Developers Wary of Live Service Sustainability Per Recent Industry Survey | MMORPG.com

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Developers Wary of Live Service Sustainability Per Recent Industry Survey | MMORPG.com

A recent survey showcases how developers really feed about the sustainability factor for larger live-service games. 

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LTBK

A nice question for them would be if they're aware of WHY players lost interest in THEIR live service games. If they can't answer that properly, then I have no hopes in their "DLC", since they might keep making the same mistakes.

Valentina

I think the issue is the growing saturation of live service games on the market. Developers need to invest in more games that aren't live service, or necessarily even multiplayer so that the live service games they do make stand out again. Right now they've become a dime a dozen.

Neoyoshi

Oh NOW they are wary.

This reminds me of that episode of South Park and the 'When should I start to worry?' segment. xD

vonryan123

Coming from the same people that have been just turning out straight trash for the last few years. They haven't a clue.

cheyane

How developers really 'feed' is perhaps a Freudian slip but certainly apt.

Scot

"Another concern of course was the competition from other live-service games within the space, rising user acquisition costs, rising development costs, competition from other forms of entertainment, and loss of investor interest. "

I feel partially vindicated, hopefully all of you who keep saying "its just a downturn due to corvid" read this.

Of course what they do not address is why players are not jumping into live service like they used to. It is indicative that developers are blaming every economic aspect they can but not the design of their games and then saying "we are going to design them a different way", namely dlc focused.

This will help but it won't cure "monetarization fatigue". The cure is to up the initial purchase price and to minimize what you ask players to pay for after they have brought the game. Two decades of monetarization means that is not going to be an easy answer for them to accept.

Angrakhan

Maybe I'm missing something but developers seem like they've been heading this way for quite some time. It's actually pretty rare for a new game to release with a subscription. Helldivers 2 launched as buy to play with DLC. Diablo 4 is the same. Last Epoch same. The only games I can think of with a subscription launched with that model and did so a decade ago or more. I think some Indy studios are trying to do that but my guess is it will blow up in their face.