Modern gaming is an interesting place to say the least. There’s constantly something changing. Whether that be trends, developers or release dates. Every once in a while, however, there’s an aspect of the industry that stays around for a while. Right now that aspect seems to regrettably be “live service” games.
“Live service” games, also known as “games as a service,” are games that are forever evolving with new features and content. The concept of getting more content for your favorite game on a semi-regular schedule sounds nice on paper.
In reality however, they usually end up featuring problems such as broken launches, micro-transactions, limited content and half-finished updates. These are problems that the publishers are usually aware of and don’t care about.
Ever since the concept of live service games first got popular in 2015, we have witnessed an increase in unbelievably mediocre titles. Devs have started to have a sort of “release now, fix later” approach to their work, especially involving multiplayer player games.
Game companies used to have to make their launches count back in the day in order to turn a profit, but now thanks to the convenience of being able to patch a game post launch, these studios are now allowed to ship these buggy, unbalanced and downright unfinished products. All they have to do is promise the consumer that they will improve their game later now. Developers are no longer selling games, but a promise that it *might* be good at a later date.
A lot of these games have a sort of “job-like” feel to them. Just like with a real job, there’s this overwhelming feeling that you have to play it. You have to complete the battle pass, or you have to unlock this limited time item before it goes away forever. Just like with a job, you can’t play at your own pace because everything now has an expiration date. You can’t even take a break from playing due to the fear that other players will become better than you and make your experience worse.
These games pretty much weaponize the idea of “fear of missing out.” If you’re playing and you see a player using a cool battle pass emote that you can’t get anymore, I’m sure you’ll feel a little bad that you missed out on such a cool cosmetic. This will inspire you to buy the newest battle pass and grind it to make sure that you don’t miss out again.
Not even single player games are safe from the live service curse. Games like “Cyberpunk 2077” and “Fallout 76” launched in unfinished states and didn’t become the games that the developers originally promised until years later. This goes back to the whole “release now, fix later” mindset.
Some single player games even have “time-saver” micro-transactions that promote the player to actively not play the game. Instead of having to fight a challenging boss to unlock a rare item, you can just spend a few bucks and buy it. This has been a part of the last three “Assassin’s Creed” games and they find success from it each and every time, which leads into my last point.
Companies aren’t entirely at blame. They can only get away with things that the consumers tolerate. In the gaming community, there’s a huge amount of people who defend the actions of these devs. No matter how poor a game is there will always be someone there to say “give it time it’ll get better” or “just ignore (insert flaw here).”
Not every live service game is bad. “Fortnite” and “Final Fantasy XIV” were released as perfectly great games, only using the live service format to make themselves even better. The core of the matter is where do we draw the line in the sand?
Adding new content to our favorite games is great but when does it become too much? I have always believed that a developer’s first goal should be to release a good game and everything after that should just be there to improve said game. However, as I mentioned before, this doesn’t seem to be the mindset most have.
I do believe that gaming will get better as time goes on, but how long will it take? When will players finally say enough is enough? While I don’t have the answers to any of these questions, I do believe that it will eventually happen.