Live Services Are Dying By The Dozen As Genre Buckles From Unsustainable Oversaturation
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
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Given how much time live services demand from players, there was bound to be a point where the genre would buckle from oversaturation. There are not enough players with enough time to populate so many live services and the unsustainable nature of these games that rely heavily on number of concurrent players and player engagement is starting to show.
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And i will not miss these live services...
Could you please tweet this to Sony Interactive Entertainment? For real, the sooner the lose their delusions of having a successful "live service" game, the better. I'm saddened by the amount of resources they've been wasting on such endeavours. Maybe tweet this at Square Enix as well.
Dragon quest Dai no Daibouken had a game?! First i heard of it!
I quit all live services earlier this year and hacked my Android, because I'm DONE with MTX and subscriptions.
This is what happens when you oversaturate a business model to the point where you make everyone completely hate it
It's not even just that but also a live service is supposed to last years and it requires lots of time to play just one so a person will struggle to play more than one
True.
I don't even see this much hate towards P2w and lootboxes... but i wish i did.
@@gaimsharc7176 that was Ubisoft
Edit: Actually it was Sony, was corrected.
@@Sci-Fi_Freak_YT actually, I believe that was Sony
@@Sci-Fi_Freak_YT was honestly my first guess.
They FORCED live services on gamers.
Gaming "wasn't headed this way as a whole" they engineered it that way.
That's how capitalism works lol
Nobody is forced to play anything
Nah it was headed this way. Started with MMOs and got more popular after Destiny and Warframe and other games I'm probably forgetting
@@R17759 that's why it's failing going against the path they tried to engineered.
and things stayed this way because gamers are dumb
Ever noticed that no matter how broken and bare bones a live service was, the cash shop *always* worked?
I’ve never seen a live service with a non-functioning cash shop now I think about it…
and if there is an issue with the shop its fixed almost immediately while bugs with the game are ignored or not prioritized
Can confirm that ensuring the cash shop works is always the highest priority for these live service games. Said by someone who’s worked in game QA for years
Although, to be kinda fair, cash shops are always infinitely easier to make then an actual game. No 3d rendering and all the other stuff involved that makes games incredibly complicated on the backend.
I think I could say your statement would extend to any game that has a in-game item shop where you have to spend real money. Take call of Duty for example, Modern Warfare 2 to be more specific and recent, there are bugs, glitches, request from fans that need doing, games modes that needed to be added in because the games boring and it's bad....during the "beta" of MW2022 the shop? Works fine as day you can buy anything. The game itself? Broken beyond repair
What always tickled me about live services is that there were people that thought live services were the future while MMO's were dead. They're pretty similar yet they expect different results? Madness.
You think anyone ever told those people the definition of the word “Insanity” before?
@@caimanthechimera679These new players never even played FC3, Halo 3, L4D2, etc. They think good games are the ones releasing today.
@@caimanthechimera679 .they should teach them the definition of babylon fall
There are more ongoing live service games compared to MMOs of the past.
@@lycanwarrior2137 true, but it’s way easier to release an unfinished, minimum viable product to nickel and dime people for than a real mmo
Whenever a live service game dies, an angel gets its wings.
Lmaoooo
Cringe black and white take. There are good live service games too.
@@ExplosiveBolts no
I guess Heaven got a whole platoon of Angels these past few weeks then.
@@ExplosiveBolts Deep Rock Galactic, Warframe and another one or two. the joke is still funny. cope
Problem is all the live service games want you to devote 100% of your free time to them. No one is doing that.
Especially if there's many games all asking you for all your time... even if I find one game I really like and devote the time to, doesn't that make me unavailable for every other live service? Just seems like a market it's logical not to saturate
Not really, it's designed for paying customers. Get them hooked and play with their wallet
You are not suppose to. Just play until you get the item you want in the game
@@ahmadrunningwild85 In theory, the player have complete control over their own pace and playtime. But in reality, these games often exploit fear of missing out mentality with limited time events or daily login bonuses etc. Leaving players no choice but to devote their time as the game want them to be or else they're missing out nice things forever.
and the offer zero content to engage players with, just promises of 'it will come latter'.
Ah yes the fatal flaw in the Live Service model: obligation of actual service
They genuinely thought it was going to be this perpetual money making machine that they didn't have to put any actual effort into... until they realized they would.
@@SeanStrife They don't realize the only way to make money for life from a game is to make a complete good fucking game. That way it lives through time and people go back to it 20 years later and still enjoy it.
People already know there is no worth in spending money to something that won't be permanently available. Once they pull the plug, that's it for them.
@@Soliye. And any new game is going to have to also compete against those 20 year old games that are still going. I don't have time to dedicate to a live service game anymore, but every few years someone in my friend group will throw up a private WoW server and we'll spend the next few months playing together one or two evenings during the week. That scratches the itch enough for me that I don't think I'll ever feel the need play another live service game.
@@Soliye. Exactly look at games like Age of Empires 2, or RuneScape these games are old but they still have dedicated player bases because they are actually good. games.
Deep Rock Galactic did it right. I could take time off from the game and not worry about missing cosmetic content. The seasonal items get shuffled into the main loot bunch of the base game. So even if I get too busy at work and the season is ending soon, I know I'll have the opportunity to obtain the unlockables eventually.
Rock and Stone!
And the new people can get it over time and not even know it used to be in a 'battlepass'.
I mean DRG is supported by Steam. So it's a little different. Plus I don't have to pay for anything after purchase.
Rock and Stone.
@@Darkfawfulx what? Since when? They received an Epic MEGAGRANT for being an unreal 4 game, not any Valve/Steam sponsorship as far as I know other than being a good game from the get go.
@@revoblam7975 I thought the steam version ran on steam servers. That's all. Maybe I was wrong but May be not.
Rock and stone to the bone
Talk to your kids about the dangers of Live Service Games!
They've seriously ruined gaming with this garbage. I couldn't be happier to see it go. I wish they'd bring back campaign driven games and stop trying to shoehorn multiplayer/free to play/service based gaming models into everything.
@@TheOriginalGregToo There are tons of games every year that do not have any live service elements
Yes, microtransactions and loot boxes. And parents must be responsible for their credit cards too.
Sides effects may include: anger, frustration, fear of missing out, lying, false advertising, price-fixing, personal loss of hundreds or thousands of [insert currency here], and a general lack of satisfaction.
Let's make an internet service announcement about the dangers of live service games and DRM online single-player/multiplayer games. It shall be done.
So the thing is, here in Germany for example, there is a recent law (I think since jan 2022) that basically says you are entitled to a full complete refund if a game you purchased becomes unavailable completely bc the publisher/devs are required BY LAW to make the purchase accessible, UNLESS they specified a frame of availability beforehand that was available at the time of purchase. Will be interesting to watch what will happen will all the cases where games become fully unavailable.
Wow, that's interesting. Does the law require games to be accessible for all eternity or is there a set time limit, because I think that's the first thing to be lobbied to get changed (in publishers' favor, of course)? Alternatively there would be a whole lot of "expiry dates" on games popping up. Very interesting.
@@abadenoughdude300, if they had to put expiration dates on games, I'd guess that would deter a lot of buyers.
@@HarambeKojima yea its like food now its perishable and will expire by this date
@@HarambeKojima if the game wasn't a live service, the owner could make a backup and keep the game forever, just like discs, they could try to game the system by adding a hollow offline mode and say that only the multiplayer is unavailable, but not the entire game
@@HarambeKojima or maybe not, so many games are launched incomplete nowadays, knowing that a game is ending in 2 years might be a good notice, that means the content it currently has is the entire content, lets say for example, Genshin impact announces it will end in 2 years, a bunch of the players that stopped playing would get back just to finish the story, what would change is the possibility of them paying for micro transactions, because that would be money down the drain
Respect to the knockout city devs for doing the extra bit of work to try and enable private servers for their fans.
Indeed. Always a good thing.
I think the initial trailer overshadowed the actual game
People wanted that wacky multi genre whatever it was
Major props. Knock out City is actually very fun in small doses
I wish Battleborn got the same treatment. I loved that game. Unfortunately, the person at the helm is a complete shithead.
I love the term 'sunset' all these developers choose to use for cancelling their dead live services. Because 'sunset' paints a much more fond, affectionate, pretty picture than 'shut down because this thing utterly fucking flopped'.
I miss buying games that you paid for once and it was yours forever. I also miss a time when games worked at launch and finding a serious/game breaking bug was incredibly rare.
It still exists, Rance Quest from mangagamer... small team, so expect steeper prices.
now companies shove a beta in front of a game and send it out with 0 punishment; and we cant complain of bugs cause its a ''beta'' so stupid anything beta isnt even good anymore. at the start of beta type games it was used to make a game EVEN better before final release what ever happened to those times man. sad.
@@stratabegood and really they should be called alpha or pre-alpha since beta releases have to be feature-complete to actually be betas
most of these things coming out now cant even be called games. It's to good for a bunch of copy and paste concept mechanics and riged skills base AND artificial difficulty garbage that BEGS for money... And people apparently pay for it..
time to go indie fam.
One of my bugbears with the "live service" goldrush was that AAA studios went into it with the completely wrong mindset.
If you're making a "live service" game, you need to treat it like you're making an MMORPG; specifically you need to acknowledge that players will not have the time to dedicate to multiple "live service" games so you need to make one that can hook players long-term and then focus all your energy on that one game.
But AAA studios treated their "live services" as just regular games, pumped new ones out every other month (looking at you, Square Enix), and somehow expected players to dedicated the same time and resources to each one.
Just like SWTOR which is one of my favourite MMORPGs, such a massive community.
Well I would argue that it does not need to be mmo like.
ETS2 was released like a decade ago and it was upgraded, features were added, expansions released and it manages to have player base big enough so devs are still investing in this title.
Sure this is a niche game but this might be its strength.
@mravg79
Euro Truck Simulator 2 isn't a live service game, it doesn't require online connectivity and isn't even multiplayer without a mod lol. It's just a game that periodically gets content added to it, like Snowrunner. If the devs stop developing for it the game doesn't just go away
They just made bad single player games with cash shop based on known IP's. Typical corporate "maximize profit with zero effort".
@mravg79 Paradox titles kinda works the same. Constant DLC overhaul their games and add new features/content, change mechanics etc. Too bad they still work on the same old engine and run like crap even on newgen PC/consoles.
A live service/multiplayer game also needs to release with a certain level of polish, a decent amount of starting content, and a consistent release schedule of new content, otherwise it's likely going to fail, publishers have to think about the long term with this business model, it's why FF14 is a juggernaut success because Square didn't give up on it right away
I love how every single time gamers tell a company not to do something and it blows up in their face the companies stand there like “wuh happened”
Yep
At least this time there is an earth shattering kaboom
“Oh what do they know about gaming”
HEY, my MBA in Squeezing Customers Dry said otherwise. Clearly the players were wrong and didn't listen to me.....
Because in their eyes gamers are stupid peasants that are only good for sucking money from
And this is great news. Long live the single player.
and the dedicated server
Not singleplayer, just not live service. Just give me a complete multiplayer experience
Single player with the option of Co-op is so goated
Long live 'Games as goods'
not as services.
This is the real crux of the arguement....ownership.
If you own your games via physical discs or DRM-FREE digital, corporate publishers cannot shutdown the servers and take your games away from you.
Couch Co-Op for life!
Just more proof that Live Service gaming can never replace the traditional gaming experience
Whats worse is that you dont even own anything in those games, when they shut down their servers everything is gone for good
Physical copies are like favorite books. They can be enjoyed any time.
Except small-scale indie games, most games nowadays are live service games.
@@allewis4008 problem with modern "physical" copies is sadly that most of them aren't really the game anymore.
They are just download links on a disk, so technically depending on the game, that could also be shut down...
@@Akabphysical copies can easily be backed up and shared online, with online game its impossible
I am extremely happy to hear that game corps are struggling.
It will be a glorious day when I hear that EA Games is unwell
As much as I love playing games, it is a good thing that they are taking a huge hit from just not listening or getting tips from fans of their games. Hopefully this is a reality check for them
I'm estatic!
tbh these corporations definition of struggling is that they didnt make 1 billion dollars in 10 minutes
@@bandhi9 To be fair, they usually have high profits, making them confident to also have a lot of expenditure. So, when the bottom line is hurt, they feel it intensely.
Imagine being told that Live Services were a stupid idea years ago and just now you're realizing it's a stupid idea. Definitely sounds like something EA would do.
I wish EA never did this in the first place.
The thing is, for these companies, whether something works in practice *does not matter* so long as investors believe it works and don't turn on the CEO.
@@colbyboucher6391 This is the major problem, the CEOs and MBAs that make these choices largely aren't around when these become problems, usually they'll leave just before the situation gets dire, they don't care, all they care about is that this quarters profits are up, it's why the games industry is slashing so many jobs at the moment, because a recession is going on and people aren't spending as much, which means they're not making *as much* money, so they slash jobs because then that quarters profit margins look like growth because they've slashed costs...despite the fact it's all an illusion to keep the shareholders happy.
Live services have been a great idea for them though, and it's made them an insane amount of money. Although that could be attributed more to shady business practices than live service.
Live service is a great idea, at least in a vacuum. The problem is that by nature, they require a heavy time investment, which severely limits how many can function at once. They also require constant support and a core gameplay loop that doesn't get stale.
They are a powerful tool that has very specific use cases. You can't just slap them on as an afterthought.
Seeing this, I'm reminded of Touhou Danmaku Kagura. It was also a live service gacha game as well, but couldn't really make any money despite being well received (from what I remember, probably in due part to the majority of the playing audience being younger, along with the rhythm based gameplay didn't really seem to care about the gacha elements it had unless you were trying to top the leaderboards.)
The game got shuttered last year in October, but rather than just completely fading away, the developers instead did a crowdfunding campaign for a standalone Pay-Once/Play-Forever release of the game on Steam (and Switch at least), which was positively received. (The game is getting reworked since it was originally mobile, as well as the gacha element being gutted entirely.)
You could also just... play the game without even touching the gacha
Wish Dragalia Lost took this route, unfortunately Nintendo wouldn’t try such a strategy as crowdfunding a switch port that you could play offline/coop with friends
@@sirspookybones1118 You could also just....not play a gacha game instead of making excuses.
I would like to hope that this is the start of a new era in gaming where developers will actually make better games
i think they will default to remakes for a while until they find a new way to get free money, which isn't that bad, if only they remade more games that are unplayable or aged badly like the ps1 resident evil, spyro and crash, and less totally playable games like dead space
It’s nice to dream
@@_Mamimi yeah😭😭
You poor naive man
I'm sure you know this too and are just making a point, but there are lots of developers making great games already. They're just (mostly) not the type of studios that were drawn to this games as a service stuff in the first place. I do think big and positive changes are going to have to come in the game industry, esp in AAA where everything feels dystopian right now in how shitty these big corpos have been in pretty much all ways.
Wow. One company is actually being nice. Converting their online game to people controlled servers. This should be a standard thing across all MMO/live service games.
Proposal to name it the TF2 model, because community servers are basically what's keeping that game either immortal or here on the mortal plane despite having died multiple times, depending on your level of optimism.
Most of these studios are probably sinking the whole ship out of spite. "If you don't enjoy this enough, NO ONE can have it!!1!"
@@harleymitchelly5542 "We're going to live forever!"
Wasn't Knockout City sold on EA's origin service at one point?
Agreed.
I'm starting to suspect that the reason these live services are failing is because these game studios are prioritizing nickel-and-diming their customers instead of, you know... providing an enjoyable gaming experience.
Exactly!
This so much. And this is why gamers are being driven to indies.
Because mostly it is hence why there are so many live service games.
Apparently making an actual “fun” game is kind of an alien concept these days.
It's past the free time of Lockdown Covid. Bet many a live service was chased to hunt this window, only to find a flood of these games.
Something else: Coders, artists, animators - they lose portfolio pieces when these games get shuttered. An offline game can be kept forever as an example of someone's work. But if all your projects are "Live Services"? Yeah, I worked on 4 projects over the last decade. You can't see any of them though, they don't exist anymore.
Yesn't. While the endproduct might vamish, you can always have screenshots or clips of your art/animation included in your portfolio (although clips only work if said portfolio is digital). Coders wouldn't really show their code anyway, because it's company property, but they can still say 'I implemented x at ' and atleasts the games former existense can be verified with a quick google search. Whoever is hiring won't bother 'play testing' your former work anyway.
Nobody shows the actual game to show their "profile" 😂😂
@@nandos1111 uhh ya we do
This isn't really a concern. If the game offered as a service is owned by someone (a company) they have the right to shut it down. The contributors should be aware of this. For instance, if I pay you to make a painting for me, nothing says I have to display that painting in a museum. It's my right to put the painting in a box and bury it under the earth if I want. Most contributors are fine with this, because the value to them is in the experience of collaborating and learning with other passionate individuals.
Also in being payed a living wage. That's the big deal here. Developers, and artists need unions to help them enforce a reasonable wage and know their rights as a work force.
Single player and online campaign co-op for life. I can’t believe Back 4 Blood is already ending, that’s one live service I enjoyed… although I only played through it all once. I really wanted to love Halo Infinite “live service” but man that died hard with no campaign dlc.
Yup. Online coop is the best. Even in PVP, players just prefer teams over battle royale. We are by nature prone to competitive teamwork. Because we overcome challenges together.
Halo Infinite just suffered from a complete lack of content that should've been in the base game. The fact that there were so few maps, missing game modes, or even worth while rewards for those terrible weekly challenges was unacceptable.
L4D2 still going strong, so no real loss there
Black ops 2 zombies for life
I agree about back 4 blood. I really think all it needed was more/better content, shame it won't be getting that anymore.
What a shame that developers might actually have to make games now
Live service games are dying because they release as the worst version of themselves if you think about it.
I mean, Knockout City wasn't that bad of a game, even the main concept of it kinda works as a nice multiplayer game, but being a live service hurt it more than anything else.
plus having an inicial price tag for a while after release. that did hurt it a lot too.
@@QuantumFishFTW nope, if the total gamer population is a rhetoric 10k, and you need at least 1k online in a live game to succeed.
But stupidly release 50 live games, i just wonder if you can spot the problem.
Check out Stellar Blade
I sure hope so. I don't mind online multiplayer-heavy games, but they are very far and few between. Last ones I really enjoyed were Battlefield 4 (many mp unlocks in sp campaign helped w that) and GTAV - before they added the Oppressor vehicle. I could really care less about multiplayer games. Rather play indie titles.
I love the irony of "live" services dying faster and sooner than normal games. But I feel for the developers who were assigned to these doomed projects.
Normal games can die? lol
Yea they put lot work into it only for higher ups and publishers to fuck it all up making there efforts worthless in the end.
@@osakan7632 DRM rigged one can, but can be revive by means. Also there are MMOs.
Many devs don’t want to do live service, but there are many devs that do. They often receive bonuses for how much their game brings in, so there are absolutely developers that add predatory monetization in order to receive more bonuses.
It’s important to remember that not all of the devs have clean hands.
@@Saviliana are MMOs not live services?
We're coming full circle! Only a matter of time until the industry realizes they are going to have to start making actual games again that don't nickle and dime you at every turn!
Yes! They need to toss those gems, diamonds, artifacts and other premium currencies into the trash bin and incinerate them along with excessive grindy mechanics! Then get back to making “Real” games again. Make them fun, not a chore! Games are a means of escape and relaxation, not a second job! Enough with the nickel & diming that’s stained this great hobby! Make Gaming Great Again!
That's not going to happen. General consumer base has made it clear they are fine getting nickel and dimed. The companies will just find someone other way to do it.
They will continue to nickel and dime. Not sure why you expect them to stick to a one-time $60 fee these days. That $60 price point has remained static for a very, very long time. So they could have pumped that price up in line with inflation or nickel and dime us like they have. Guess the latter is more profitable.
Live Service games: "You turned the community against me."
Gaming community: "You've done that yourself!"
Gaming Community" Gaming Community still Stands!.
People who play games: "we were never in favour of you, you were just kind of inflicted upon us as a way to make money"
Gamers to 343 industries: it was said that you were supposed to destroy other live services not join them! You were my brother infinite.... i loved you...
343: I HATE YOU!!!
Live service games to Publishers: “you over estimate my power”
Honestly Live services games are great… Greedy publishers fucking suck
This happened in the late 2000’s with the MMORPG boom and bust after WoW exploded, too. Live-Service is expensive, and you have to be willing to eat the cost in case the game you’re making flops. You’d think companies would have looked at the last time they all tried to do massive, expensive live service games and thought “maybe we shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.”
Yep I hard switched to Guild wars then warframe and avoid Ton of the psychological, and monetary damage.
Oh god, I totally forgot the great mmorpg trend-chasing onslaught lmao
So you'd think, but really, what incentive do born rich scumbags have for learning from their mistakes, when no matter how badly and how many times they mess up, they're allowed to keep going trough life failing upwards?
Yup. Wildstar was fun to play but sadly it didn't have the player count to keep itself going. Same thing happened to Rift.
@@CharityDiary because FFXIV isn’t incredibly successful. Destiny 2. Sea of Thieves. Fortnite. I could keep going.
I honestly think that making a good and complete game has become some sort of a lost art. So many big companies can't seem to find what the hell they are doing or what's wrong with their products at all. They don't seem to have any solution in their arsenal as well. A very recent example is Square Enix. With engines getting complicated each year, I think the issue will keep increasing further more. For some reason, I feel like another Video Game Crash is coming.
Seems like company’s aren’t making games because the devs think its fun, and instead games get made for the invisible shareholders, who maybe don’t even play games.
Remember when chasing profit was based on "wow look how good and well reviewed and sold that game was, lets try make something better"
Not its "wow look how much money that game is making off their store page! Lets make our own store page and release anything in any state and put that store in day 1! Game on day 1 doesnt have to work only the store!"
Live service dying is a great thing and im all for it
@@frankylampard3931 Atomic heart feels like devs really enjoyed what they were doing. It's a rare example but such games are still there.
Man people here look at the past with rose tinted glasses, there were plenty of cheaply made low effort cash grabs even back then, there is a reason that the original North American video game crash happened, hell there are still plenty of good finished games coming out today. People are only looking at the negative, which always happens until enough time goes by that the 2020s become nostalgic and we will do this same song and dance complain that games were so much better back in the day.
A very good game with a lot of love and passion put into it that was released in recent years was Monster Hunter World, that got treated as a live service game even though it was not free to play, had several free DLC updates and the cosmetics were all free albeit locked behind very hard bosses. The game was stopped updating now but still has a big playerbase. All the limited time event quests are now available, with a 2 week rotation of festivals
I think the other problem with live service games is too many companies an excuse to release incomplete games they'll "fix" with future updates.
I don't think it was a excuse but actually the entire point of the scam.
Multiverses in a nutshell
@@Ki11Th3mA11Kid Maybe it started as an excuse, then they realized they could turn it into a Feature.
Deep Rock Galactic is a perfect example of how to do a "Live Service" type game RIGHT!
- There is no possible way to pay your way through a performance pass. You have to earn all of your stuff by playing the game.
- All of the stuff you get is purely cosmetic and doesn't affect the gameplay at all.
- Once a new season begins, all of the stuff from the previous season you didn't get is added to the regular loot pools. Nothing is lost.
The game pushes people to keep playing so you don't miss out on easier ways to get the cool stuff, but even if you missed out on one season's stuff you can always find it in cargo crates just by playing the game normally. Sometimes older season stuff is even added to the cosmetic store where you can buy it for in-game currency.
It's a truly wonderful system and it's part of why Deep Rock Galactic is one of my favourite games right now. It's proof live services CAN work, but only when the devs aren't greedy, which is a rarity these days, I'm afraid.
Dont forget seasonal events where they give you stuff you missed, no strings attached
I love Deep Cock Galatic❤
Rock and Stone
@@lucagimrom4787 For Karl!
Well you do get resources as well but the amounts you get don't really affect gameplay that much
As an MMORPG player from way back, "Oh no! Who could have for seen this unfortunate turn of events?" I'm frankly just surprised it's taken this long for so many of these live services to run out of steam.
If a game is bad no one would play it. New World MMO and PSO2NGS is on downward spiral because they're both bad games. Both games are having a hard time with player acquisition and retention specially PSO2NGS they failed to even retain the majority of PS4 players.
Meanwhile we have Genshin which is not MMO but is still very highly successful even after 2 years. Estimated active players is increased up to $60M.
Reasons being:
1. the developer of Genshin is a privately owned company, no shareholders, no board members breathing down their necks
2. they spent an estimated of $500M+ in span of two years to support the game
If you compare Genshin to New World and PSO2 they really need to reinvest their profit back into the game to make content and launch version 2.0 (New Man's Sky) but they ain't doing it since they're both owned by public companies and investors only cares about their ROI (return of investent).
@@Mangopawsss agreed goes to show that mobile games and game devs don't need to sell their souls for money
Yup! Agreed! I was on FFxi for ten years and I’m like once smart phones have their own games they’ll be like a billion of these crappy online only worthless things
Great news for Ashes of Creation to be honest. The gaming space is like fertile ground for a new risk/reward social MMO
@@Mangopawsss they also have a set formula on content release and you always know when you get new content on an estimated schedule. Other games just do shit like new skins cause that's all their game can support
I am really hoping for a hard reset in the gaming industry. I really want a game where if you want anything extra, you have to find it all. Whether it's discovering it or completing certain challenges. I miss those days.
Heck, it'd be nice if companies would just release some of the titles for legal emulation at a discount price but most aren't doing that. So many niche titles disappear into piracy because there is no "active" market for the title
Something occurred to me last year: what a successful “live service” model looks like is, essentially, an MMO. Continuous updates, expansions, people paying a monthly sub to be a part of it. If you, like me, were around during the MMO Wild West of the aughts, you can attest that it takes a lot to actually make that model work. So is it any wonder that a repackaged version of that model has so many casualties?
Paying a monthly subscription to have the right to grind in a video game is cringe. You suck
Monthly subscriptions for a game you already purchased is bs tho
@@CaptainChedda We weren't going to see Elder Scrolls 6 for at least a decade *back when they first anounced it* and they told us.
Also the ESO team isn't the core Elder Scrolls team, and I'm pretty sure the FO76 team was pulled from the ESO team and not the FO5 team.
MMorpg is probably the ONLY genre that deserves patching. I wish devs stop releasing unfinish games then patching them afterwards. If the game isn't finish, don't release. Like in the restaurant scene, it is better to wait 1 hour for a cooked delicious meal than wait 30 mins for a raw steak.
FO5 Doesn't have a team, it's a single sheet of paper, as per Todd Howard recently. They have starfield and then elder scrolls 6 probably by 2026 or later. Fallout 5 2030 or later.
I was surprised how many live services have announce shut downs in the span of a week. Edit: also one more not mentioned in this video. Crayta. A game that let your create games but it suffered from microtransactions and even nft implementations, started off on stadia then came on epic and Facebook gaming. The company who made it is now owned by meta.
Maybe all the people stuck indoors from COVID have been going out and the live service games have started to die out as their base stops playing.
companies trimming the fat. like with the large tech layoffs.
Stop ✋️ making stuff up 🤬
@@smurfie8412 tell me how it’s fake.
Seems like they went to a lot of effort to avoid Steam where the largest proportion of potential players are.
this is probably the best news in gaming that has come out in a while
No, I mean the big story this year is that Jim Sterling now owns a maroon top hat.
@@deadpilled2942yeah what happened to that channel? Yeesh
you know its bad when EA themselves are backtracking and they were the ones who said that live services are the future and single player campaign games are dead.
Few things i hate about live services games:
1. You need a steady internet connection
2. Depending on where you live you will have ping that goes through the roof effecting your gameplay
3. P2W
Successful live services are generally not P2W and sell cosmetics mostly
@@terribletimes902 the people in the comments don’t care about the reality of the market, they just want their single player games. Delusional
@@B1u35ky Imagine wanting to depend on the dev lmao
@@terribletimes902 what are some successful live services? Genuinely curious to play one
@@LAGG_IyE Fortnite is one.
Companies starting to realize that "Live Service" Involves long-term maintenance & developing costs. Not to mention it's very taxing to be constantly coming up with new stuff to stay "Fresh".
And then it all comes down once the people leave.
T'was time.
Yup. Instead they focus on selling skins and not adding any new content
Also fumbling the launch too. Then having to spend so much time fixing bugs. Which ends up delaying content.
There are endless nerds that expect games to entertain them 1000+ hours. Read any game forum for a peak into this mental illness.
Live Services created the Frankenstein and now it’s destroying them. Zero feelings for either side, just watch it burn
@@Rose.Of.Hizaki Anthem is literally dead
A lot of big companies could've saved a lot of money and reputation if they took a moment to listen to people like YongYea!
Sounds like this to me:
- Hey! We are making the best game.
- Sorry, not interested. Maybe if...
- You don't know what you want. So wanna buy it?
- I said not.
- How could this happen?! What did we get wrong?!
Why? You'll still buy their garbage
I hope the games industry will finally snap back to how it was where it'd build a game around a single player experience then add on a multiplayer function.
Oh, how i wish mate....
Nah some games are concieved and designed as purely multiplayer and that's fine. If a developer has a good idea for a game there's no reason it should be strictly singleplayer. Many game genres would die if we forced the singleplayer to be the center of the design.
It's already starting to balance out. There are a few single player games with no micros already out this year
It will never happen, Most players only care about the multiplayer experience.
That being said some games are single player focused and some genres really only work that way(horror) so just play those
@@BouncingTribbles they Never went away.
The annoying part is that I’ve got games that are considered live service that are currently in my backlog as I enjoy other games, but due to the nature of live service I feel like I HAVE to play it soon or else it’ll shut down and I won’t be able to play it anymore. I hate that feeling of urgency when I can’t just enjoy a game whenever I want to.
Bingo
Also applies to the annoying FOMO style of monetization. You feel forced to play because you literally get locked out of content you paid for unless you grind during a season's duration. That shouldn't be the case.
Or more commonly content you may enjoy like limited time modes or certain content are only available for a limited time because preserving everything is impossible apparently
@@admiralwaltz321 adding too many game modes can be bad because it splits the player base, but there are fixes for that, lobbies instead of matchmaker, or map rotation so all the game modes are in game, but no 100% of the time
Spiral Knights is an MMO i used to play, one of my favorite childhood games. I went back a few weeks ago to get all achievements on Steam, so if the game finally shuts down (years without any content) at least i'll have the feeling i did everything for it.
Reminds me of how EA said "hey, we're gonna turn the next dragon age into a live service game!" And with the amount of backlash Anthem got they immediately changed that.
It still didn't help save Anthem.
That's like them announcing "hey, we're going to make the next dragon age shit!"
Everyone loves their singleplayer, storydriven IP turning a "mmo" (maybe 10 guys per instance at most) rpg with resource grinding (2 tons steel for a okaish AR) with season exclusives (play now or lose forever) with BattleRoyale integration.
Anthem was fun though. Sucks it was never fixed
@Porker Pete I agree that Anthem was fun....but only for like....6 hours. After that amount of time you've seen the whole game essentially. The only thing that you could change was the difficulty of missions which mainly just meant "you gotta shoot the things more".
I wish there was more for that game that wasn't solely focused on shilling out skins.
I just beat the game Ender Lilies yesterday. 100%. Everything there is to do in that game, all achievements. There is literally nothing else to do in the game that isn't repeated content
I loved that I got to experience that game. It is fantastic. There is a story, a set beginning, middle, end, and True End (100% end). I walked away from that game happy and feeling like I definitely got my money's worth. Now it's time to move on to the next game
Ender Lilies is a precious game. For real: amazing atmosphere, endearing story, endearing characters, immersive lore, fun gameplay. And the end fight with all the runes was so moving. That game will always have a special place in my memory. The gaming industry needs more like Ender Lilies.
I’m very happy this kind of turnaround is finally happening. I feel bad for the devs who put work into these games only to have them shut down. But, I’m glad to see the live-service-craze chapter of gaming come to a close. Here’s until the next predatory game formula…
No need to feel bad for developers. It's not like it's a a labor of love, it's a job that they were paid for. They will move to another work task and that's it.
@@drazen1972cro That makes it even worse: imagine that your passion is game programming, you're pulled into a soul-sucking industry when your small happy studio gets bought out, and then you're ripped from a game you've grown to love and put to slave away on the next round of slop corporate marketing POS tell you to do or you're fired and your family starves and goes homeless.
I mean the reason they went this direction to begin with was to combat game piracy. They were literally losing half their revenue to it.
@@neoqwerty That's quite extreme. Stopping a project isn't the mind destroying event you make it out to be.
Im not the cash shop always worked it was planned the whole time
It sucks to lose the games forever but this should be good for games in general. Hopefully this makes developers think twice before they pull that kind of shit.
It’s just that gamers should have a process to get their money back. If I buy a game and you close the game down, and I can’t even play the single player, I should get my money back.
@@somethingawesome1462 I think the problem is that live-service games are presenting themselves as services instead of a product cause then they don’t ever have to give you anything, you’re paying for access to their product not the product itself like a pass to an amusement park, your not buying the park just access to them
As long as gamers vote with their wallets, the power will remain where it should be. L.S.G's are just a straight up shit concept.
Oh, don't bet on it. I'm sure they'll come up with some other annoying price-gouging scheme that makes gaming worse. Maybe making AI generated dlc?
@@somethingawesome1462 You agree to terms and service before you play. Almost 100% bet this is covered in it, therefore you shouldn't get your money back since you agreed not to get it back.
It sucks, but that's why you don't agree to things to don't actually agree with.
Live service games have always driven me crazy precisely because they’re not built to end and, when they do, it always sucks. When a game is a full game with a designated beginning and end, I usually come out of it pretty satisfied. With live service games, I always leave frustrated either because I got sick of playing the game, felt the micro-transactions were being pushed too hard, or because it is disappearing forever even if I paid for it.
that applies to any multiplayer game really. the difference is if you play for fun or you grind your way for days and days to get to the fun part. Apex legends, CS:GO or Dota2 are live services that let you get straight into the fun part without asking you to waste your time trying to unlock it. you get in, play as many matches as you like on a level playing field and quit whenever you feel like it without feeling that you're missing out on something. War Thunder, WoT, BDO and other such games are on the side that require you to either pay for a shortcut or spend years grinding away to get to the point where you can actually complete in a fight (and even then those who pay still have advantages over you) and any moment you spend away from the game is a moment you are being left behind by those who keep playing
I have always thought that live services were risky for me, the player. A single player game will be there for me to replay should I wish to do so. I probably have thousands of hours in souls or skyrim. The live service depends on the people. I remeber the trailer for Lawbreakers that I was so excited about. And then it never came. And years later I found out it was cancelled on launch...
Yea, like another commenter said, the market for live services is moderate, but it's not super huge. Depends on the players but also the quality of the content the gamew offers. Players can see through shallow content and will abandon the game if it's not good enough.
Live Service Game Studios: "You took everything from us."
People who pay for real games: "We don't even know who you are."
............
I have never paid for any microtransactions except one clash royale tower skin because it looked cool and it was cheap.
This but reversed
I knew this was bound to happen sooner or later. I've absolutely hated live service games and believe whole heartedly the time and money wasted on them could have been used to create so much better games ugh.
Every now and then a formula for live service strikes gold and works out. But more often then not we get games like Anthem and Marvel's Avengers and they don't even last 2 year's before being put out of "service"
Live service games need to have a strong offering out the gate to get people interested, but most of these games offer minimal content at launch and just expect people to stick around until they bring in a decent offering for players.
@Diddle bop They basically sell us 50% of a game at full price and then give us the other 50% over time and call it additional content. The issue like you stated is by the time it's full people quit playing long ago. From stale game play or lack of things to do.
@@Ki11Th3mA11Kid They give us more like 20-30% of the game on launch lol
Good riddance. Live services are like Stalin or Hitler. The world is better without them.
Bullet sponge enemies.
Live services (mostly) deserve this.. ive been waiting forever for this
The day has finally come, cheers.
You gotta feel bad for the devs tho
@@Max.pina1511 they made the games like this
@@Max.pina1511 People who have bad jobs should get good jobs
@@Max.pina1511 no lol
This happening alongside Hifi Rush shadowdropping and sweeping the market, I hope this pushes executives to go back to making similar titles
What really matters is making games that people will want to play, not just making games for the sake of financial gain or to "reach a wider audience." Those games are investments on their own too. Just that they're more practical in comparison to recent live services.
What did they expect? They made playing their games feel like a chore.
Exactly, they took something that felt like a hobby were you can be social with players to something that expects you to treat it like a commitment. It’s why most mmos I play I wind up having large hiatuses
Most of us have been seeing this issue coming a mile away and I am now glad to see this finally happening. This is a timely and perfectly deserved financial loss for those corporate dipshits
Man you hit the nail right on the head, so glad others agree as well. Gaming has become such a nightmare these days, going to be interesting to see how things play out this year
The problems with live services is they drip feed content and force a huge grind and time commitment. I think what game companies fail to realize is people get tired of playing the same game. They do not respect your time, because they want you to spend money. The grind and costs are is so huge that most people can only play one live service.
At the same time though, many of these companies also want you to ditch their game and play the next game every year even though they've designed both of them to be eternal grindathons that you're supposed to be invested enough to keep putting time and money into.
But the developers, publishers and investors don’t care - all they care about is money, and there’s more money to be made with a live service game.
I'm glad we're seeing a resurgence of actual games now thanks to the decline of live service.
This is why FFXIV is very successful. It has optional grinds. The game can be as grindy as you choose to make it. And Yoshida, openly says its fine to put the game down, and come back later when new content is released.
Agreed! I use to try and get COD. Rocket League. And Fall guys season passes done. Now I just don't play either and play games that aren't live services at all. It's just grueling.
This is what happens when companies think “live service games” are unfinished games they try getting away with “fixing” later
well they never fix it later LMFAO
and there are people defending this type of practice
Sad part about all this, all the companies that kept pushing all these live services will never learn they're lessons from all this
Arguably, they are learning their lessons- the money's not flowing, the players are getting fed up and are leaving in droves.
They will most likely just come up with something else that works almost the exact same way and call it a day..
Dont expect much to change tbh maybe in the next 20 years to 10 years something might change but one can only hope
My heart breaks at the ending of Rumbleverse and Knockout City. Both were very unsure games that had a live service. It's a shame to see them go.
yeah, the two live service games that I am sad to see go are KO city & (many years ago) Hawken. Both actually fun games that should have had no problem generating revenue on a “buy once, play forever” model.
Knockout City was genuinely a fun game
Nothing makes me happier than company's being so out of touch with their customers and/or fans that they destroy themselves, beautiful absolutely beautiful
So you would like to have no videogame companies anymore, which is the same to say no videogames anymore?
Story based games will always win. They are the essence of you as a gamer doing and experiencing the game all by yourself.
Also, I will buy multiple single player games a year because I beat them and eventually move onto the next game. I’m not going to devote energy to multiple live service or MMORPG - type games. Who has the mental energy or money to keep up with that?
@nathanB404 well, that's up to individual, too. My friends and I reminisce about all the single player games we played growing up. Pokemon, Final Fantasy, God of War, so on and so forth. The memories we have about multiplayer games were moreso about the time we spent together than about the games themselves.
In the end, it doesn't matter if the game is story-based or action or online or singleplayer, as long as the game is fun, people wil keep playing it.
@@christopherherr7561 The difference being single player games are designed to give you memories like that. They tell a story for you to learn and that is the momory. Multiplayer games are designed to give you the tools to create those memories yourself. Without those tools those memories wouldn't exist. If you want a linear story driven game to create the memories for you, play single player. If you want to create those memories yourself with others, play multiplayer.
Not gonna lie, I'm sitting here laughing about Skull and Bones. Ubisoft are already cacking it, cancelling things left and right, and now the stupid live service pirate game they're peddling, still delaying, having had ten years of troubled, meandering, ASTRONOMICALLY expensive development...is going to launch into an environment of live service genocide.
Comical.
The problem with having a million of these Live Service games is most people only have time for one of these that they actually keep up on and care enough about to spend money regularly on. As options go up and time goes by, the chances that your game will end up being someone's main game gets slimmer and slimmer. Eventually, you reach a point where the majority of people interested in having a time-sink game they come back to over and over and buy new content for.. already have one they've decided is 'their game.'
Exactly. But regular single player games that you beat and then move onto something else, there will always be an open market because they’ll always be someone looking to blow a few weekends on the hot new thing
It's so disappointing to see Knockout City is being shut down, I had a fun time with that on occasion. And they even had a really cool event with the TMNT that brought in some really good looking turtles models you can play as. Shame to see it won't be around much longer then, guess I'd better try to play it a bit more often before it's too late.
Agreed!
Didn't that game just come out not that long ago? Crazy
@@vangoghsseveredear they also went independent not long after and I think that cost them a bit.
@@vangoghsseveredear yup. They just went independent too. I suspect they were cutting losses to continue with something more popular soon
I rolled my eyes when game companies stated that live services was the future of gaming. Single player games are still in demand and a lot of them are performing very well. If you asked me I think single player games are still the safer and more lucrative route of gaming.
Yeah I mean after Wildwood multiplayer being just pure deathmatch mean just gets boring that's why I look for games with co-op because at least you can shake it up each time you play it because with multiplayer if you just shooting each other have it's just like deathmatch I mean sooner or later 4-ranked and you're going to try to get a a you know something be able to get a high-ranked it just gets boring and you get burned out and have to do something else so the future for me would have been single-player and co-op
@@joshallen128 Yeah. Nothing wrong with playing co-op games. They have been around far longer than live service games. But, they do tend to get boring after a while like you said. I tend to play them on and off.
I'll admit I do enjoy playing Monster Hunter Rise with my buddies. Heck I even like Halo back in the day until Mircosoft ruined it. I hope game companies put more time into those type of games because a lot of people still play them. And they can last far longer than any live service game.
@@afrocloud3238 I think they moved on to subscription based like Xbox game pass you pay a fee to play any game
@@joshallen128 Yeah. I have to agree. Although, it is working for them. If there one good thing I will say about Xbox is that Game Pass is very successful for them. And now Nintendo and Sony are following their example. If only Xbox had more exclusives for Game Pass.
Game companies should be forced to give you an offline version of the live service to play around with once they terminate the game. Some people just want to enjoy the game further. Even if it is something terrible like babylon's fall. Doesn't matter if only 2 people played it, they probably want to play it more.
But if they do that, they can't sell microtranstations, since people could just "cheat" to get all the microtranstations.
Just take a look at people doing that with Ubisoft's games and CheatEngine.
On PC you can often run private servers. Even 25 year old PC games is still online.
@@V3ntilator Thats debatable. Of course its possible to try create a back end for online games to continue to play them after shutdown. But it takes years of development by volunteers/teams to make it possible, if it is possible to begin with. A huge amount of games arent playable anymore even with effort to create private servers for them.
@@serch3ster Depends on developer. Knockout City shuts down in June.
Velan Studios will soon release a free server version, so people can still keep playing it for years if they want. Some people are already read with AWS serves for it when official server goes down.
@@V3ntilator
programming private servers takes time
Great news for gaming. Devs might start putting fun ahead of engagement again!
Tbf though this is what happens when instead of making a supply to fill a demand you try to force a demand onto your customers that you can then supply.
“What can we sell?” Instead of “What do people want?”
Well Indy Dev's already put fun before monitization for the most part.
The sad thing is, this tactics eventually works given they try that long enough until NOTHING left but these particular supply.
I kind of expected this. That's why private servers exist for live games that were actually pretty great. Live services drag the game down with them when the whole thing goes boom, leaving loyal players ranging from seriously annoyed to giving two middle fingers if they suspect a cash grab.
Don't pay for live serviced games especially if it effects gameplay.
Let's drink a toast to what are hopefully the dying breaths of live services as we know them!
Cheers brother!
I'll drink to that, mate!
What do you have against live services?
*Laughs in WarFrame* sure kid, yeah, sounds good.
I think the difference between a successful live service and a failure is that the successful game has soul. When you play a good live service it is giving you something that you cannot get elsewhere, whether that is the gameplay, the community, or both. With a bad live service, the devs focus on roadblocks to stop you blasting through all the content, whereas in a good live service the devs focus on having more content, and making that content good enough that people will not get tired of it as quickly. All the good live service games I've played have one thing in common - they are fun to play. Even when you get tired of the content, you miss the gameplay when you take a break, which makes you come back. Bad live services focus too much on compelling you to spend money, rather than on keeping you playing.
Like seriously, right now I'm feeling a little burnt out on Destiny, but _man_ did the gunplay feel good.
@@anhilliator1 me too! I don’t have a lot of motivation to play right now, but you know that in lightfall I’ll hop back on to play and try new guns
I think that you're right to a certain extent, but the problem is, most people that are interested in live service games already have one or two live service game(s), they like to play and even if they try out another live service, they're going to treat it as a "one and done" game and once they had their fun, they're going to go back to the live service games they've already been playing for years.
Look at RDR Online, RDR 2 is one of the most successful games of all time and they have a massive community, but Rockstar pretty much pulled the plug on it, 99% of live service games wished they had a fraction of RDR Online's player base and that still wasn't enough for Rockstar.
@@LaztstaNd I think that might have do with the fact that Rockstar is also the owner of one of the most profitable pieces of media of all time, GTA V. Why devote money and resources to RDR2 Online when you could divert money and resources to GTA Online and rake in way more money than RDR2 Online could?
But your main point stands.
@@DLBBALL Oh yeah for sure, I understand Rockstar is in a completely different position.
I think it was inevitable, the market has become hugely oversatuated. How many concurrent live service games can the community realistically support?
There's only so many live services someone can play and keep up with at a time. I feel like a lot of people might check out new releases, especially F2P games, but they'll inevitably return to their "main" game(s).
That's what I did. It's easier with F2P games for not needing your internet subscription as well. I bounced around with games like Fortnite, Smite, Paladins, Multiversus, and a few others but found myself being drawn more towards Fall Guys, Overwatch, and the last few months got back into Genshin after quitting about two weeks after it released. I can't see myself moving from those at all.
Ironic how live service games were touted as something with "enhanced longevity", yet they turn out to be the one thing that self-deletes in one year.
The problem with live services is that you have to dedicate a good amount of time to them. With so many live services out your time will be spread thin so you stick to a one or two. the advantage of traditional titles is that you can buy it as a change of pace when your live service burns you out. At least
Same thing with MMOs really. You pretty much pick the one your friends are playing and just stick with it until either the game closes or everyone quits
The hard fact the companies' are learning is that while there's no ceiling to how overbearing you can make monetisation, there are only so many people and those people have only so much time to engage with each endless game.
No ceiling in Western Live service games .
They want a piece of the mobile money.
They see how much candy crush made.
The problem is, mobile games don’t charge you $70 just to access the game.
In short, the whales that drop millions in games are only that many
We love to see it. I'd love to see more couch coop games, kick back, crack a couple beers amongst good friends and play a game that doesn't need an internet connection to function. Just good company and enough controllers for whoever wants to play.
I know, I remember back when I got a ds and me and my buddies with their copies of mario kart got together and just went to town on the battle mode.
Even without online, parsec is a god send
Not just couch co-op or local multiplayer... System Link! That feature was spectacular! Xbox threw away a gem that could've been maintained and improved where you could system link consoles from yourself and your friends to play against each other and host their own servers online or have players on a LAN connect online at the same time.
I'm definitely more in the single player camp myself, and I could never understand the appeal of "GAAS" or live services. I hope Sony & PlayStation back away from this gaming fad before it bites them in the ass.
Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate on 3DS was so much fun with the homies!!! 👍🏿👍🏿
@@MySplatterhouse I am glad to see another hunter around here, in my case i always played solo because i don't have friends that are interested in the MH franchise, but it's good.
One of the worst aspects of this is that some of these games might be fun, but after they lose the playerbase they are completely deleted and inaccesable to fans, unlike offline games where you can replay the singleplayer
they COULD have been fun, if their entire gameplay loop wasn't built around artificial barriers and timesinks to justify MicroTrans
There are still people that like them and they wont be able to experience them evere again
And this is why I have always said live service games are worth zero dollars: the moment the company moves on because they can't squeeze any more money out of it, you lose complete access to certain features you paid for at the least, or the game as a whole at the most.
Exactly. It was very shortsighted for everyone to push for more live service games.
The point was to make more money for less work and lower quality product, obviously at some point consumers were going to wake up and go "I just payed like $50 for an hour of low effort entertainment."
It's why they pushed addictive practices so hard.
Gaming community:
"We're innocent I tell ya' INNOCENT!"
You get more out of a game like World of Warcraft or league of Legends than you do a game like Elden Ring.
@@LostHope84 not for me considering Elden Ring is $60,I got at least 80 hours of fun out of it, and can play through it multiple different ways later. Meanwhile, MMOs and MOBAs make me wretch just from the general concept of their monetization and gameplay loops.
This happens when you chase business models instead of customer demands.
The worst part about live service games is once the service ends, the game ceases to live.
MAG (PS3) was my first live service game I owned. It was also the second to last live service game I have ever installed.
Well, that's what happens when people allowed that shitty practice to even occur in the first place. That and constant updates to games, patches and pay to win practices. Whatever happened to games coming complete straight out of the box?
@@Mac_Omegaly We played the heck out of MAG. I remember everyone camping in a tight stairwell dying while picking each other up with the spray. It was so chaotic yet fun. I wish there was another game like that where whole armies of players can go at it.
mabey it should be called alive service, cause once the service ends its dead service.
@@nowi9776 exactly, the squad based battles made it really great, and was the game's ultimate downfall.
I only ranked up to the 64×64 battles once. It took too long to fill up by the time I joined the game. My favorite memories were snipping enemies from behind enemy lines on their final push on a map my team was Lossing. The one map had a tower near the center that you could crawl under. All the new troupes parachuted in and around that tower. I could shoot them further up the building from there and blend my gun sound in with all the enemy friendly fire.
I'm really glad this is happening. I am SO TIRED of having to completely ignore games with cool looking mechanics and worlds, just because they were a live service. The fact that I can lose access to a game that I love and invest trons of time and money into, just because other people don't, is complete BS. I have already lost a couple extremely fun games to this. And at this point, its simply not worth investing anything in a game that is likely going to disappear in a few months.
Plus, there are so many of these games that would have been a thousand times more fun if they had simply made them single player offline games. Anthem is the most obvious. If that had been another Mass Effect type game like Bioware actually knows how to make, then it could have been amazing. But, no, it was crushed, melted, and forced into the live service mold. And, unsurprisingly, it died from it.
Screw live service games.
Screw the companies that try to force them down our throats.
May they all rot in hell.
Micro transactions and live services becoming a dying breed makes me hope for once for the future of gaming lol (even if slightly)
We will wish Singleplayers to come back and in this way, earning money the clean & honest way.
I imagine they'll come up with some other befuddling method to bleed people's wallets but eh, good riddance to that combo if you ask me.
Maybe we'll finally get free horse armor in future games as an apology 😂
With how Epic Games (and other greedy companies) keep eyeing play-to-earn (blockchain) games, how they want to make their own launchers to make games exclusive just so steam and console platforms can’t get them, and they love to make content time-limited and exclusive just so they can make people feel all of that FOMO-4-Ever with cosmetic items. While I still have hope for the gaming industry I’d be lying if I didn’t say it wasn’t dwindling. Once, blockchain gets introduced into a game like Fortnite, where they have a Triple-A budget along with the billon dollars worth of resources and the greediest of intentions to nickel and dime players out of their time grinding their game and their money. Given something like that becomes popular.
It’s Game Over Man 💀💔
The beauty of single player games is a person can go back to a game they love years later. There are so many with nearly infinite replay value. There aren't many new games that fit that bill.
So true. I just got back into fallout 4 after 5 years of playing these live service games and man I'm enjoying every second of it.
So, in the last couple weeks we've seen almost a dozen live services shuttered.
We've also seen Hi Fi Rush shadow dropped on Xbox (on gamepass even) and pc.
I like this sort of gaming trend. Here's to hoping we see the industry lean this way a bit more :-)
Seems to me more like the industry is toppling, not leaning. After all, they're the ones that forced the live service trend into a reality.
Also there's several great single player that have released or will release soon, such as Dead Space Remake, Fire Emblem Engage, Hi-Fi Rush, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Octopath Traveler II, Bayonetta 3, God of War: Ragnarok, Sonic Frontiers plus surely many more... single player games remain strong fortunately, despite some developers apparently wanting to turn everything into Live Service.
@@BenjaMan64 Is it weird that I don't consider remasters and remakes new games? Like yeah, a full remake might add features and content but it's still the same 10 year old game you'd already played.
Here's an idea, if a company shuts down a live service they should have to refund 50% of all the money people spent with them.
The fact that these companies can sell people something that they can remove and make inaccessible at no cost to them is insane.
I was talking to someone about a decade ago about live service games and if the big companies started doing them. I said they wouldn't because they'd have to be successful in order to be sustainable. I also said i didn't think they'd do it since they want constant quick returns and mmos tend to be a money hole. So I cant say I'm surprised they're shutting down. Thank god I never bought in.
What's even worse these people making mmos or online games should know this as we have like 30 years of history of such games and they think they're too big to fail or that they wont. Its like hey! You're wasting money pissing people off and ruining ips! Mmos or the biggest investments. Yea games in general are but mmos and online games are even more so. I knew this as a teenager but these suits cant figure it out? Like seriously?? So out of touch.
So Deep Rock Galactic has been “live-service” since it’s release 5 years ago and it’s still going strong. Probably one of the few examples of a live service being super successful. It’s because the development team is in constant interaction with the fans and they LISTEN. It’s so cheap to get started and they don’t force you to buy MTx.
Don't forget is a game a about space dwarfs and space dwarfs dope
@@sebastian10226 ROCK AND STONE!
They also take their time adding new content so they don't burn out. And the game's foundation and community good will are enough that they don't have to "force" players to keep playing through obligation.
The game is playable offline, too.
ROCK AND STONE
We're going see a rise in Single Player Games because Live Service Games can't be trusted. I really enjoyed playing Knockout City and was there for Day One. I'm try to focus more on Single player games for now on. 😿💔
I remember the same thing when MMORPGs blew up and a lot of publishers wanted a piece of that action. Now there are only a scant few that actually lasted after that initial boom.
Live service is at its best when it’s done by the community for the community. Halo 3’s forge mode and the modding communities of L4D, Skyrim, GTA SA, etc are what give those games-amazing core experiences though they may be-such immense staying power. And those work because a lack of profit motive means the ONLY reason to get into it is to share your passion for a game with other people by finding creative ways to make it more fun, as opposed to trying to frustrate people into throwing money your way to make the pain(grind, fomo of limited time items, p2w, stamina systems, crafting/upgrade timers) go away.
Live service was doomed to fail when it changed from a boundless community playground to a soulless business model.
This also applies to real life.
Work means own by the workers
exactly, mineraft would have died if new content was behind a paywall or artificial grind
@@czargs Get a job communist
Gaming Executives: _"Liveservice games are dying."_
James T. YongYea: *_"Let_*_ them Die!"_
I'm glad, I hope more single player games get made now.
I agree
100% agreed
I feel the same as selfish as that sounds.
Let's hope so.
@@SoulAtParadise Well yeah, there's some games that have good live services. It's just the people who don't know how to not make it so scummy will be gone for awhile.
Unfortunate to hear about Knockout City! Had so much fun with that game with friends and it was genuinely pretty good and a good change of pace.
Really enjoyed the game! Satisfying gameplay loop for me
"Ten year plan"
"For years to come"
(dies two years later)
"Ten year plan"
Is it... is it Halo!? 👀
@@tablettablete186 Anthem
Finally they're realizing people can't afford the time or money to play so many live services. We know we have to pick and choose so most of us just pick one and stick with it. Even if we like more than one, we can't pay to support them all.
I hate games that feel like they are tying me down, I don’t know how live services ever lasted as long as they did.
Because enough games caught enough whales to create the illusion of long-term success
What infuriated me most at the time, is the fact that "live service" was just a codename for a cash grab, and these huge companies treated people like an idiots who don't understand a thing, like this stupid claims from time to time with an arrogant tone that they "know better" what people want. No shit.
Very happy to see this phenomenon finally happen; many titles with the same P2W/Cosmetics businesses model. So many studios leaving their games raw but making an exquisite live service to fill their pockets even more.
Bring back the good old days of high quality titles. Any genre, AAA or not.
We need to talk about how embarrassing it is that Square Enix failed a game with Avengers in the title. You can't get more incompetent than that
I don't blame them , a large amount of there gaming sphere is finally fantasy related genre so I can't see them making something like the avengers, they make a mean ff10 and a glorious ff15 , but leave the hero games to the actually hero game makers
@@princessc.j.6192that’s why I’m glad they got rid of all those western game titles that they had. Focus on your specialty
Classic scunix.
Developer isnt the problem. It's just that the game was a boring looter brawler with lackluster rewards that only increased stats and nothing else.
The rewards for online events were basic profile banners and boring stuff that nobody cared about, and new characters didnt add any new things in terms of gameplay. You mash buttons, collect loot, equip the higher number rinse repeat.
Square CAN make an Avengers game, but what they were basically forced to make was a boring brainless button masher of a game that wasnt rewarding to play.
@@princessc.j.6192 which one? Scunix reposts numbered entries as much as paradox makes dlc’s
I see this as an absolute win. I want polished single player games dammit.