The Decline of Live Service Games

Live service games are games that operate for long, sometimes indefinite amounts of time while receiving constant updates. These games can either be free to play or paid, and most rely on purchasing virtual goods with money, or microtransactions, to gain revenue. These games change over time, hence the title of living. And when the model works, it creates worlds filled with fun activities and thriving communities with millions of players. Of course, that’s when live service games actually succeed.

With every standout example of a live service game, five more filled with boring gameplay loops, inconsistent updates, terrible visuals, and in game shops trying their best to steal every last cent from your wallet are released. Companies push out new controversial live service titles that shut down within a year. The live service disease infects games that have no business being live service, such as Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League.

Whenever a new live service game is announced these days, gamers groan and roll their eyes. The genre has become poisonous in the mainstream. But the question remains; How did live service games get this way?

The Successful Ones

The concept of games as a service have been around for decades. It started with MMOs like World of Warcraft and Runescape that featured enormous worlds with all sorts of activities. They changed over time, sometimes in drastic ways, like the WoW Cataclysm expansion that reshaped the entire game world.

Then games that weren’t MMOs started getting in on the live service trend. In 2016, the hero shooter Overwatch released to critical and commercial acclaim, selling millions of copies. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena League of Legends became the face of competitive gaming when it released in 2009. In 2017, Fortnite, the most successful live service game of all time released. It gained billions of dollars in revenue through its emote and skin systems. It’s still receiving constant weapon and map updates to this day.

By 2017, in a study released by firm Digital River, almost a quarter of game revenue on computers was through live service games. Juggernaut publishers Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard increased their value by billions of dollars between 2012 and 2018. Live service games were on top of the world in 2017, and it was looking like they’d be the future of the gaming industry. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your viewpoint, that future never came.

Failing to Find Gold

The thing about live service games is that while they can create rivers of cash, it means employing teams of artists, programmers, developers and other roles for extended periods of time to continue creating content. The content pipeline requires preparation months or years in advance. Then there’s the oversaturation of live service games. People only have so much time available, and so most stick with the games they know, like Fortnite. They don’t invest time and energy into new live service games that might end up lower in quality.

Game executives saw the success of live service games like Fortnite and Overwatch and wanted a piece of that success. They didn’t realize the planning and costs that accompany these successes. Bioware released Anthem in 2019, and it only lasted two years before abandoning content plans due to a lack of content and a tedious gameplay loop. Even when content eventually came out, players had already abandoned Anthem, so the game shut down its servers.

Anthem is one of the most high profile failures, but other live service games like Marvel’s Avengers and Babylon’s Fall all eventually shut down. The reasons ranged from uninspired gameplay to frequent glitches and bugs to microtransactions around every corner.

Absolute Catastrophes

Recently, these live service failures have reached absolutely catastrophic proportions. One of these is Skull and Bones, a game focused on piracy and ship combat that was developed by Ubisoft. Skull and Bones went through 8 years of development hell and multiple overhauls, exceeding its budget multiple times. Ubisoft lost millions of dollars, but development couldn’t stop. That’s because Ubisoft was contractually obligated to release something by the Singapore government, which financed the project. And when the game finally did release, it contained a nonexistent story and boring pirate ship fights that always played the same.

In 2022, Playstation wanted to release a dozen live service games by 2025. By 2024, that number had dwindled to six. The only successful one has been Helldivers 2. It still almost failed due to Sony trying to implement a Playstation account requirement if you were playing on your computer. Other live service projects like The Last of Us Online project or a God of War live service game have ceased development. Meanwhile, Concord released to a peak of less than 1,000 players and shut down in two weeks. A $40 price tag and unappealing character designs were the main offenders. And the upcoming Marathon by Bungie has been accused of plagiarizing entire drawings and art design from artist Antireal.

What’s Next?

Live service games are poisonous because they’ve failed time after time due to any reason imaginable. From boring gameplay loops to not understanding your audience to failing the lowest benchmark of technical quality, live service games don’t succeed. And with high profile failure after high profile failure, the state of live service games is uncertain. While ones like the recent Marvel Rivals are still releasing, other live service games like Marathon are filled with controversy months before launch date.

Publishers and executives either need to have a solid plan when making live service games or stop making them. And with the costly mistakes through games like Skull and Bones and Anthem, the gaming industry is learning its lesson sooner rather than later.