In the graveyard of live service games Concord may just be the biggest headstone, and that seems to have focused some minds over at PlayStation. Previously the noises coming from Sony were all about the importance of live service games to its future strategy, and it had announced plans to launch more than 10 live service games by the 2025 fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2026.
Now? Not so much. A new Bloomberg report reveals that “following a recent review” PlayStation has canceled two unannounced live service games in development at subsidiaries Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games. Bend is best-known for Days Gone and, back in the day, Syphon Filter, while Bluepoint mainly handles high-profile remakes like Demon’s Souls.
Lmao. GoW live service? Fucking hell it’s video games by committee.
A God of War live service game? Who the fuck signed off on that? I’m glad the article was able to zero in on the blistering stupidity of such a thing.
I can’t imagine how it sucks to being these devs. They obviuosly earned more and lived better than me, but I’d have a hard time parting with some project even if they are all mismanaged unborn messes.
I was a professional developer in a wide range of gaming areas for about 20 years… Looking back, I can honestly say that 95% of the work I did ended up as a vapor… The 5% that made it to market were so fleeting…
I derived my satisfaction not from completing projects, but solving the underlying problems. That kept me very engaged.
But yeah, not everybody sees things this way.
Why did they make an expensive game like Concord which nobody wanted? Don’t they have market analysts or something like that? Everyone was able to tell them beforehand that it will flop.
They probably started it at a time when analysis suggested it was what people wanted more of, and then during the probably what; 4 or 5 years it took to develop, interest waned?
I don’t think it was weird that they started on this; it was pretty weird that they didn’t pivot or cancel earlier.
Afaik they started development when overwatch was already successful. By the time development finished the hype was over and players had moved to other genres, and had very little interest in an overwatch clone.
Until Marvel Rivals showed it could still be done but you needed a very specific game for it.
Live service deez nuts. Shitty trend that needs to die.
Live service games generate a constant income with minimal effort once it’s live. It will only die if players stop spending money on such games.
Stupid question, but was is a live service game?
Its the definition of “you dont own the game”. You pay to get access to the service of playing the game and it wants to keep you playing as long as possible so you spend more money on micro transactions. They are constantly updated, usually as some form of “season”, have daily login streak bonuses, etc. And after 2 years the game shuts down and you have nothing and can’t play anything you paid for anymore.
Every live service game that fails or gets cancled is a good thing.
Basically a game that is continuously updated with new content. Lots of different models of it from MMOs to Fortnite to Diablo IV. Many of them are free to play with lots of microtransactions. They usually feature things like seasons and battle passes and loot boxes. They’re almost always heavily monetized. The competition in the “genre” is incredibly fierce since most people probably only play a handful of them and friend groups usually all want to be on the same game. It’s very hard to break into. Sony announced that they were making a big investment into the area a few years ago and news has been trickling out since that most of them have been canceled.
Game they keep updating with new content and microtransactions.
Yeah, and they often launch with loads of systems where future content could be plugged in, but the actual content itself is typically bad or at the very least incomplete. The publishers try too hard to build a platform rather than a good game…
online multiplayer bullshit with monthly fees.
Monthly fees optional. These days I’d assume the battle pass model is more common.
Like a subscription base game? World of Warcraft and other alike?
no it’s like fortnite or cod. They’re usually quickplay multiplayer games with a low cost to entry, infinite grinding potential, and microtransaction hell
Yeah, theoretically the exact model for monetization isn’t as important, but many publishers are hoping to get players to pay subscriptions indefinitely.
While playing the single player masterpiece which was God of War, I absolutely thought: “The only way to make this game better is if I had the luxury of buying a battle pass to grind for seasonal cosmetics along with a dozen other people.” 🤤🤤🤤🤑
I’ve played each game and they are all awesome.
Would be better if you can earn skibidi toilet emoji dances for Kratos
Would love to see a kratos twerking emote
All I read here is that there are still 8 too many live service games in development. Are execs addicted to gambling or what? Because that’s exactly what live service game development is. Also I would like to know what kind of research they are doing that indicates that more live service games is what the market wants, when people who play them rarely ever switch once they find the one they like and at this point there are entirely too many of them.
Live service games that become successful can make billions of dollars, so everyone is trying to be the next big one. Having a ton of concurrent live service projects is the “throw shit at a wall and see what sticks” strategy. They expect most to fail but hope that the 1 that succeeds makes up for it and then some.
Hence why I called it gambling.
Good riddance. Seems like Sony got the message; we’re sick of everything being a “live service”.
Well, no.
Deep Rock Galactic has fully optional skin packs to make money and they’re doing great.Warframe has been chugging along for over a decade now and they’re doing great. Beating the pants off of Destiny 2 for average player count.
The live service trick is that live service only works if the company actually cares about the product. Those two companies stand out because they legitimately care and have great communication with their communities.
DRG and Warframe also hit the critical requirement of actually being games that are fun to play!
I haven’t played a lot of WF, but I’ve got hundreds of hours on DRG. There is no grind. Getting holiday loot takes 5 to 8 matched total, and the Seasons are long and very relaxed. I maxed out XP for this season already and the next probably won’t start until at least this summer.
The community is going strong, the game is fun, Ghost Ship seems stable and like a nice place to work. It’s so stupid that more companies don’t see that they could run like this instead of chasing “get rich quick” corporate schemes that always alienate the fans.
DRG doesn’t make me feel like they are taking advantage of me with their transactions because they aren’t required. It’s nice that way.
So far Warframe has been the ONLY example of a good live service game. It’s the OG when it comes to the model, but it’s also the exception, and not the rule.
Don’t forget Path of Exile.
Id argue a bunch of early access games that get constant updates are Live Service games too.
And indie games like Terraria and Minecraft were the best examples of live service.
“Live service” is a game that has an always online requirement. Just getting updates on the regular doesn’t make it a live service if the game works just fine without an Internet connection.
Single player Ubisoft games are all “live services”, due to some of them needing a constant connection to Ubisoft’s servers, and them having in-game shops that only work while online.
Destiny historically vasscilated between “fucking amazing” and “dumpster fire”. The problem has always been that it is near impossible to maintain that level of quality and entertainment consistently while also innovating on a regular basis. It is very difficult and very expensive.
They moved into “dumpster fire” territory significantly more than “fucking amazing”, sadly. Like one good expansion, three bad updates and two bad expansions, one good update.
I’d say also it depends on the franchise. Depp rock? Be a funny space dwarf yelling rock and stone? Hell yes imma do that with some friends.
God of war? No. Much more serious tone, I want to do that alone to explore the narrative
I don’t even know what a God of War live service game would be like but I can’t imagine it would be good.
It would certainly be weird, after their recent games were so story-driven. You can’t tell a good story, if you need to always keep the end open for possible expansions.
About as good as Castlevania being a pachinko game.
It’s for the best. The series deserves better than live service.
You want to make money? Let bluepoint make a bloodborne remaster and bring it to PC.
Like, make the obvious good and profitable decision.
But hear me out. Battle passes, dark patterns and FOMO.
cancelled God of War sequel
“That’s bad!”
Live service
“That’s good!”
Good! Wonder what trend the brain-dead CEOs are going to chase after now. Cozy games?
Since games take 5+ years to make now we’re probably in for a wave of metaverse products.
Ooh, this seems like an excellent guess.
I think they’re going to jump ship for straight up gambling apps. That seems like the growth area now.
Just ask “what is making money” to get the answer. It’s still live service and gacha shit, but I’m sure they’ll try to add machine learning to it somehow cause you gotta have that
They’ll ask the AI what to make then ask the AI to code it and use AI art.
Platformers.
Especially if Silksong comes out this year. I could see a board memeber pointing at it saying, “IF THAT FLAT GAME CAN MAKE A MORBILLION DOLLARS, WE CAN MAKE ONE SO FAST AND GET SO MUCH MONEY!”
But then someone will remind them “sir…that’s what mobile gaming is”
Bend is best-known for Days Gone and, back in the day, Syphon Filter
Are we just gonna pretend Bubsy 3D never existed?
Damn. Bubsy 3D to Days Gone. What a redemption arc lol
