The Growing Dangers of Live Service Games
Written by Jacob Butler
Thumbnail & Banner Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash
Live service games have become incredibly popular in recent years. While they've always existed in the gaming sphere in some form, through Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs) like Warcraft or shooters like Team Fortress 2, their prevalence in gaming markets and influence over the industry has recently seen a massive increase, causing several potentially devastating consequences.
So, what is a live service game? Live service games are designed to make most of their money through in-game purchases rather than through the game's price. In fact, many of these games, like Rocket League and Fortnite, are free to play, making the entirety of their income through having players pay for game content, skins, and events.
These games heavily incentivize players to keep playing them as long as possible by consistently adding new features and providing in-game rewards for players who play regularly.
Photo by EA.com
One of the problems with this is how it disincentives the production of any other kind of game. Some live service games, like Fortnite and PUBG, have generated billions of dollars for their companies, causing many other companies to follow suit and try their hand at making one or several live service games. They have very good reasons to do so. A successful live service game can serve as a constant source of income for the studio that makes it, while a more traditional type of game will generally only make money for a few years and will make significantly less money the longer it's out for. On top of that, while traditional games can only make a fixed amount of money per person, live service games can vary, making hundreds to thousands of dollars from a single person if that person has enough investment in the game. There will also generally be more return on investment for live service games. If, for example, a game company releases ten live service games, and only one is successful, the amount of money that can be consistently generated from that one game can pay for all of the failed attempts and then some. It's simply a much safer choice to invest in a live service model than to create any other type of game.
Now, this would be fine if all live service games were incredible games, but just like the live service model disincentives producing other types of games, it also disincentives spending a long time making a great game. You see, live service games are known for releasing many updates and improvements throughout the game's life, and because of this, there’s significantly less pressure to make the game good the first time. Companies don’t need to ensure the game has no bugs if they can always fix it, as the game is already being sold. On top of that, because of the potential for live service games to make so much money, game companies have good reason to rush out as many as possible, hoping that one garners some level of attention from players. In fact, a game doesn’t even have to be good in order to be a successful live service game; it just has to be popular. While traditional games needed some level of quality for positive word of mouth to guarantee sales, live service games, being free, just need to look appealing enough to get people to download the game. Then, its constant new updates and special rewards can convince players to keep playing in hopes that the game will improve. This model not only allows but encourages companies to make rushed, incomplete, or poorly designed games built to be popular and to trick players into sticking with the game over anything else.
On top of encouraging games to be incomplete and rushed, this system also discourages games from providing any new and unique gaming experiences. Before the live service model, games were often sold through word of mouth. Companies wanted to make more unique games because if they could stand out from their competitors, they were more likely to have people talk about them and find some community that would appreciate their game enough to pay for it. Games like Portal used their unique atmosphere, characters, and gameplay to set them apart from every other puzzle game at the time, and consequently, they became extremely successful. Meanwhile, live service games have the exact opposite goal in mind. While games with a set price want to stand apart from other games, live service games need to keep as many players playing as possible, and since their games are free, they don't have to worry about any precise barriers. Therefore, by making their game as homogenous and generic as possible, they can appeal to everyone in hopes that enough of them stick around long enough to start paying.
And if all of that wasn’t enough, live service games aren't even healthy for each other. While there has always been competition in the gaming industry, there has always been enough demand for many games to be very successful simultaneously. Most games don’t take too much time to complete, and players can easily play several games at the same time. If somebody wanted to play the newest Mario and Halo games, they could easily buy both and play them at their own leisure. On the other hand, live service games are designed to monopolize your time. Since these games can only make money while you're playing, their job is to keep you playing as much as possible. These kinds of games thrive on addicting players to them, which means if a game like Fortnite has 250 million active monthly users, there’s a good chance that those players are not spreading into other games, much less paying for them. This makes other live service games much more likely to eventually collapse and shut down, unable to compete with their more popular counterparts. This system encourages competition and harshly punishes any game that attempts to compete against pre-established popular titles.
Now, of course, live service games aren't inherently bad. I appreciate games with regular updates, and the fact that they are free makes games accessible to a broader audience. It's the rampant success of these games and the insane demand for them that encourages these companies to disregard traditional games, rush development, push back against creative risks, and damage the video game economy. While a round of Fortnite, Rocket League, or Warzone can be fun, it's important to encourage the production of other types of games and to support developers who are willing to take risks and create worthwhile products.