Over the years, there’ve been various red flags in gaming, for me at least. Multi-media. Full-Motion Video. Day-One DLC. Microtransactions. The latest one is Live Service Game. I find the idea repulsive because it immediately tells me this is an online-required affair, even if it doesn’t warrant it. There’s no reason for some games to require an internet connection when the vast majority of activities they provide can be done in a single-player fashion. So I suspect Live Service Game to be less of a commitment to truly providing updated worthwhile content and more about DRM. Instead of imposing Denuvo or some other loathed 3rd party layer on your software, why not just require internet regardless of whether it brings value to customer?
What do you think about Live Service Games? Do you prefer them to traditional games that ship finished, with potential expansions and DLC to follow later?
Unless it’s an MMO, or something like an online aRPG, the tag “live-service” immediately means that you’re fully expecting to release an unfinished game, collect your preorder money, get backlash for the game being unfinished garbage, and then release a few patches as a “Sorry we got caught” excuse.
The days when you’d buy something, and you would know that is the final version of your software, have been over for a long time
Even MMOs tend to be terrible live service games. This mode necessitates a good cadence of content (actual content, not stuff to buy) that most studios seem incapable of doing.
In that scope, cromulent Early Access game seem like the poster child for live service games.
The days when you’d buy something, and you would know that is the final version of your software, have been over for a long time
That sounds like a good thing to me. The real problem is that when buying a game, there are no guarantees about how finished it is.
The point is that when you printed something on a disk, and had 0 capability of pushing patches down the road, you were forced to finish your product. Now it’s not the case, evidently
In theory yes, but in reality, plenty of games shipped unpolished in the physical media era.
You are completely correct
I’ve been playing a bunch of old NES and SNES games, and they all could use a few patches. Many are buggy as hell.
They were still cranking out unfinished trash back then because the cover art and box description was all we had to go by. No refunds on opened games, your money was gone and you had no hope of it ever getting better.
I simply don’t buy live service games. I hate them
I don’t have a problem with the core concept since it can technically be done well (Fortnite, despite it not appealing to me personally) but since everyone wants the “live service” staying power and money without putting in the “live service” effort it’s become a red flag to me to prepare for an unfinished, buggy, likely money-grubbing “game” with a shaky future - case in point, Halo Infinite’s campaign pretty much going nowhere and being Act 1 of what will be pretty much nothing now since all the campaign staff went bye-bye.
Honestly 99% of the time “early access” is just a red flag now
Man, Infinite’s campaign was such a disappointment. Halo to me was always about the big set pieces and new locations. Infinite had 2 locations essentially the whole game, not to mention the non story that happens mostly off screen. It’s too bad because the grapple hook was one of the best additions to Halo since Bungie but you don’t have anything fun to actually play with it.
Very much so, because to me it openly announces that the game is centered in its design about something between:
- Microtransactions
- Extrinsic motivation
- FOMO
None of those are a good story, great characters, good world building or good intrinsic gameplay design. And they don’t need to be for a live service game, but it also means it’s inherently worse as a game than the same underlying idea not developed as a money squeeze service.
I find the word “service” off-putting. I want to buy things outright and own them. I do not want recurring fees.
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“Service Games”, gotcha games, games with excessive DLC (looking at you sim games), internet required and Denuvo games are all hard passes.
It’s actually gacha games
feels the compulsion to make that correction
Sounds like they got chya, hon.
[snort] well ACKSHUALLY–
man don’t no one give a fuck unless they’re already in sunk cost fallacy with that ‘genre’ and its predators
Theoretically it’s not a turnoff: for example, I was fine with paying the subscription for World of Warcraft back in 2007. But in practice I know what it means today, and that means being psychologically manipulated and crit in the wallet, so hell freakin no.
I actually am in favour of government legislation against them since they generally appeal to the young, who are essentially psychologically defenceless against most of the trickery. I don’t quite think they’re “spiritual opium” as the PRC would say, but the line was crossed long ago
Live Service Game, the idea…I find unappealing and just plain skippable. Live Service Game, the phrase…is so much better than “Game as a Service.”
But hey, not every game/genre/delivery method is going to appeal to everybody. The industry is big enough to cater to multiple niches, even if some are much (much, much) bigger than others. I’m happy that people can find whatever game they like, and I can find my favorites as well. That doesn’t make anybody more correct than the other.
Live service comes across as life service. A game made to monopolize my time and become a significant part of my life by using addictive systems. By the very nature of enjoying the variety of games, it will immediately turn me off a game.
Live service games/ games a service are an automatic no from me. Too many have little to no content, constant delays on content, a dying community, or ridden with predatory monetization. Not to mention I dont like to pay for games that i cant play when the servers go down.
After Destiny, yup. The term’s become synonymous with “increasingly-higher wallet drain with increasingly diminished returns over time, and we’re still gonna need a fully-staffed cosmetic shop and battle pass to get the last couple dollars we didn’t hoover out of you with the season pass’s cost”.
I don’t have the time to play live service games. The next time I play a game it might be completely different? No appeal to me at all
I’m not a fan of it. I think live service games generally comes with battle passes, which are essentially preordering DLCs. DLCs that have not been announced, with no details and nothing else. They also often offer some exp bonus or in game items. I think this has an impact on how the game is balanced. The bonuses can’t be game breaking so they have to nerf the base game experience to make it “valuable”.
I think it can be done well if the base game is free. Dota 2 and csgo are good examples of it because the bonuses that come with battle passes are mostly cosmetic, and they help the support game development. If the base game is £60, then the company can fuck off. I prefer standalone games with expansion packs being released at a later time. Being able to play offline is also great, even though I am rarely without Internet access.
I don’t have the long term attention span demanded of live service games, since once I’m done with a game I move on.
