Services of each game industry ruling are increasingly seriously criticized. After a series of major failures, even the top publishers began to treat such projects carefully – and perhaps they would not be as fashionable as before. Gamesindustry.biz information portal speakWhy the era of living services is about to end.
The dark time is inevitable for living services, because, from the simplest viewpoint of the economy, they can never even become the dominant model of the industry in theory.
Successful services, due to their nature, keep consumers' attention for months, otherwise for many years, while holding their wallets with a strong clamping. Therefore, such releases, in reality, do not allow any other game to develop. The average consumer has enough time and money for a living service; Even the most loyal users pay attention to the maximum of two or three.
Such an experience, to speak gently, unlike the usual games that provide most people, especially if we talk about an older object with free money than time. Many of them buy games, not even sure that they will be able to really play them. And others dreamy discussing backlog with people like those who will be great to catch up in the future.
Normal games also take time, but they do not prevent users from paying attention to other releases. In this area there is no positive competition, where large projects are trying to strangle each other to have a position in the sun. There is a market position for a large number of ordinary games, but in the successful service field, the units can achieve, this creates an incredible risk for anyone who will try to participate in this niche market.
Nearly 10 years of enthusiasm for the gaming industry with these services, mostly, is the result of the profits of these units. Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Final Fantasy 14, Counter-Strike … If you look at the financial indicators of these projects, it's not surprising that other publishers want to get something similar.
Moreover, this desire has come close to the obsession, because it blooms in the economic period of the gaming industry in a difficult situation. The cost of developing projects began to develop uncontrolled, but the growth of the audience actually stopped. Recent efforts to set a new game ceiling for games, which users take the initiative to fight, only benefit a series of narrow releases at the head of AAA-Piramid. And even in this case, they do not fully compensate for inflation.
Theoretically, service games can break these issues and pave the way for the new model in which developers spend a lot of money on creating a product, but for many years, they make a profit from it, in a shameful support for the release by the content. And even with such a charming prospect, it is impossible to ignore risks – because it is turned out, not useless. Last year was distinguished by the negative emphasized regarding the introduction of factors of living services into all possible games.
For example, you can take the same Microsoft. One of the projects that the publisher has launched in the knife in the last abbreviation is the new MMO from Zenimax. A similar release will be problematic: the company has World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls. How can you launch a new MMORPG without damaging the user's basis of other services? Also, now, it is simply the best time to give people to pay for another monthly subscription.
Microsoft is not the only one to make the same decision. EA has opened the Dragon Age: The Veilguard from the service for a single game in the middle of development. Capcom, according to rumors, started working on Resident Evil 9 as a living service with the open world, but, once again, changed the course and created a horror from the game that fans desire.
And this is just what the public knows thanks to internal information. Large publishers significantly reduce their expectations from services, because now, unlike 5-7 years ago, a series of deaf failures, not to be missed, have successfully participated in the records. Concord, Anthem and Suicide Squad are the most prominent examples, but there is a dozen other failures, less noticeable has been released and closed without ostentatization.
In other words, many companies are now aware of risks related to living services. Most publishers burned at least once about them and eliminated their lessons. But the prospect of endless profits is too attractive for many studios, and therefore service services will continue to be released. However, in the era, in which almost every game is obliged to have at least some factors of the service, which has ended.