Unmasking the Realities Behind the Decline of Live Service Games: A Closer Look Into the Gaming Industry’s Shifting Landscape

We’re already seeing less live service stuff, we just don’t recognize it because of all the mainstay games in that space. Sony had a game plan to develop 12 live service games by 2026, and within less than a year of revealing that, they changed their mind and said, nah, we’re only gonna do six instead of 12. They cut it in half because so many new live service releases are failing. Concord is getting clowned on right now. Halo is one of the most beloved franchises ever and its most recent game failed. X defiant. They were calling it the call of Duty Killer, and two months later that player base is fucking chopped. Is already gonna be a financial failure. The list goes on forever. Even the games that have been around, the ones that we see as successes, they’re not making money like everyone thinks they are. There’s the exceptions, right? The fortnights, League of legends, the GTAs of the world. Those games are just printing money. But for example, destiny 2 is failing to hit their projected revenue numbers consistently. I just read an article that back in March, Overwatch employees didn’t receive a profit share bonus. Now, if you don’t know what that means, if your company has profit sharing for employees and those employees don’t get at one, it means the company didn’t make fucking money. Why do you think call of duty has to drop a new 60 to 100 dollar game every Single year. If they went free to play route it would be fucking over to me. The past couple of years has really been a renaissance for gaming. Between cyberpunk, Baldur’s Elden Ring, Wukong, Dragon’s Dogma, Hogwarts, just the past few years, we’ve gotten loads of all time great games that were also commercially huge. If live service was the easiest way to make money, why is from soft focusing so much on their souls games? CD Project Red putting all these resources into cyberpunk and Witcher? For what? I thought live service was how you made bread. Most games being made by small, medium and medium to large devs right now are steering away from live service cause it’s just a shitty business model. It’s the epitome of capitalism. Right? Like only the rich and powerful are gonna survive. You have a better shot at taking all that development money, going to Vegas and throwing it on black. Go look up a list of the best selling games of this year and then also look up a list of the most critically acclaimed games of this year and then tell me if you think live service is really dominating like it’s believed to be in the public eye. These kids online, they can make up any excuses they want. That shit is a facade.