my friend. Hilarious I never went to live service. Always choose single player games I had control with. I played Baldurs Gate 3 since it was released early access. And I love Larian for what they produced. A love letter to something they absolutely loved. D&D (and not the company that owns the rights).
I will always gravitate to passion projects first. FOMO never worked on me. It always scared me off.
Glad you enjoyed
When a game has a battle pass that has a premium exclusive tier I immeadietly uninstall it. The only saving greace is being able to progress more smoothly through a battlepass after getting a premium for it, but still being physically able to reach its maximum for free.
Even so, being able to only progress smoothly with the premium tier is a really good example of playing on your fear of missing out. "You'll complete it smoothly, but only if you play consistently". Appreciate the comment!
@@JakeTheSnake016 Yup, totally. Its just that Im the rare breed of a human that doesn't feel obligation to put time in a game that was paid from my wallet. So what you said doesn't exactly apply to me.
@@simzim9589when I said "your" I meant in a general sense. Still though, I understand what you mean.
I agree with Ross Scott of Accursed Farms: Games as a service is a scam.
They all release in a worthless "MVP" state with nothing but empty promises to string you along. Patches can completely change and ruin any part of the game at any time. They always expect you to treat them like a second job to make any reasonable progress. They can be shut down at any moment the owners desire, most likely when they inevitably fail to reach Fortnite levels of profitability. There are already more dead games than live ones that you will never get the chance to play, and that ratio will only ever get worse.
Is it any wonder people have gotten so cynical about the whole concept? The only way to actually get any decent enjoyment out of a live service is to catch it at its peak. Hitting that target is more blind luck than anything else, because most of the time, you won't even know you were there until after its gone. So if you ever do manage to hit that target, you'd better devote your entire life to the game while you can. Because once it does inevitably decline, or die, you will never be able to go back.
This is why people are so hypercritical about any live service game now. No one enjoys finding out the game you just started to love is dying in a month. So people try to warn each other away from the ones that aren't looking too healthy. Even if that does only end up killing the game faster.
My thoughts exactly
More than half of Sony's development budget is slated for live service games. There's like 20 of them in development.
People always complain about micro... Macro-transactions, then Diablo Immoral raises $100,000,000 in its first two weeks.
Star Citizen sold $700,000,000 of make believe Starships. Enough to pay for 14 actual people to board an actual spaceship, and go to actual space
The only ingame purchases I've made were a couple of minor "Thank you's" for free to play games when I quit playing.
Fact is, we don't need Live Service games at all anymore. We have Blockchain-NFT-Play-to-Earn / Employ-Some-Poor-Third-World-Person games now. The future is a Warm, Bright, Shiny...
Trash Fire. I mean Meta-Verse(s)
Good video, and by the looks of it... You're going to get a whole lot more content in the future.
Thanks for the comment! Who knows, I may cover my thoughts on play to earn games in the future.
I used to play Fortnite, Overwatch, Apex Legends, Rocket League, and Fall Guys, I would just flip flop between them, but nowadays I'm only really playing single players games and some Fortnite because I got tired of multiplayer games for the most part, I was spending way too much on all those games combined when I could've spent that money to get other games that could give me better experiences that I will remember, Fortnite is the only one I still play because it feels like a new game every season so at least it changes things up a lot, while other live services kind of just give the bare minimum while putting all their efforts into the cosmetics so they can make a quick 30 dollars out of you
I understand what you mean, I play a little fortnite and lost ark with my friends sometimes too. But I feel like I've had better experiences with battlebit with them or when we all play phasmophobia because we're not just grinding. Thanks for the comment!
@@JakeTheSnake016 That as well, the whole grinding part of most live service games is atrocious, I had so many battle passes I wanted to finish because of fomo, now I only have one and I finish it relatively quickly just from playing the game normally with friends, all in all games really should go back to the times of Halo 3 or OG COD where you would just unlock cosmetics as you played, most battle passes don't respect your time at all
When I was young I got a physical copy of Spore for one of my birthdays. At the time we didn't have a computer that could run it, so it sat in the box for a couple years. Once I finally got a computer that could run the game I installed it, launched it, and was immediately met with a notification telling me the Maxis/EA servers were no longer running. I didn't think much of it at first since it's a singleplayer game, but then I realized that significant features were locked behind that online functionality.
I wanted to create a themed world that was mostly populated with creatures I'd chosen or made, but now I can't do that anymore with the servers offline. Why is that an online-only feature? No reason. Literally no reason.
Yeah that sucks... At least the game is still playable offline, most games today are online only and just become completely unplayable. Maybe a mod can re-enable that feature? Thanks for commenting!
Yeah im done too. Been able to play my backlog without feeling like im missing out.
That's the beauty of it. Thanks for the comment.
Wild, though in defense of the bungie developers, producers and developers have very different roles. A developer wants to make a cool game and wants the time to make it
a producer wants to create a return on the studios investment. The biggest issue with live service games is that they produce results. FIFA ultimate (not a live service but close) generates over 1 billion dollars PER YEAR the money possible from a live service game is too big for producers to ignore. Developers have to make them in the small time their given.
(also in terms of audio sound pads or recording somewhere to dampen echos would improve alot already got a solid mic)
I use developer as a catch all. I really should be saying producers because even in the old days they had passions for making fun games too, before the money machine. Thanks for the comment.
Great video! Diablo 4 is one the worst games I've ever played, and I'm a long time Diablo fan. I found myself falling asleep while playing Diablo 4 because it's just boring and repetitive.
Before live service, everyone was trying to make it in the MMO space. It'll just be some other money grab next. We just have to hope that game loving studios continue to exist.
Passion still exists. Just need to look for it. The same studios like Blizzard that made bangers is not the blizzard of today. That same passion is found elsewhere with studios like Larian and games like battlebit and hi fi rush. Mass market appeal can only get them so far, I like to think that the common consumer is waking up to these patterns and taking action. Our collective sigh at every new live service is proof enough. Thanks for the comment. It's much appreciated!
This is why I've been trying to tell people DAYZ is the best game ever created for like a decade now...
10 years of 100% non-stop experiences, not DLC, microtransactions or lack luster battlepasses - just sweet sweet content.
Survival games with the boys are truly an experience. Thanks for watching
Thanks for this, I’ve been currently working on a game myself and watching your video reminded me why I’m doing this in the first place and its for the love of the craft.
That's amazing! Keep up the hard work and your passion will be rewarded! Thank you so much for the comment!
I bid thy well too boss o7@@JakeTheSnake016
A game like Diablo 4 could easily be played offline but Blizzard just had to make it require a constant connection to advertise their storefront.
They could just make the skins be rewards for beating the game, or defeating a certain boss but noooooo, they just have to charge 20+dollars for it🤑
Yeah, why make a quality $60 game when you could make it $60 with battle passes and skins? Thank you for commenting.
@@JakeTheSnake016 yeah, why try when the suckers are guaranteed to buy?
Single Player gamer to Multiplayer gamer:
“Wow, sucks to be you.”
There are still great not awful multiplayer games. But that made me laugh. Thank you for the comment
Warframe has optional micro transactions but an open market where you trade items for the premium currency and 90% other things you need in-game is acquired without spending money.
Yeah. I've spent an ungodly amount of time in warframe. It's a really fun game and I've watched lots of dev streams and they look like they care about their game immensely. I respect them for not charging for their battle pass and the player economy is cool. Thanks for the comment!
Keep up the content man
Means so much to me! Thank you!
I love the concept of live service, but Jesus, it's poorly handled. Battlebit is the best MP game this year and best games this year are Amnesia, RE4make, Dead Space, Zelda, and Baulders Gate
I beg to differ, depends highly on the game. Plus I have over 95 hours in BG3 and can say when I finish the 2 runs I'm doing I'm done. I know 90% of what generally can happen. So I won't be playing again its done for me. A live service game allows me to know that the game is constantly updated. But like I said before game depending its not the games but the upper management that hurts service games mostly.
Very true. Thanks for the comment!
i mean, what's cool is that BG3 is not the only video game. there are thousands of other games you can experience instead of the same game over and over with (minor) changes over time
Down with live services!
Live service games are usually more enjoyable after they are dead or about to...E g Marvel's Avengers
Isn't Battlebit a live service game? As far as I know you can't make your own server, which makes it a live service game.
If it is, It's live service done right. Evident in how you just get a lot of game out the gate for the asking price and the only MTX are to support the devs. Thank you for the comment.
@@JakeTheSnake016 I enjoy Battlebit and I find the decision not to release dedicated servers quite perplexing. It would make a lot of users happy, and it would let the developers save money on server costs, sounds like an absolute win-win. And it's not like it's complicated, you just release the same server files you use in the cloud. Hell you don't even need to make any documentation, the community will figure it out.
I actually do like live service, but it's mostly due to games like phigros, arcaea, and wacca
I used to play a lot of Cytus and bandori a while back. Rhythm games are fun for sure.
Who's going to tell this guy that Live Service games are dominating the single player games he referenced? Hell, Starfield cratered like a rock.
Sorry to be potentially pedantic but dominating how? LS games will always win in revinue and MAU due to the tactics I mentioned in the vid. Starfield did quite strong in terms of single players, considering it was the biggest beth game launch. It's true that live services win by almost every identifiable margin, players, revenue etc. Mostly because these live services are made to please shareholders and drive the line up. The point I make is that Single player and indies actually try to make fun games rather than financially successful ones being their primary motivation. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
@@JakeTheSnake016 You make two big assumptions here that are likely wrong.
First, LS games have not always won in terms of players and revenue. 20 years ago, SP games dominated in both areas. The dramatic trend towards multiplayer LS really only happened over the last 10 years...a trend that's only continuing as multiplayer grows in popularity over the next 5 years.
Second, Starfield may be the biggest Bethesda game in terms of player count, thanks to GamePass, but it's likely not in terms of revenue and profit. A large percentage of Starfield players came from GamePass and Starfield is absolutely the most expensive game they've ever made.
Single player is losing more and more marketshare to multiplayer. We haven't seen the gap begun to slow.
@@bigbox1431 which is why I'm happy that studios like Larian and are still making games that they want to make, pretty sure Todd has been wanting to make starfield for a while at least. Thanks for the discussion, take care.
@@JakeTheSnake016 OK, but your assumptions are still wrong.
Just came here to suggest Midnight Fight Express; it's another awesome indie title with dozens of hours worth of replayabilty and a great story without any of the woke stuff.
define woke
Subversive agitprop based on the Frankfurt school of thought that utilises Critical Theory to undermine longstanding cultural standards.@@avocadoarms
Subversive [...]prop based on the Frankfurt school of thought that utilises Critical Theory to undermine longstanding cultural standards.@@avocadoarms
Subversive [...]prop based on the Frankfurt school of thought that utilises Critical Theory to undermine [.......] standards.@@avocadoarms
Subversive agitprop based on the Frankfurt school of thought that utilises Critical Theory to undermine longstanding cultural standards.