Dear Developer: Select Live Game Services are being shut down! Learn from this!


I mentioned this a while back regarding game services (I can't even recall how long ago because it's... been that long), but... look at the various live games going offline now. Karol Severin believes it is more a case of the market - and companies operating in it - finding "a new, more sustainable supply/demand equilibrium".

That could be partly the reason, but my argument is that you can only play so many games. How many of them are actually able to go live and stay live when you have select games with such a huge draw? You might even find that some of these games are in a similar genre as the giants (which you can try to test your luck at... but... at what cost?). On top of that, some games require specs that don't land in the space where the majority of players... play.


Here are the games that were announced to be going offline this week alone...
Apex Legends Mobile
Rumbleverse
Knockout City
CrossfireX
Crayta
Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai: A Hero's Bonds


This isn't me pointing my finger laughing saying, I told ya so! This is me saying that you may want to strongly reconsider your moves in regard to live games, and avoid making games that rival too many others of a similar genre... because gamers are going to have to make a decision. Believe it or not, that decision may be finalized before the first investment in that game (via DLC). At times someone may not even enjoy a particular type of game, but... their friends play that game, so another game may run cold because they'd rather enjoy time with their crew.

I'm not saying the games mentioned above aren't original (I'm not even going in on them in depth), but if you're going to take the live approach, consider hybrids that cross genres with some serious fun factor. If you want to create a game that you want people to enjoy on a competitive level without going live yourself... give the players the ability to set up games themselves (remember the days of LAN parties?). Going back to DLC, there are a number of people who refuse to invest until they know what game their friends are going to invest in, and that investment keeps them there for a while in hopes that it's worth it.... which affects (free-to-play games especially).

Serkan Toto from Kantan Games said it's a further sign the industry is still in the early stages of live service gaming. Think about this though, and not to knock Serkan (cheers), but... regardless of the stage of live service gaming... you're still going to be in the same boat making Generic Multiplayer game 22b and crossing your fingers hoping that it can get similar or better results as Generic Multiplayer game 1 - 22a. Developers need the audience, originality, fun factor, and worthwhile DLC to make it worthwhile. 

A developer may think I'm totally wrong on this, but coming from the standpoint of a gamer... I don't think so.



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