Last week, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hyenas was cancelled just weeks before it was due to release. It joins Apex Legends Mobile, Battlefield Mobile, Rumbleverse, CrossfireX, Pac-Man 99, Pokemon Trading Card Game Online, Blaseball, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt, Lemnis Gate, Auto Chess, Knockout City, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel’s Avengers, and all online functionality of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nintendo 3DS and Wii U as live-service games or online services t🐈hat have shut down this year alone. There are probably more that I can’t think of off the top of my head. So why are companies still making live-service games when so many fail?
The first reason is that games take so long to make. We only saw the impact of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Breath of the Wild on subsequent video games years after its release. Triple-A games can take nearly a decade to produce these days, and those just beneath them in terms of budget and scope could easily take half that. So perhaps these games, some of which released the same year they were closed down, others of which didn’t e🐎ven make it to release, are simply behind the times thanks to long development cycles?
Stardew-l𓄧ike L🌞ord Of The Rings Game Tales Of The Shire Is Exactly What The World Needs
A cosy life sim set in The S💎hire is the Hobbity relaxation we all need
I don’t think that’s the answer. Or at least, not the complete answer. The rest of the answer is shareholders. Shareholders, executives, and the rest of the people sat at the top of games companies, who care about the bottom line and nothing else. The people who see FIFA – sorry, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:EA Sports FC 24 – release every year and make EA a bucket of money. Who look at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Warzone and see games with years-long lifespans that don’t show any signs of stopping. Executives see these cash🧸 cows and they want some of that. But it rarely works.
When was the last time a new live-service game successfully launched and kept up a reasonable playerbase over time? Okay, when was the last time a new live-service game that isn’t a sequel successfully launched? Counter-Strike 2 and Overwatch 2 both brought ov🍷er their entire playerbases thanks to the originals being rendered unplayable, and have the backing ꦉof Valve and Blizzard respectively.
I can’t think of one. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Blood Bowl 3 is struggling, as fans play as much of the previous edition as they do the current game and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:developers admit they’re still in a “transitional period”. Not even Apex Legends Mobile, which rode on the coattails of its hugely successful PC and console sibling, could prove cost effective enough to keep servers online. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Unite might be the last successful live-service game🎐 I remember launching, developed by the might of Tencent and using the cultural m🐟onolith that is the Pokemon IP. Even then, it is hardly talked about in the same breath as its contemporaries.
And yet studios still see live-service as the way forward. At this point, though, the market is saturated. Surely a new live-service game is aiming to tear customers away from their existing live-service predilections, rather than enticing new players into the live-service bubble? This is flawed logic, though, as the more time and money you put into a live-service title, the more stuff you have in them. More skins, more stats, more friends to play with. The longer you play, the harder it is to leave. It’s why the system works, for existing live-service games anyway. It’s why Niantic’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Go follow-ups have nearly all faile🥂d; because your core audience has already spent hundre🅠ds of hours levelling up in Pokemon Go, and you can’t play more than one of these games simultaneously.
There’s no more room at the inn. Blood Bowl 3, which I mentioned earlier, may survive due to the fandom the game has and the niche hobbyists who play both board and video game variants. But for a new game, not attached to an IP the size of Warhammer or Pokemon, not a sequel to an incredibly popular live-service game, what chance does it have? eFootbaꦺll has its own version of Ultimate Team, but just an average of 8,832 players over the past month, compared with EA Sports FC 24’s 47,883. If Konami can’t match the EA formula, how can smaller studios?
The current crop of successful live-service games will likely continue to thrive for years. There will be peaks and troughs, but they’ll be fine. The players are already🌼 in the system, and they’ll stay there as long as new content is put on their screens. 🥃I don’t think we’ll ever see another live-service game be successful in the same way. Not a brand new IP, and probably not Ubisoft’s XDefiant, despite the throng of recognisable faces joining the fight. The live-service bubble burst years ago, and only the big dogs currently running the show will see any semblance of success.