Even After Countless Live Service Games Are No Longer Alive, 1/3 of AAA Devs Are Working On New Ones

With games like Fortnite and Genshin Impact completely dominating the world, it’s easy to see why everybody wants a piece of the theoretical pie. Millions of dollars are poured into these games daily, and honestly? I can’t blame companies for wanting to piggyback on the trend. However, with live service projects being ended left and right, it seems that their heyday may be coming to a close. That doesn’t mean devs can stop working on them, unfortunately.

For every ‘Fortnite’, there’s a ‘Babylon’s Fall’ To Follow in the World of Live Service

Sony has been pouring countless resources into live service projects like Concord. Which, as we know, lasted a whopping two weeks before meeting its unceremonious end. Nine more games in the pipeline have also been canceled, putting live service projects on life support. That doesn’t mean that everybody is out of the woods, however, as up to 1/3 of developers are currently trapped working on these types of projects.

After being surveyed during a GDC State of the Game Industry report, a shocking number of AAA developers are stuck working on Live Service games. Even if they don’t particularly want to be. When asked, 33% of AAA developers are on a Live Service project right now. In the same report, it’s said that 16% of all developers questioned wanted anything to do with Live Service at all. For the sake of our wallets, it’s not all bad news. 41% of Developers have no interest in chasing the live service trend.

The most interesting part to an outsider like me, however, is trying to figure out who wants things like this. Games like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League were met with near immediate apprehension from the time it was released. After making it to market, both critics and fans were less than thrilled to see the final project. Then, it was wrapped up with a fittingly subpar bow that makes the whole thing feel even more contrived than we could have ever imagined.

Recently, the cancellation of a God of War live service title had fans breathing a sigh of relief. The first thing I want to know is: how would that even work? Secondly, why did they think that would work? Does anyone remember how well Foamstars did?