PlayStation fans have mostly come to want and expect AAA single-player blockbusters from Sony's studios. These titles have been the platform holder's bread and butter for a long time, with record-breaking series like Horizon, The Last of Us, Marvel's Spider-Man, and God of War selling by the bucketload each year. A new Bloomberg report, predominantly focusing on Jim Ryan's retirement and his four years as PlayStation CEO, highlights how a shift towards multiplayer-driven experiences has been a difficult change for PS Studios.
One initiative brought about during Ryan's tenure was a move towards live service games. However, this doesn't gel well with the type of teams PlayStation has cultivated over a long time; its studios are largely geared for making huge budget single-player games, not multiplayer titles supported for years. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier describes it as "an uncomfortable pivot", and we've seen plenty of evidence of these growing pains.
Bungie — acquired by Sony for a cool $3.6 billion — is the company's only true expert in the field of live service. It's currently making Marathon, a revival of its old first-person shooter IP that'll be a live service multiplayer offering. Bungie was also brought in to consult on The Last of Us' multiplayer project, and its evaluation essentially sent it back to the drawing board.
We know major studios like Guerrilla Games and Insomniac Games have multiplayer games in the works, but nothing has materialised yet. The games that have been announced, Marathon, Fairgame$, and Concord, have shown very little — only offering a taste with CG trailers.
Not mentioned in Bloomberg's report is the difficulties between Sony and Deviation Games, which had been producing a multiplayer title exclusively for PlayStation. Allegedly cancelled, it's another hint to suggest the company's emphasis on single-player bangers has left it ill-equipped to make equally strong multiplayer games.
Obviously, there's still a lot we don't know, and things may turn around eventually. Helldivers 2 is scheduled for February and looks like a solid co-op shooter. Guerrilla's inevitable multiplayer Horizon game has potential, and the team did make great multiplayer options in its Killzone titles. For all we know, titles like Concord and Fairgame$ could turn out fantastic. However, years of keeping shtum about its software lineup and various uneasy accounts have left fans concerned about Sony's live service future.
How are you feeling about Sony's aim to add a multiplayer feather to its cap? Discuss in the comments section below.
[source bloomberg.com, via playstationlifestyle.net]
Comments 114
What can I say? Colour me shocked...!
Giving us something that no one asked for, when, generally, people buy into the PlayStation ecosystem for the big AAA single player experiences, was never likely to hit the mark...
I understand the appeal that these corporations have to push live service games; but the fact is - it’s going to be hard to make a game that can stand toe to toe with the likes of Fortnite and, all be it not live service, Call of Duty. Yes, if a new live service game is actually successful, it can rake in tons of money, but it’s essentially a needle in a haystack that consumers, particularly those that are PlayStation centric, don’t want and never asked for.
I wonder why it hasn’t worked out the way they wanted it to…
Will this be Jim’s true legacy, games that no one wants to play and their developers dont want to make
Please Sony, stop with this live service nonsense now and get back to doing what you do best, and what you've built up such a large consumer-base with. And also, tell us what games you're making!
I do still get a chuckle from hearing recent to the Sony family Bungie going to PlayStation veterans Naughty Dog and telling them "nope dawg this ain't it, go back to the drawing board like now!"
No one has the time to play all these live service games. Focus on one live service cash cow if you must - heck, that's why you bought Bungie - but there's a hard ceiling on how many hours there are in a day, and days in a week. At some point, all these live service games must start to eat one another. Even Epic is laying people off as it pivots Fortnight to focus on user created content to try and promote the game's longevity.
Honestly? Good.
It's Capcom and not Sony, obviously, but the forced pseudo-live service trash in World needs to be a thing of the past and it actively puts me off buying /playing games if devs think they have to have events rotate in and out every other week in all their titles because I ain't got that kind of time anymore.
I assume it's great if you don't have a job - altho I assume someone like that would have more important issues than clearing a battle pass on time - but I can't see many gamers with full time jobs enjoying these things unless you ONLY play a game or two for however long they last.
This perfectly explains the radio silence and poor showcases for the last couple of years.
It's what alot of us had feared, that they are not holding everything back or saving stuff for after the ABK deal closes, they just have nothing to show and only live service garbage in the pipeline
Even if they change direction now, it will be years and years until we see the fruits of their labour.
I don’t know what I would do if Sony went all out for Live Service, as the single player experiences that they offer is one of the main reasons why I choose to game on
PlayStation above all else. I think they should let Bungie focus on the Live Service aspects of the business and get all other First Party teams to do what they do best. Honestly, it would actually be for the best for Sony to taste nothing but failure when it comes to live service. Seeing the utterly terrible press that accompanied the reveal of Suicide Squad should be a good learning point, because Rocksteady had a pretty great reputation leading up to this point and one mistake has really hit them hard and the game ain’t even out yet. Other games like Babylons Fall and the Avengers game have been a pure disaster too. Games like Fortnite, Destiny and COD have really got the live service shored up at this Point. The money that will be lost trying to crack the market now could definitely be put to far better use by Sony in creating the AAA story driven extravaganzas that have put them in such a great place in the industry!
Early PS5 has thrived largely off the momentum of the brand during the PS4 era, but I do feel like the generation's lack of single-player exclusives will continue for years thanks to mismanagement at the top gumming up the works. Hopefully Sony gets its mojo back heading into next gen.
Hahaha I think I said basically this like two days ago on another article. It’s a pivot 100% driven by people that want their numbers to go up every quarter, which is how you sink a company.
It truly sounds like Sony is doing something similar to what BGS did to Arkane that resulted in Redfall. Yet doing so with many of their Studios.
We all know how that turned out. Greed corrupts everything it can.
I mean, its not impossible for Sony to make a good live service game, but instead of relying on new IP they should just invest in the IPs they already have.
Killzone could have a SP campaign while keeping the MP side a live service, same thing with Resistance.
Hells, even Horizon could have a live service MP game inspired by MonHun, where you create your character, go around chasing robot dinossaurs and use robot dinossaur part to upgrade your weapon/armor, better yet, it could be a standalone F2P game.
I feel like failures are par for the course when developing live service games, and Sony would have known this going in. It seems like the trick is more knowing when to pull the plug rather than anything else, and your game catching on is as much luck as anything to do with quality.
Moving so smoothly in fact that Naughty Dog is cutting 25 devs contracts short and letting them go without severance... Yay! Don't let the door kick your ass on the way out Jim Ryan!
Out of all of these GaaS, I'm only interested in Helldivers 2 & Factions Part II (I STG if they made it into yet another Extraction/BR.....).
I'm hoping the others have SP, because I'm never paying for a MP-only game.
Don't feel sorry for them at all pretty much their entire audience told them that they didn't want this and not to do it and they didn't listen. You made your bed and all that
I'm not interested in live service games because I'm both 'hardcore' and therefore an eclectic gamer, and don't have the free time of a 13 year old.
Having said that, if this is what they are interested in, as sort of eluded to in the article, they need to tap the resources and brains at Guerrilla. This studio has proven to be the most adaptable of all the top tier Sony studios.
In that respect, they have the special sauce. (Saying that even though I personally find Horizon to be overrated)
We’re going to be talking about this in about 10 years as the dark time. No idea what Sony is thinking going this hard into live service and its hardly a surprise there has been struggle. 3 multiplayer or live service titles alone should be enough for anyone.
They should have let their studios experiment with small scale live service titles to test the waters.
Let the teams be creative and experiment and figure out what works and what doesn't.
The shift in gaming to chase the latest trends has never worked. This new Sony strategy is going to bite them. They went from releasing so many unique games to only single player third person adventure games -which was okay when everyone else was doing multiplayer - but have lost that unique and fun edge over the last decade.
The most surprising thing to me is that they’re chasing this trend now, late in the game (pardon the pun), when the vast majority of live service games that have launched have failed. As much as it sucks for those who are losing their jobs, at least it sounds like Sony is putting the kibosh on these games fairly early in their development if they’re not looking promising.
Is ANYONE surprised by this except may be... Jim Ryan? LOL.
@Rmg0731 most likely. People are talking about how he’s been at PlayStation for thirty years, but he only lead for four. That’s not a good thing, as it shows how poor his leadership was. It’s more and more evident he wasn’t just out of touch with gamers, he was out of touch with his own company.
Been losing faith in PlayStation since he took over, and to be honest I’d cheer to see them announce that all of these games are cancelled. Useless.
@Sakai Yeah, I think most of the rest of this generation will be a wash when it comes to quality first party single player (or just non GAAS) games. A shame and a waste.
@Fiendish-Beaver
I don't think this is the case, since the best seller games in the platform are multiplayer and sony is very concerned with the prospect of losing one of them to microsoft, hence the move.
There's so much more damage Jim Ryan can keep inflicting on PlayStation from here till March 2024.
This is just more examples of it.
😬😬😬😬
If I'm top brass at Insomniac, Blue Point, SSM, Sucker Punch or Housemarque I'm threatening a mutiny to Sony top brass to stop this nonsense. I think GG and ND can pull off what they are working on and we all know Bungie can. But everyone else needs to take a stand. Either get it together or find yourself looking like Xbox does rn.
@Fiendish-Beaver What do you mean no one asked for? This is what most people are playing. This is what most people are spending their money on. When you look at the stats that we posted a few days ago, almost everyone's most played games were GaaS. A single successful GaaS can be as profitable as all of Sony's games put together and more.
I remember when Genshin Impact was announced and almost everyone here was attacking it yet it became of the most successful games of the last years. I read somewhere that it made as much profit as Sony. But people here clearly know better.
That's great news. Let Microsoft and everyone else have those watered down mediocre experiences. You guys just keep developing those fantastic single player games most of us bought a PlayStation for.
They should have let the smaller studios and Bungie make these games. Why buy Bungie if you're not going make them make new games. Let the triple AAA studios make the games that they're good at and let the smaller ones make multiplayer games or let third party make multiplayer games with your IP.
This is the reason Sony bought Bungie and other new live services studios to help existing studios.
Perhaps it's time for a change of perspective on Bungie's role at Playstation. Maybe instead of looking at them as the shepard of all their GaaS efforts, just look at them as their GaaS studio and be happy with that.
Bungie doesn't seem interested in making anything else anyway and the rest of the studios seem to be having a miserable time trying to pivot. Keep up a good relationship with the Genshin team and call it a day.
@Martijn87 Bungie is working on 3 new games.
This is Sony's sunken costs fallacy. They've probably invested a good few million (hundreds?) into GaaS titles. This isn't going to end well for them and we mere mortals have been indicating this for months, if not years.
@Rmg0731 @art_of_the_kill Lol wut? Much before Ryan took over, Shawn Layden and Yoshida frequently talked about how their multiplayer game offerings were scarce and they would expand it coming into the PS5 generation. Not to mention studios like Naughty Dog and Guerilla began hiring for multiplayer roles as early as 2018, long before Ryan even took over.
It is hilarious how no one bothers to check that their " favourite execs " like Layden made the push for live service. Just look up a few of his interviews when he was in charge. Jim Ryan only expanded upon the strategies that were already laid out by previous management. Amazing how despite all of the publicly available info out there, some people still choose to look at only their pov just to fit their own delusional narrative.
Frankly, it's still mind-boggling to me that Sony went ahead with the live service push, years after it was established that only few will ever find success, the rest ending up in the garbage bin after just a year or two.
In any case, this is why Jim Ryan needs to get gone already. The damage he's done to this brand is immeasurable.
Actually what have Sony shown for next year 2024 in house AAA single player epic games they are known for.
By know we have had gameplay videos and rough release dates.
Not being all doom and gloom but me thinking it’s going to be quiet in house AAA release schedule next year for single player campaign games.
@Sakai Wait, Wolverine , Death Stranding 2, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade and Lost Soul Aside are " all live service garbage"?
last I checked , these were all single player games being published by SIE.
I understand it is quite popular to hate on live service , but to pretend like Sony have nothing in the pipeline besides live service is beyond hilarious to me.
No one on here saw this coming! Even the usual suspects that defend everything Sony does were hesitant to fully back them on this live service crap.
Bottom line: don't fix what ain't broke. PlayStation has 25+ years of console success on the backs of incredible single player exclusives.
They jumped on the service train 5 years too late, the market is cornered & even titans like Fortnite are on the decline. It's all fool's gold that was inflated by unsustainable pandemic numbers.
@naruball Yeah it's hard to argue with the money. And given how Sony are operating in a space now where any successful third party GaaS game can be bought out by a mega corp, they have to at least try to develop something themselves to keep the budgets funded for the single player projects.
When it was first announced that they had 10 gaas games in development we made some predictions, and filling in the gaps with what we've learned since I've been guessing these 11;
Factions is in trouble for sure, but GT7 is great and Helldivers looks fantastic. Neither will make CoD money, but they'll keep ticking along for the next few years into next gen.
Horizon though, if that's done right it could be something special.
I would echo some of the comments above and say that I'd prefer if they left the online stuff to someone like Bungie and possibly Haven, but if one of the others has a solid idea for an online title they should be allowed to explore it too.
And besides, the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 will be packed with big single player games.
They're not moving away from single player, they're trying to expand their scope.
I'm okay with it as long as nobody is having their arm twisted or anything like that.
Shock horror : Products that customers don’t want turn out to be unpopular.
@jimbouk the only one of them that is made by Sony is Wolverine. The article is discussing Sonys first party studios. You kind of made my point for me thanks lol
Live service games suck. Give me a good single player game any day. Hopefully they see nobody really wants this and reverse course.
@jimbouk I don't think people are upset about Sony delving into live service. Focusing on 2-3 games would have been great, but 10, yes TEN, live service games is just plain ridiculous.
Well if MLB the show and gt7 r considered live service games aren't they actually doing good 🤔
@Shepherd_Tallon I'm right there with you. As someone who doesn't play any multiplayer games, if they would leave the online GaaS stuff to Bungie, that would be the absolute best for me. I think it would be the smartest strategy, too, because you can't have inexperienced teams taking a crack at it and hope for the best. That's just a recipe for disaster. Not only do you lose money, but you waste resources and you leave your loyal customers disappointed. Invest in what you do best (AAA single player games) and acquire additional teams for GaaS.
@naruball Exactly that.
If Helldivers does well enough maybe pick up Arrowhead too and just let them all do what they do best.
My focus is always on singleplayer but I'd love one big online fantasy game that keeps me coming back year after year, so I'm very eager to see what London Studio is up to.
@Sakai Surely you must know by now, 3 years into the generation that the PS Studios branding is given for both First party devs and also third party devs with whom Sony are collaborating?
Death Stranding 2 is a first party title, just see the trailer, it has the PS Studios branding on it.
And Rise, Stellar Blade and Lost Soul Aside literally has Sony's own publishing arm XDEV working on them. This is the lineup for PS Studios heading into 2024.
@IslandLogic, While I do agree that 10 is a bit too much, I was more referring to the fact that initiatives like PC Ports, Expansion into service games were all greenlit before the current CEO took over. The author of this article is misinformed in regards to that.
But such kinds of clickbait articles is nothing new for push square and only serves as cannon fodder for the " I hate GAAS crowd".
@jimbouk the article is discussing Sonys internal studios and the issues they are having, which is what my comment related to. Wolverine is the only Sony developed game you listed, which was my whole point lol
What does team ninja or kojima productions have to do with anything about the article
I must say, that whole PS5 era is disastrous. Dozens of games are multiplayer or GaaS or souls-like or rougelite. If it is different than it is just some remaster of old game. I'm trying hardly to find some action platformer (Uncharted) or arcade shooter (Super Stardust) or ARPG (Marvel Ultimate Alliance)
Every game feels like super serious, but fun is gone. Everything has huge open world, but flat content and extra short story....
I must say last gane I really enjoyed was Cyberpunk 2077. ...and it was last gen game...
You can see why, to someone who just thinks in dollar signs, GAAS is so tempting. Get it right and it’s a goldmine. But so few get it right, the vast majority fail.
For Sony especially it seems like wasted resource. That could have been spent building up their single player library, resurrecting forgotten franchises, or even Remastering all those great first-party games stuck on PS3.
@Sakai Your whole comment seemed to imply that Sony as a whole have nothing in the pipeline besides ' live service garbage" . I simply pointed out that's not the case. I wasn't even discussing the subject of the article in the first place lmao.
Also the article is simply a Jason Schreier opinion piece, he actually doesn't have any concrete info about any of Sony's multiplayer projects and is simply speculating ie; " his opinion".
good. hopefully half of the service games in development get cancelled or in some cases, transitioned over to single player experiences. sony needs to come back to reality and focus on its strengths. only allow bungie to put out the tentpole service games and utilize its strengths. as for all the other ps studios, they can continue to make single player games like they have always done instead of expecting the impossible from them (the next fortnite etc). that would be like asking nintendo to suddenly plan for 10 service games to see what sticks haha... talk about a waste of resources. we all know that the vast majority of service games that get released (some get cancelled after tens of millions of dollars were sunk into them) fail within a year or two... sony's output would/will be no different.
@CielloArc problem with that is that a Killzone with a normal multiplayer would be much more enjoyable
They should let their developers create what they want to create. Expand on them more to bring back Killzone and Resistance for some shooters. They made great games with those before. Bungie can offer guidance and tips to improve them and keep the games fresh but they shouldn’t be deciding anything. They can’t even manage their own game very well. Games should be friendly and welcoming to new players aswell as returning ones.
Naughty Dog did some great co-op with Uncharted. Multiplayer was fun too. I feel listening too much to Bungie can do more harm than good. May aswell just give them the whole project to mess it up themselves rather than taint the original developers name with a mixed game
There's a clear difference between multiplayer and live service games. Instead of focusing an delivering us fun chaotic games that we can all enjoy with or without friends, they are all too focused on planning roadmaps, microtrnsactions, multiple currencies, lootboxes, battle passes, etc. Not every multiplayer game need to last more than 5 years. They just need to be good enough to ensure more people to keep playing it. Before the servers were closed, I had way more fun with Killzone 2's and Uncharted 2's multiplayer than with mostbrecent live service games, and those didn't need to last that long to be enjoyable. Just a few dlcs and add-ons are good enough.
The one live service idea that Sony could atleast tackle on is bringing back Playstation Home.
@jimbouk Ronin is easily one of my most hyped games next year, I am a huge team ninja fan. Wo long was also awesome and one of my favourite games of the whole year
You are absolutely right, @Kraven, between the likes Fortnight, Destiny 2, Apex Legends, and even Warframe, any Live Service game needs to really stand out from the crowd. Doing that successfully is what is eluding all these developers. It's not just the creation of the game, it's continually adding to the game, keeping it fresh, and the community that plays it invested sufficiently in the game to stick with it.
If it were so easy to successfully make these kind of games, the market would be flooded with them (which would be a problem in and of itself as there are only so many gamers to go around that are interested in playing this type of game). It is absolutely no surprise to see so many of these games being shut down, often without even being released, because developing a game that sticks is ridiculously difficult.
It must be awful to work on developing this kind of game, as it must forever be in the back of your mind that if the game is canned, your job likely goes with it. Feel terrible for the Developers in this position...
I seen this article on multiple other sites yesterday and it gave me so much joy. Honestly I think it's another reason Ryan is retiring. I don't necessarily believe this is 100% his choice. Since his announcement alot more info is starting to leak out. It was his push to try and force Sonys studios to shift to GaaS and its not working out. Then you've got the Sony fan base that hates him and I know that's not a reason for him to retire, but believe me Sony is aware if it.
Sad part about this is there will be blow back for us their audience. If these titles are failing or getting canceled it could be a rough few years for us Playstation fans. Let's say hypothetical Ryan retiring and this news coming out is a sign of them shifting back, it'll take years to see anything from there teams.
From MS summer showcase you can see the moment is going to really swing in there favor the next few years because of the damage Ryan caused, and im afraid with MS's buying spree Sony my never recover.
People (mainstream and en masse) buy a PlayStation for 3 reasons: Fifa. CoD and Single Player Story-Driven games. Maybe Fortnite changed that to 4 reasons, but so what?
This has and always should be the backbone. Marketing really helped get Sony in favour as the place to play big third party games, and with Gamepass getting stagnant in terms of numbers not increasing, and Xbox generally lower sales, this should still remain the case.
You can see why Activision being pretty much team green now has them worried, but the whole live service thing started long ago, and it's probably better to just do marketing deals with any studio that happens to create the next big hit, rather than actually try to make it yourself while falling behind on your own quality single player output.
The culprit for the live service push is Jimbo Ryan. Glad you’re on your way out and won’t be missed Jimbo.
Okay, fair point, @naruball, however, I'd put money on it that if you held a poll on the choice between single-player or Live Service, that single player would win by a landslide. What you are doing is taking the most played game, and comparing it to the most played single-player game, but that's not how gaming works, that is how charts work.
Basically, yes, the most played game at the moment maybe a Live Service game, but if you were to add up all those playing single player games, then those play GaaS would be in the considerable minority. People that play single-player games, finish it and move on to the next game. You simply won't get people sticking with a single-player game, once beaten, in the way you do GaaS games. That is why the figures are skewed.
There are apparently around 140 million people that game on the PlayStation. Just how many of them are playing GaaS compared to those playing everything else?
@Quintumply Has push square already done a poll on live service games? If not I think it would be a good idea to do an in depth one
Chasing live service titles is just not a good idea. I'd go as far as to say that they are an even eviler younger brother of Episodic content. No one really wants it, except the share holders who think its some kind of cash cow.
Problem is having a reason to do a live service game doesn't make much sense. Live Service doesn't imply multiplayer either, though it tends to be the sort of game most associated with it.
That being said multiplayer has kind of plateaued as everyone predicted 20 years ago. There isn't a whole lot of innovative or uniquely new things happening in that space like back when it was new and exciting. Not that there isn't any room for growth, but that growth isn't happening. Live services was a solution to help fix that problem.
I honestly would prefer we go back to the days of expansions like what Guild Wars 2 is still doing.
Sony has no issue making good Multiplayer games. Even if a few gamers thumb their noses at sony for no good reason either becuase it isn't single player or because it isn't the multiplayer they invested 900 hours into already. Uncharted 2&3, Killzone 2&3, Socom, MAG, Drive Club, GT, most of their best multiplayer was on PS3 imo. Ironically when Online was still free lol.
What has hurt destiny over the years is its live service model, its crappy engine (in a content pipeline and updating capacity), and its lack of growth that was promised. The game just isn't a compelling experience beyond grinding some gear and getting to do raids. That experience just kept getting agonizing and less of a pay off the further you got into it and there just wasn't enough of it to justify the long hours they wanted from players. So I find it ironic that Sony bought Bungie. I still think Bungie was a bad investment.
It's fine if these studios has a great idea or even wants to bolt on an MP mode because they themselves think the single player gameplay would make sense in that space. I'm even open to creating an MMO for these games, if there is a valid reason to do so. These companies (not just sony) needs to understand is not everyone is willing to dedicate so much time on the companies terms just to fullfill their live service needs. You need people to play your game to justify charging for items in your game, as well as having a reason to buy in the first place. Something Aliens Elite Fireteam knows all to well. Evne OVerwatch is slowly learning this lesson. Using myself as an example. I love multi player games. Sunk a lot of time into them. The more convoluted they became the less interested i was in playing them. Granted I'm older now, I have responsibilities. But it isn't the responsibilities I'm struggling with. It's the fact that I've found more hobbies. The mind share has become intense. There are a lot of games. Long Games. That I want to play. I could spend another hundred on Overwatch, but I could put that into Immortals of Aveum instead. Ok what about the next 100 hours? Oh look Tactics Ogre Reborn. surely the 100 hours after that? Nope, A Plague Tale Requim. Come on the next hundred? Gotta platinum Spiderman 2. Just isn't enough time. these big live service games are an albatross of expenses to keep up and maintain.
I really do miss the days of laser focused linear narrative games, when not everything had to be live service or icon littered open-worlds with RPG mechanics and menus stuffed with skill trees 😞
You are right, @ratmsc, but I was speaking with regards to GaaS as is referred to in the article. However, the point remains, you can play the likes of Call of Duty on both the Xbox and the PlayStation. What attracts people to the PlayStation over the Xbox is the history of big AAA single-player games. There was, after all, very little difference really between CoD on the PlayStation, and CoD on the Xbox. It is everything else that is the deciding factor...
Honestly Sony deserves this. Literally nobody wanted these live service games and they kept jamming them down our throats.
You guys kept saying how those games don't take resources away from the sp games. Well we'll see if that turns out to be the case now do we. We don't even have mid budget Sony games to bulk up the line up anymore this generation. The next few years are gonna be intriguing.
@MoorePs5 I'm almost certain we've done that before, yeah. As you can probably tell from the comments, the general consensus is neutral to negative on live service games — among our readers, at least.
We've seen that non-sense fail during the PS3 era and I'm glad to see it fail again. There are more than enough mp/gaas titles on the market. Buy them (like Bungie) if you feel the need to but let the studios do what they are good at.
I have nothing against live service titles if they’re solid experiences. I mean, the Halo series combined may be my most played games (if only we had hour counters back in the day, I could verify it), even if they aren’t my overall favorite games, simply because the multiplayer aspects were phenomenal. That said, I don’t know if that qualifies as live service or not (skill based unlocks are more fun for me), but what I’m getting at is that a GAAS title could be great if it’s done well. Overwatch, Halo, Rocket League, Splatoon, even Warzone, loved them all and used them as a palette cleanser. I want games like this. I want social games. The problem, I feel, is that they aren’t necessarily being designed to be fun, but designed to maximize MTs through cosmetic unlocks (or worse… unfair advantages!). If developers started remembering that these games are party games first, we could get to a GAAS renaissance, where they can even peddle the junk because the games took fun seriously.
Now, all that said, single player is the primary reason I’d say most dedicated gamers play. Games like Elden Ring, Hogwarts, and Ragnarok prove that people are going to buy solid single player games. In fact, they’ll buy as many as the CoD and sports titles. Let’s not force studios that are successful to do things that are unknown to them if they are doing good things already. If it isn’t broke, as they say…
Where's the link or statement that puts Jim Ryan as the one solely responsible for this gaas push. Sure he's been in charge smack bang in the middle of this gaas push but is he the one genuinely responsible for it all?
@Fiendish-Beaver it's hard to tell considering that most players don't post online. They play Fifa, GTA, Fortnite, Genshine Impact, LoL, Dota (are they still a thing?), Minecrtaft or CoD and then call it a night. They don't post about it online. They don't take part in polls. My point was that people here were dead wrong about Genshin Impact and it shows why companies need to be level headed instead of listening to whoever screams the loudest.
@Bingoboyop You're absolutely right. Literally no one wanted this, since literally no one is playing live service games. Literally. Not. One.
@PenguinLtd Judging by job listings there's plenty of SP player games to come. Just because Sony hasn't announced them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Microsoft are truly the ones to blame here with the whole "Spend Sony out of business" strategy that was found out at the FTC trial (the Xbox leak also revealed Microsoft's malicious strategy at getting a monopoly). Meanwhile the FTC trial revealed that AAA is unsustainable without a separate source and Sony's separate source was 3rd party live service games like CoD so the looming threat of Microsoft resulted in Sony themselves entering the live service arena.
I wish Sony instead went the Nintendo route of having games of various sizes and better use of legacy content than going for live service (Nintendo's only live service games are mobile and those games are gradually being shutdown). But who knows if that would've worked either for Sony as a big advantage Nintendo has with their strategy is using much weaker hardware. Switch 2 may very well be Nintendo's PS4 moment.
Nobody who cares about the long-term health of the hobby wants live service games. It's just another gimmick for developers to get away with releasing unfinished, often buggy products while charging consumers for "additional content" that either should have been included at launch or is completely superfluous. Gamers' consumer rights have evaporated since online functionality became mainstream; EULAs have created a situation where they have no recourse and no say while (the larger) publishers have gotten richer than ever for less and less effort, quality, and accountability. There's no concern about game preservation either because so many online-dependent titles are simply being shut down forever; it's become a throwaway culture. Basically greed and laziness are strangling the hobby and ruining some of its biggest and most beloved franchises.
Good... 'Nuff said 🫤
Sony should focus more on single player games.and acquire more single player studios.word up son
@Quintumply I thought you must have done one before, I dont think I've heard 1 person say they're happy about it
@naruball Yeah Gaas games do make more money than single players games that's why Sony wants to go in this direction but there is more Gaas games that fail then succeed and 10 Gaas games is way to many their taking a huge risk going this direction
The damage this experiment has caused will last years. Pivoting studios to focus on live service will have resulted in attention having been diverted away from those titles that appeal to Playstation's core audience. And it will take a long time to reverse course.
They should have focussed on 1 or 2 live service titles to complement their core strengths (story focussed single player AAA titles that drove their success and identity over the past decade) rather than betting the farm on chasing trends and the dream of one of this GAAS titles hitting big.
It's not a surprise that Sony first party output has been quieter over the past few years with very little updates being provided on progress - and i wouldn't be shocked if this news contributed to Jim's departure
Uncharted 2 is the perfect example of what I want from PlayStation.
Just look at its quality, length, and tacked on multiplayer, that’s the type of experience I want, though, I prefer that at a 60$ price tag.
In other obvious news, water is wet.
What did Sony think would happen when they announced they were trying to launch 10 live service games by 2026? It's so incredibly rare that live service games become a hit. For every Destiny or Final Fantasy XIV, there's The Avengers, an Anthem, a Babylon's Fall, the OG Final Fantasy XIV. So many more fail than succeed. This live service push has likely set their launch line up back by years. Who knows when we'll see Naughty Dog's next SP game and if it will even launch on PS5.
@Psnfanboy79 it's a huge risk indeed, because they likely cost a ton of money to make, but I guess they're making 10+ because they hope that if even of one them becomes the next Fortnite or Genshine Impact (unlikely, but you never know), it will more than make up the cost of all of the rest and turn up a nice profit for years to come. Big risk, big rewards and all that jazz.
Sony just had to go there. It wasn’t enough making some of the best single player experiences in the business, selling millions and winning GOTY awards by the bucketload.
Oh no, they had to go for multiplayer and live service. And not only that, they had to force their award winning, single player focused studios into churning out “live service”, instead of leaving it for Bungie and other lesser studios. Probably in order to milk every IP to the limit.
Well, here’s the predictable result. Studios in disarray and millions down the drain.
Removed - inappropriate
@OmegaStriver Agreed 100%. That and God of War 3 are poster childs of PlayStation at its best. Sad to See things go downhill so much.
Hoping it all goes to crap and they get back to focusing on what made Sony great in the video game marketplace — single player narrative-driven games with strong gameplay mechanics.
We got Ryaned.
@OmegaStriver $60 is long gone. It sucks, but inflation happens.
There was no need to pivot, all Sony had to do was sit back and collect the 30% from other developers making GAAS and there is zero risk, but companies being companies, it's always about growth and trying to increase profit.
Coupled with a focus and PC and still making last gen games and it's pretty obvious why Jim Ryan jumped ship.
@naruball Sony collect 30% from all 3rd party games and their MTX's with zero risk, it's why Steam, Apple and Google make so much money hosting store fronts.
Sony didn't need live service games of their own, it was just pure greed and a unnecessary risk, which it seems has spectacularly backfired.
Wow, Jim really f***ed up. No wonder he's leaving.
@SoulsBourne128 playstation home is a good idea especially if they made it compatible with VR2
Jim Ryans legacy. Way to go buddy. Took a dump on the company before he left lol
What a shock. I would have never expected it. 🙄
How about course correcting? Big single player titles are what gives value to Playstation. Besides, you got Bungie now for live services. No need for a company wide pivot.
They aren’t suppose to be easy to develop. Hence most fail and the ones that do succeed are a billion dollar cash cow. Sony was never known to be a multiplayer machine. They have zero clue how to make games people play for years. They are excellent in creating movie like games that we all love. But those are one and done. Trying to create games people play for years on end is hard for any studio, but Sony has zero track record of this, so there is bound to be growing pains. I think in the long term they will get a few of them right, but in the short term it could be a little rough going. To be expected. People that say single player games are dead are wrong and people that think a console can survive in today and the future on single player games only are wrong. They need to find a good balance and in time I believe they will.
Nobody likes live services besides suits in big tech corporations.
Definitely a bad pivot. Hopefully the new management shifts to the PlayStation of old.
Home was Sony’s best live service “game”. Fat Princess after that. I bought the Pirate/Ninja/Giant add on.
@doctommaso PlayStation’s biggest 1st party titles tend to push 25+ hours, GoW for example was 70$. Then you have a game like Miles Morales that was smaller and was 50. It was still a big game though.
That’s what I’m alluding to. PlayStation should go back to focusing on games that are similar to Miles Morales in size, length, and content. Those could easily be $50-$60 and we could have releases more often. You keep hearing these big games are ballooning costs, so quit making so many big games.
I would much rather have games similar to miles every three years, then to wait every six years for a bigger game.
Dev studios didn't want to make them (but their Geordie overlord told them to - or else) and no-one wants to play them. Who could've seen that happening?
So long Ryan and thank you for nearly destroying everything I liked about PlayStation.
Now, Naughty Dog, about Uncharted 5....
@OmegaStriver Ah, I read you now. Well said.
Live service is dead or at least the market is more then fed up with these. I personally can't stand them anymore. Playstation should go back to it's roots and offer a diverse range of genre titles (like Killzone, Puppeteer, Driveclub, Little Big Planet, Bloodborne), so there's something for everyone. Even their single player games began to falter in the recent years (Horizon 2 looking awesome, but boring as hell, TLOU2 ruined by horrible writing...). For me the last good Sony exclusives were Returnal and Demon's Souls... thats not the next gen experience I was craving for...
I am thrilled bc I want the opposite. I want more small weird single player games. I don’t have anything against live service, I just won’t play them.
@TrickyDicky99 indeed, but if you consider that Genshin Impact alone made more profit that Sony did from all of those games combined, you realize why it's so important to them to get at least one successful live service game.
As a single player guy, the sooner and the more spectacular it backfires for Sony, the better, if I may selfishly say so.
This is what happens when you ignore what made you the company you are today and go chasing what everyone else is doing.
AAA Single Player games. This is what Sony is known for and what makes them win the console generation after generation. Don't fix what isn't broken.
@naruball If you consider the amount of live service games that totally flop then you'd realise it's best to just sit back and take that 30%
If AAA single player Sony games stop being made OR there starts to be massive time gaps between releases. This will literally be GAME OVER for my PlayStation days.
It's honestly pretty hilarious that Microsoft is trying to break out into AAA SP games while they have live service stuff pretty much nailed down (Sea of Thieves, Minecraft, Forza Horizon 5 and currently also Halo Infinite (yeah I know first year was rough), not to mention ABK stuff soon and TESO and Fallout 76) while Sony is in exactly opposite space. They have AAA SP games nailed down but they don't know how to break into live service.
Since single player games are my favorite, I’m happy with what Sony is best at. It’s why PlayStation is my preferred platform for most gaming.
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