Another day, another conversation about live service games.

You know how I feel about them by now. But can I interest you in the opinion of someone who really used to do this? Someone like Harold Ryan, the former Bungie CEO.

Bungie CEO knows live service

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Ryan states,

“I think that model is appropriate for some games, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for all games,” clarifies Ryan. “And I believe consumers are telling us it’s not appropriate for all consumers.”

You hear that? “Not appropriate for all games”. One would think that’s a fairly obvious statement, but given the seemingly unnatural willingness to shoehorn that model into damn near every game, clearly it isn’t.

As I’ve mentioned before, there are some live service games that I enjoy, such as Roller Champions. However, even within that, I believed it would have worked better without it, because it doesn’t have to be that way.

Don’t do it Just to do it

Ryan makes a further point that, “Would I ever make another service-based game? Sure. If I see the right game idea and the right audience, am I happy to build that and bring that to market? I am. But I think [for] sustainable careers, I think for the industry, it’s pretty clear that we can’t just pick a business model and say that’s a reason to make a game.”

When you look at a game like Concord, which left faster than it came, could that have been salvaged as just a straight-up multiplayer offering? Probably not, but some things could have been done to it to make it a more robust, straightforward game.

We’re missing out on potential bangers because everyone wants to keep trying to do the same thing that isn’t working. Things are too crowded. Reminder: you aren’t special. It happened to others; it will happen to you.