Topic: Live Service Single-Player Games

I have a great idea for PlayStation. PS Plus needs to become the Netflix of video games on demand services. They need to obtain 200+ million subscribers and keep that number consistent. For this they need to introduce live service episodic games.

Think about TV shows releasing on Netflix or Disney +, there is a season with 10 episodes for example. And a new episode releases each week. PlayStation should incorporate that business model with their studios. This will eliminate all development crunch, cut budgets in half, and maximize on profits. It will also severely reduce development periods within games.

For example let's say they make The Last of Us Part 3. Rather than have Naughty Dog take 5 years to make 1 game, they should release it episodically. Meaning tiny episodic chucks of the game. Around 5 parts each consisting of an hour of gameplay, and they release months spread out. It has something for you to look forward to and they should use this format for every single first-party studio.

@RubyCarbuncle cmon why not ? Why wait 6 years for The Last of Us part 3 when you can play it episodically, with a new episode every 6 months!

looks at DLC I’ve never played due to barely revisiting games yeahhhh, not sure this would work for me.

Nah I dislike the episodic release format as I prefer my games to be released as a whole product. When one episode ends on a cliffhanger than the next one gets delayed, you then lose a bit of interest. There is a reason why no one hardly does it anymore.

Episodic releases have been tried before and haven’t done particularly well. Telltale were the poster child for the format, and although their complete failure as a studio was due to much more than their stubborn adherence to the episodic release format, I think it was part of their problem. The Hitman example is another, and actually was slightly successful but obviously IO abandoned the format eventually. Supermassive has also recently tried it with the Dark Anthology and it doesn’t seem to have been very successful.

No, I don't think this will work.

Maybe for certain games that might work but not for single player stuff. Most gamers seem to move from game to game and tend not to go back once they've moved. Something would have to have a pretty substantial appeal to keep people interested into going back to playing a small burst of it only to then have to wait what might be months before the next part is out.

Having not played it though I guess Destiny 2 is currently working this way where Bungie are constantly adding new campaigns but there's several downsides to how that game works one of them being campaigns getting archived. It makes it feel like it's a constantly moving target for anyone new wanting to get into the game.

@render Yeah, Destiny 2 is an example. As a latecomer it’s just too difficult now to get into for me since the older content is gone.

@lolwhatno Hitman 2 isn’t episodic, only the first season was!

I prefer my games to be complete products.

The live service model of content release is my only issue with the otherwise stellar Monster Hunter Rise, for example, and it's why, despite grinding the endgame bosses after finishing it at launch, I never ACTUALLY finished the story part of the game: the last story boss was patched in months after release, when I had already moved on to other games.

@Th3solution in the case of Hitman, they didn't do it because they thought episodic was better than waiting for the full game to be finished. They just didn't have enough money to make a full game and got lucky that many of their fans were happy to pay full price for the promise of an eventually finished game

I'm not too fond of live service games either. I like games to feel complete, and to have a definitive ending to them. Plus live service too often has a FOMO aspect to them, requiring them to be played in a certain timeframe to avoid missing out on content. That turns the game more into an obligation than a fun activity.

The two series that I can make exceptions for are Hitman and Monster Hunter. That's mainly just because I enjoy them so much, but also because they were still quality games at launch. However, the episodic launch of Hitman 1 did put me off from trying it out.

I have 'zero' interest in episodic games. Its been done before with the Telltale games (Walking Dead, Batman, Wolf among Us etc) and of course Hitman 2. However, I would rather have the 'complete' experience to play at my own pace and know whether or not its 'worth' starting.

Just because games maybe 'given' as part of a Subscription service, doesn't mean that they are not 'sold' - either to non-subscribers or to Subscribers who want to keep the games and/or support the developers. They may get 'some' money just because you 'tried' the game (or for putting the game into a subscription service) but if wish to support them more, you can buy to 'keep'.

I'd rather wait until ALL the Content is out to know whether its worth trying. Its also difficult to 'review' a game if you only have a 'small' section of the story. Some stories/games start 'slow' and over time build up into a far more 'complex' and interesting game. You don't have access to the skills, perks, weapons etc to bring the variety or complexity. Imagine if Fallout was 'episodic' and the first episode was just the 'vault' you start in. Or you just get 'Chapter 1' in Last of Us, Uncharted etc -no thanks!! I'll wait for 'everything' before I start...

isn’t that what genshin impact is ? though i understand if that ain’t your cup of tea .