A little while ago, we learned that PlayStation (Sony) wanted to make a major push towards live service model games. While perhaps not the whole future for PlayStation, it was very clear that the platfom-holder wants a piece of the Fortnite, Overwatch, PUBG pie. Well, we’re now at least a year into the execution and it’s apparently not going well, with the majority of those live-service projects either failing or getting cancelled outright.

As reported by Tech4Gamers, most of the big live-service type games released on the platform haven’t exactly been successful. While there have been successess like MLB The Show and Helldivers 2, they are the exception, it seems. According to the article, the status of Sony’s live-service effort is as follows:

• Destruction All-Stars – Failed
• Concord – Failed
• Helldivers 2 – Success
• MLB The Show – Success
• Foamstars – Failed
• Last of Us 2 Multiplayer – Cancelled
• Payback (from Bungie) – Cancelled
• Spider-Man: The Great Web – Cancelled
• Twisted Metal – Cancelled
• New IP from London Studio – Cancelled
• New IP from Deviation Games – Cancelled

Remaining Projects

• Fairgame$
• Horizon multiplayer
• Horizon MMO
• New IP from Bend Studio

Of those games still in the works, FairGame$ is already looking like it’s going to go the same way as Concord thanks to a very generic and off-putting reveal trailer. (I mean, yeah, a multi-billion dollar corporation selling a game based on an “eat the rich” mentality is all kinds ironic.) The recent shake ups at Bungie too make the outlook for Marathon kind of bleak as well. Finally though, though it’s undeniably still profitable. It seems to me that sentiment is finally turning against these glorified store-fronts masquerading as games.

Sure, they’re not made for the average gamer: I think everyone is well aware of that by now these games are made almost exclusively for those with more money than sense. Whales are always gonna whale, after all. The thing is though, you’re not gonna get any whales if there aren’t minnows for said whales to flex on, and us minnows have largely gotten bored of the model at this point.

All of these live-services look the same, play the same, charge the same and increasingly either peter-out or flat-out fail the same. After almost ten years of the same slop, it has, at last gotten boring for most. I’d like to think that those whaling have started to figure out that dropping thousands of dollars in these games is rather pointless too, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

All this is to say that it’s probably a good thing that all of these cash-grabbing projects are failing. The sooner companies realize they’re a lost cause, the sooner we can start seeing more fun and interesting projects again.

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What do you think about live service games? Do you see them lasting much longer as the major mainsteam option?

Image by Flickr user Fe Ilya (CC BY-SA 2.0)