Live Service is killing the industry

> 2614366390849210;60:
> Thought #1,
> There are more live service games now than there have ever been. There is a larger gaming audience than there has ever been. Probably not correlated entirely, but I’d say there’s a good chance at some sort of relationship there. If people don’t like or want live service games, then why are all the top played games throughout the industry all live service?
>
> Thought #2,
> When people post "why don’t games launch complete anymore? " all I read is “I don’t understand how the internet and networking enables modern game development”.

Literally thank you.

> 2533274829873463;4:
> No it isn’t. Just because some company’s do this does not mean every company is. I’m deeply concerned that live service games is what will kill Halo eventually due to lack of support will eventually come and in theory make this game unplayable except for campaign and maybe a few multiplayer modes if there ready on disc before launch. It’s been a common problem on platforms like PC but I have tolerated for long enough because there has always been options to avoid this on consoles and I’m certainly not going to pretend like it’s ok.

Except it’s not “some”, it most companies. Blizzard, EA, Rockstar, Bungie, Ubisoft, Valve, etc. Even smaller studios like Psyonic and Mediatonic have em. That’s capitalism for ya, investing in profitable systems.

If you don’t want live service, you pretty much have to either change to a different system that isn’t free market capitalism, or legally ban live services(which is ethically questionable and also political suicide. Otherwise, live services will still be profitable.

> 2533275032862638;62:
> > 2533274829873463;4:
> > No it isn’t. Just because some company’s do this does not mean every company is. I’m deeply concerned that live service games is what will kill Halo eventually due to lack of support will eventually come and in theory make this game unplayable except for campaign and maybe a few multiplayer modes if there ready on disc before launch. It’s been a common problem on platforms like PC but I have tolerated for long enough because there has always been options to avoid this on consoles and I’m certainly not going to pretend like it’s ok.
>
> Except it’s not “some”, it most companies. Blizzard, EA, Rockstar, Bungie, Ubisoft, Valve, etc. Even smaller studios like Psyonic and Mediatonic have em. That’s capitalism for ya, investing in profitable systems.
>
> If you don’t want live service, you pretty much have to either change to a different system that isn’t free market capitalism, or legally ban live services(which is ethically questionable and also political suicide. Otherwise, live services will still be profitable.

Just no. There’s countless smaller companies that don’t do this and many can’t do this because it’s not always sustainable and the pressure to rush out content for F2P is insane.

Telling people to change to a different system is ridiculous. Every system out there has some company’s trying to rip people off. Just because some company’s do this does not mean the majority of the games industry does it and many games that have tried to have failed and gone under but unless it’s the big company’s you wouldn’t hear this as much. Either way gamers and developers have to stand up to it because a lot of us have had enough.

Whether something is profitable or not does mean we have to tolerate it and just like I hate mobile gaming because of how badly the predatory systems are and then have to deal with irritating people defending things like live service and loot box’s.

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> 2533274793122050;50:
> > 2533274793006817;46:
> > > 2533274793122050;45:
> > >
> >
> > Look at games back then compared to games out now. Games back then were a fraction of the content that games are now and exponentially harder to develop. So hard in fact that there are fewer and fewer games that come out at all today than there was 20 years ago and especially 30 years ago. Expectations for each game is to the best thing ever every single time with more content on day one than any the last game and without any reused content. The only games that get greenlit on a major scale are retreads because the investment is so huge it’s not worth the risk on new IP. AAA publishers are only releasing a handful of AAA titles in any given year. The only people pushing out a constant stream of low quality titles are the indie-titles, but I’d bet good money that’s not what you meant when you said that.
> >
> > Fact is old games had less unique content than “half-finished” games do today. Most of the “long” games of old just had artificially ramped up difficulty spikes to force you to replay it endlessly, palette swaps and repeated tilesets. Even Mario 64 only had 18 levels (including the 3 Bowser stages). It’s easy to say “New games are bad, my old favorites were better!” but it’s an entirely other thing to look at things objectively realize that if the industry does collapse, you’re still not gonna get what you want, because what you want never actually existed.
>
> quantity =/= quality

And yet, your argument has nothing to do with quality either. Your argument comes from personal preference and correlation/causation fallacies and you now make that abundantly clear.

> 2533274793122050;50:
> especially looking at todays live service games, where the quantity comes from repeating boring side quests and grinds.

This has always been the case; especially in RPGs where sidequests and grinds were pioneered for those types of games. The tasks in genres with grinding hasn’t really changed. What’s changed is the number of genres out there and the popularity of them.

> 2533274793122050;50:
> i take a well made 4-5 hours single player game with good story and good characters any time over a boring grind-fest live service game.

OK and those are two different genres and game preferences. I don’t like soccer; it’s extremely boring and the flopping is somehow worse than basketball and all the soccer players are pansies. Does that mean soccer should die just because I personally fundamentally don’t like a sport where everybody pretends they don’t have arms? No. So why do you get to decide that the industry needs to die, not so they make better quality games, but so that they make the games in the genres you want?

> 2533274793122050;50:
> i also take a “long” game bc of the difficulty any time over these live service games. at least that would be a challenge and not “work” by filling up some bars/numbers. not that i don’t think there could be a good live service game, but i haven’t seen one yet.

Because you don’t like online worlds. You fundamentally don’t like shared universe games.

> 2533274793122050;50:
> and that fewer AAA games get released isn’t be bc it’s harder to develop,

then you don’t understand anything and this conversation is pointless to even continue. MTXs, lootboxes, etc are created because they are the most efficient way of bringing in revenue because building the base game doesn’t take a year between a dozen developers or less, it now takes hundreds of developers several years and sometimes literally hundreds of millions of dollars just to produce one game and then it will be another several years before they can release anything else. Of course they are going to sell MTX if they can; that’s how they bring in revenue and support the coming long enough until the next huge game comes out.

> 2533274793122050;50:
> so why risk making a good game,

Again, you don’t even understand the concept of good and quality. Good games are really the only games that find huge success selling microtransactions. Just because you don’t like Fortnite doesn’t mean it is terrible as a game; I hate the game because it’s not competitively balanced, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad game in its entirety, it’s just not my preference.

> 2533274793122050;50:
> the collapse i was referring to came from a huge amount of bad games pushed out, bc every company wanted to make a quick buck with video games and didn’t care about the games itself (which reminds me a lot of todays live-service-game industry).

And that’s a bad comparison without merit for anything except for mobile/web games.

> 2533274793122050;50:
> what i meant with mentioning indie titles is, that they are more likely to try something new and/or deliver a quality experience

Except they’re not. They are more likely to offer a bad experience and be tossed away trash. A mildly novel idea, possibly, made pointless by a poorly constructed game around it. And that’s even the grand assumption they are novel and unique, because most of them absolutely are not. For every novel idea in a most likely bad indie game, there’s 10,000 by the numbers bland derivative indie game.

> 2533274793122050;50:
> i’m actually not sure what you mean with “unique”.
> to me todays AAA gaming industry seems pretty much more of the same in the design across most titles. but the same can be said about old games. or do you mean within a game?

in the game. You were talking about them lacking content when in reality the old games never had more content, they just reused it a ton and no one complained.

> 2533274793122050;50:
> to the things i want: the “wish” for the industry collapsing is more or less a “wish” born out of frustration with the path the industry is heading down. i actually don’t believe it will collapse anytime soon and i also see, that a lot of developers would be out of work and that’s not what i want. i just want games to be finished at launch and that the games are games and not just glorified storefronts.

Yeah, that’s juat a mad lib tangent. The idea of them being “storefronts” and the idea that they are “finished” are too entirely different things unless your argument entirely comes down to “developers should quit supporting their games with content and updates after launch.”

> 2533274796763552;16:
> And no, I’m not defending this business structure. Were it up to me, all intellectual properties would be under open source licenses and would be free for use and adaptation.

That would be an insane, literally unmitigated disaster you can’t even begin to understand to the point every industry is in shambles and would cause the greatest collapse in human history.
Even if you somehow relegated it only to video games, consumer protection laws would be in shambles in gaming and Sony and Nintendo especially would basically die off fairly quickly.

> 2533274796763552;2:
> Live services are the industry.
>
> Halo can only survive if it is one. This was not a decision made “for” Halo or “for” people who play games. In order for Halo to even exist in the current landscape of the industry means that it must be one.
>
> This is just what the business of video games is now. And has been for some time.

Following modern gaming trends is what put halo on its downward spiral it has yet to recover from.

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> Just no. There’s countless smaller companies that don’t do this and many can’t do this because it’s not always sustainable and the pressure to rush out content for F2P is insane.

But 343 isn’t a smaller company.

You can’t compare, say, the two devs (Eric Barone and a unnamed other) of Stardew Valley to Microsoft.

One group actually loves what they do, and tries their best to balance player appeasement, financial factors, and work, with no approval for what they love to do except reality herself. They can only rely on good word and limited advertisement.

The other is a triple digit billion dollar corporation that can hire multiple analysts to make whatever they want in the most profitable way. They saw that live service was profitable (and it is) so they want a live service. Or they can have mass marketing it well enough to get people’s attention.

That’s how it works, and it sucks, especially since I do think 343 devs actually love what they’re doing (Hell, I would like to be doing that stuff), and would probably do better if they didn’t have MS suits breathing down their necks.

> 2533274937869264;65:
> > 2533274796763552;2:
> > Live services are the industry.
> >
> > Halo can only survive if it is one. This was not a decision made “for” Halo or “for” people who play games. In order for Halo to even exist in the current landscape of the industry means that it must be one.
> >
> > This is just what the business of video games is now. And has been for some time.
>
> Following modern gaming trends is what put halo on its downward spiral it has yet to recover from.

It’s likely!
But have you ever tried shipping a product that runs counter to market trends?
Kind of two fates when you do that: You become an outlier, an exception that proves the rule, or your product dies.
Halo, as an FPS put out by a top-tier publisher in 2021 means that it will be a live service game the same way you probably can’t sell a TV these days without it being a “Smart TV.”

> 2533274958180758;1:
> When is enough, enough? When will we as the Fans hold these companies accountable for releasing unbaked games? I just want to thank the developers for their hard-work and crunch but these Triple A studios and the companies are employing malicious and nefarious business practices that allow for stagnation and “cutting cost” methods which is damaging the industry.

It’s never enough. Because businesses and publishers don’t want to be successful by making some money. They want ALL the money. And they all somehow think that you should be playing their games 100% of the time and giving them all the revenue. It’s a unsuitable business model.

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They also do this in case their game fails early 343 is able to release more content drawing people back in even though it should’ve been released at the start it gives them a way to give people more content which should’ve come with the game at launch

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> 2533274796763552;2:
> Live services are the industry.
>
> Halo can only survive if it is one. This was not a decision made “for” Halo or “for” people who play games. In order for Halo to even exist in the current landscape of the industry means that it must be one.
>
> This is just what the business of video games is now. And has been for some time.

So because it’s the norm, Halo must follow it?

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> > > > 2533274796763552;16:
> > > > > 2533274829873463;15:
> > > > > snip
> > > >
> > > > Does Quake remastered and Doom meet the criteria Halo Infinite is aiming for? And does MCC bring in enough money and player counts for MS to basically use that as a core component of their business with Xbox as a brand?
> > > >
> > > > And no, I’m not defending this business structure. Were it up to me, all intellectual properties would be under open source licenses and would be free for use and adaptation.
> > >
> > > lol you keep moving those goal posts. Games can’t be successful if they aren’t live service->Shooters need to be live service->Need to have microtransactions->That’s not the same thing.
> > >
> > > Doom Eternal sold as well if not better than Halo 5. It wasn’t live service. Modern Warfare was a top seller 2019, 2020 and 2021 and it’s not live service. Hell, Battlefield 4 had a higher player count than Halo 5 despite being several years older and having 3 sequels since then.
> > >
> > > You keep making those excuses though.
> >
> > You’re talking out of your -Yoink-. Halo 5 made 400 million in a week, it took 9 months for Doom Eternal to get to 450 million.
>
> Lol, you picked one single statement out of all of my posts and then claim I’m full of it. So Battlefield 4 didn’t have 3k more players last month than Halo 5 despite being 2 years older and having 3 sequels? Modern Warfare didn’t sell $600 million in 3 days and wasn’t a top 10 seller for three years straight? Doom Eternal also had a peak of 7500 players on Steam alone yesterday, thus is likely has more than 2x the player count of Halo 5 at present.
>
> Lol get out of here with that nonsense.

How much would it trigger you to know both Modern Warfare and Doom Eternal are Live Service games?

> 2533274830294676;70:
> > 2533274796763552;2:
> > Live services are the industry.
> >
> > Halo can only survive if it is one. This was not a decision made “for” Halo or “for” people who play games. In order for Halo to even exist in the current landscape of the industry means that it must be one.
> >
> > This is just what the business of video games is now. And has been for some time.
>
> So because it’s the norm, Halo must follow it?

Could you explain how Halo Infinite can bring in money in a way that will satisfy shareholders without being a live service?

I’d rather have a game release small, and then steadily grow into something larger than have to buy another $60 game every couple years like we used to, with none of the good stuff carrying over, or the sequels becoming exactly like the previous game.
Live service is the way to go in my opinion.

> 2533274796763552;72:
> > 2533274830294676;70:
> > > 2533274796763552;2:
> > > Live services are the industry.
> > >
> > > Halo can only survive if it is one. This was not a decision made “for” Halo or “for” people who play games. In order for Halo to even exist in the current landscape of the industry means that it must be one.
> > >
> > > This is just what the business of video games is now. And has been for some time.
> >
> > So because it’s the norm, Halo must follow it?
>
> Could you explain how Halo Infinite can bring in money in a way that will satisfy shareholders without being a live service?

By replicating the success of it’s predecessors and releasing worthwhile DLC. Like what DOOM Eternal did.

Simply you don’t have to buy until you feel it’s worth it. It’s alot of complete games to play rn. But guess what I can go play no man’s sky, sea of theives or mcc that’s have came a long way now. I didn’t play any of these games till recently.

> 2533274792076659;75:
> Simply you don’t have to buy until you feel it’s worth it. It’s alot of complete games to play rn. But guess what I can go play no man’s sky, sea of theives or mcc that’s have came a long way now. I didn’t play any of these games till recently.

A lot of us want play through Halo Infinite’s campaign for the first time with friends and family. It’s a tradition to so many of us. But guess what? While we’re waiting for co-op to be released, other players will be going through the campaign and posting their experience online, resulting in the internet being swarmed with spoilers. Not only that, but people at school/work may talk about the game’s story. And co-op fans have to deal with this for three months. How is this fair? What’s fair is delaying the game for three more months so EVERYONE gets to play the story at the same time. Co-op is integral to Halo’s identity. We should not allow 343i or Microsoft to think it’s okay to release a Halo game without it.

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> > > 2533274796763552;8:
> > > > 2533274829873463;4:
> > > > > 2533274796763552;2:
> > > > > Live services are the industry.
> > > > >
> > > > > Halo can only survive if it is one. This was not a decision made “for” Halo or “for” people who play games. In order for Halo to even exist in the current landscape of the industry means that it must be one.
> > > > >
> > > > > This is just what the business of video games is now. And has been for some time.
> > > >
> > > > No it isn’t. Just because some company’s do this does not mean every company is. I’m deeply concerned that live service games is what will kill Halo eventually due to lack of support will eventually come and in theory make this game unplayable except for campaign and maybe a few multiplayer modes if there ready on disc before launch. It’s been a common problem on platforms like PC but I have tolerated for long enough because there has always been options to avoid this on consoles and I’m certainly not going to pretend like it’s ok.
> > >
> > > Can you explain how live services, in your opinion, are not the standard of the industry whereas it concerns shooters?
> >
> > Re-read what you said you said “Live services are the industry.” as in you were stating the entire industry is like this when it clearly isn’t. Just because some popular games do this does not mean every single game out there does this and it’s up to each dev to make their own choices because not every game out there today is some stupid live service game. I’m happily playing my games and not dealing with this whenever I can because the live service models are irritating.
>
> They are the industry, perhaps I should elaborate, for an online multiplayer shooter.
> Yes, there are plenty of single-player only games that don’t have any sort of live service model or monetization format.
> Halo is not a single-player only game and has, since Halo 2, been expected to be a multiplayer shooter.
>
> So if you can name a successful, current, multiplayer shooter with no microtransactions that is as popular and requires the amount of infrastructure and management that Halo is aiming for, I’ll retract what I’ve said.

Wolf don’t waste your time your point has being made, if halo launched like payed service payed expansion how will it survive. They name single player non shooter multiplayer no couch co-op no map creation tool one of them wants you to buy a upgrade for 10 bucks. The petty nature of the narrative that live service games must die is pretty rich to shallow. Learn the industry before making broad assumptions this isnt the good old days of gaming it gets better with better consumer feedback.

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> > > > > 2533274796763552;16:
> > > > > > 2533274829873463;15:
> > > > > > snip
> > > > >
> > > > > Does Quake remastered and Doom meet the criteria Halo Infinite is aiming for? And does MCC bring in enough money and player counts for MS to basically use that as a core component of their business with Xbox as a brand?
> > > > >
> > > > > And no, I’m not defending this business structure. Were it up to me, all intellectual properties would be under open source licenses and would be free for use and adaptation.
> > > >
> > > > lol you keep moving those goal posts. Games can’t be successful if they aren’t live service->Shooters need to be live service->Need to have microtransactions->That’s not the same thing.
> > > >
> > > > Doom Eternal sold as well if not better than Halo 5. It wasn’t live service. Modern Warfare was a top seller 2019, 2020 and 2021 and it’s not live service. Hell, Battlefield 4 had a higher player count than Halo 5 despite being several years older and having 3 sequels since then.
> > > >
> > > > You keep making those excuses though.
> > >
> > > You’re talking out of your -Yoink-. Halo 5 made 400 million in a week, it took 9 months for Doom Eternal to get to 450 million.
> >
> > Lol, you picked one single statement out of all of my posts and then claim I’m full of it. So Battlefield 4 didn’t have 3k more players last month than Halo 5 despite being 2 years older and having 3 sequels? Modern Warfare didn’t sell $600 million in 3 days and wasn’t a top 10 seller for three years straight? Doom Eternal also had a peak of 7500 players on Steam alone yesterday, thus is likely has more than 2x the player count of Halo 5 at present.
> >
> > Lol get out of here with that nonsense.
>
> How much would it trigger you to know both Modern Warfare and Doom Eternal are Live Service games?

Show me what Doom Eternal was missing to the core game at launch. There is a difference between adding things to complete game after launch, and not having integral parts of the game missing at launch “to be added later” and still demand full price. Hell, even something like Gears of War 5 still had complete co-op and regular horde modes and multiplayer at launch.

Halo can do one of two things. Be what we want and die because the Halo community is small now. Or become what it has to be in this industry to exist. Personally im leaning towards letting the series go away tbh than become fortnite

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> 2533274796763552;2:
> Live services are the industry.
>
> Halo can only survive if it is one. This was not a decision made “for” Halo or “for” people who play games. In order for Halo to even exist in the current landscape of the industry means that it must be one.
>
> This is just what the business of video games is now. And has been for some time.

Halo can survive by simply being a good quality game, the live service crap is just brainwashing on the future whales.

secondly I’ve seen a few of your posts and I’d ask for an elaboration on what constitutes as an actual live service game because to me it seems having mictrotransactions counts? When definition wise generally that’s not what defines a live service, a live service is a continuous stream of content launching post launch, not bad when you look at it at hindsight however various games take advantage of that by either launching stuff later in the game when previous predecessors had it day one. Destiny is a fine example because it’s brought destiny 1 stuff back into destiny 2 acting as if that’s fresh content.

you’ve asked people to also give examples of successful non live service games and I’d use overwatch as an example, it hardly releases new content monthly like your typical live service, at best you get a new character or two in a year, then there’s the holiday time game modes, but overwatch isn’t constantly pumping out maps, new modes or hero’s monthly. Overwatch is also a game that outsold halo 5 on its own console.

Rainbow 6 siege is another successful game that isn’t pumping out content monthly like your typical live service game, that’s two shooters right there.

one point to bring up is people mention how live service is needed, or how some are so popular, yet they ignore the fact half of them are free to play games? Where live service at least makes some form of sense. It’s different however when you alienate a fan base that has played so many predecessors that weren’t a live service or when they’re already paying $60 for the game itself yet after that, they have to pay more for all the expansions big or small. For me, if it’s not an mmo, or a free to play game, it doesn’t warrant being a live service just to drip feed content to its players or rehash us stuff that we’ve already had.

if halo wants to be successful, launch with the proper features it should have day one for starters, cause giving us forge or co-op 3 months later doesn’t help it even if it’s a live service🤷‍♀️. Launch it with actual new creative ideas that halo players haven’t seen, be unique from the other shooters as well would be another starting point because the last few halos have been your generic “modern” shooter that had nothing that stood out. Why does overwatch and rainbow 6 siege do well? Overwatch was the first big shooter that blew the market for a hero based shooter that incorporated moba like gameplay into it, others that have tried to replicate it? Many don’t really exist anymore and the few that are around just pale in comparison. Rainbow 6 siege? Arguably the most strategic tactical shooter on the market that also implements a character system with each having their own special roles and fitting different circumstances mixed with all the added equipment they can carry into a match. Standing out gameplay wise would be a big change that’d help halo out when it comes to its success.