10 Gaming Industry Issues That Must Die With This Generation
8. An Obsession With Live Services
So, Dragon Age 4 is gonna be a live service game. Because THAT'S a good idea, right Anthem?
Yesterday it was MMO's, today it's Live Service games. What's the difference? MMO's were fun. And yet game companies are obsessed with putting the model onto games that really don't need it. The idea is simple: keep players playing this one game for as long as humanely possible so that they will eventually want to spend even more money on microtransactions (we'll get to THOSE later) and then continue the cycle as an endless stream of revenue.
Live service games have worked in the past, but only in the cases when the gameplay was solid enough to keep people hooked, and the microtransactions don't actually interfere with the playing experience. Two lessons that have clearly not been heeded, if Fallout 76 and games like it are anything to go by.
Live service games had their time in the sun, but it's time to retire them. It started out as an okay idea, but has quickly become just another predatory system for game companies to siphon people's money.