Game

The live service game bubble looks ready to burst


Fortnite is a few weeks away from the first season of the fourth chapter. In fact, it’s been going strong since the summer of 2017, and while Epic doesn’t share player numbers, by any available metrics, it still seems to be doing very well. But in the world of live service, Fortnite success is increasingly rare. While there exist other great successes in the game industry where studios run a game for years on end, many others are closing their doors permanently, which is extremely scary for both. players worried about game history and future developers interested in trends they might be tasked with pursuing. Can live-serve games survive with modest successes or do they all have to be as big as Fortnite to make it?

I admit this is not an investigative feature that can help answer some of these questions. Instead, I’m just mourning the loss of more games that will soon be lost over time, including one of my all-time favorites. When Velan Studios took to social media to warn players that their PvP handball game, Knockout City (KOC), would be closed forever in juneit really ruined my night.

Playing: 7 ways Fortnite changed the game

About a year after splitting from EA to self-publish the game and reimagine its economy for a free-to-play world, it doesn’t seem like KOC’s successes were enough to keep the game going. Katherine Funny’s Blessing Adeoye Jr. best said:

What? actually what are we doing? According to Velan, more than 12 million players jumped into Knockout City in its two years on the market. While that includes months in Xbox Game Pass and a year as a free game, it’s hard to think that even a fraction of players who purchased the game’s Brawl Pass and optional cosmetics wouldn’t. can continue the game in progress. Most games like to brag about this type of player count, so for Knockout City and similar games, sinking despite having at least 12 million players who have played the game shows significant benefits. The development team has unrealistic expectations to meet or the content in the game for sale is not eye-catching enough.

Knockout City isn’t the only one, either. In January alone, we saw the teams behind Rumbleverse, Apex Legends Mobile, Ubisoft’s Hyper Scape, and even Marvel’s Avengers announce closures that each felt was way too early for their original vision. . If Marvel can’t survive, there may be deeper problems going on here.

Other well-known outages in recent years include EA’s intended Destiny Killer Anthem, the Evolve-era co-op shooter, and what I argue is the best music game of the series. Harmonix in a well-known category, Fuser. Undoubtedly, that can be a good thing when a game is over. Not every game need to live forever. But the point is that these games and many others were intended, but given the seemingly volatile market, too many games failed, even if they did find a die-hard fan base.

It’s hard to quantify how costly and dangerous this can be for video game studios. We’ve seen a number of live service games close down just for their studios, such as when Motiga’s Gigantic MOBA couldn’t survive the preliminary launch period and the studio was soon shut down by the studio. released Perfect World. But even in the best-case scenario of the game shutting down, when the developers’ jobs are safe, the disappearance of these games is a blow to the preservation of the game. For many games, survival after their servers close will be limited to YouTube videos and live accounts from players who have experienced them.

We might even live in a post-Fortnite world one day, but that seems likely to happen on Epic terms, not the competition of the live services market. So few people can sit on top of that mountain, but for Fortnite, Warzone, Rocket League and a few others, that seems relatively cozy. Again, I’m sad that there are no answers to these economic problems and I’m here only to lament the feeling that one of my favorite games (Fortnite) is indirectly responsible. and a part for closing another game (Knockout City).

Are Knockout City's goals too lofty, or is the world of direct service unsustainable for most participants?
Are Knockout City’s goals too lofty, or is the world of direct service unsustainable for most participants?

Epic’s battle royale has defined the world of live service for more than half a decade, and it seems many other publishers can’t predict the audience they’ll be able to retain or plan to keep the game in. those levels. They wanted to be the next Fortnite, but didn’t have enough room at the top. Each of these games is built on an economy Constantly fighting for not only your money but your time too.

There must be at least some gap to exist between the games that are successful in the industry and the games that are losing. From the outside, games like Sea of​​​​Thieves, Genshin Impact, Rainbow Six Siege, Warframe, etc. seem to have built communities that can help them thrive. However, it felt like a lot of other people came and went even as their own fans shed tears as they saw them off.

For a way forward, game makers must be able to reliably predict the size and habits of their fan base, and then pivot as that base expands or shrinks. . Is this an unrealistic level of mobility in a volatile industry? Is a live service game dominating its genre, if not its industry, or else does it have a shelf life of months or years before being removed from video game history? effectively die? Where do we go from here? I don’t know, and it’s scary to think that maybe no one else knows.

The products discussed here are independently selected by our editors. GameSpot may receive a share of the revenue if you purchase anything featured on our site.

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