Like It or Loathe It, This Is Why Sony Won't Stop Trying to Make Live Service Games for PS5

That's fine they can keep making them and I'll keep not buying them.

I think even the biggest idiot can see why Sony are chasing the GaaS bag… it’s just that it fails so often. It’s like taking your life savings to Vegas… sure you might come away with a big win, probably not though.

Bro, you’re preaching to the atheist society

@AdamNovice
I don’t assume it’s gameplay is trash, I assume it’s designed to keep me “engaged” in its world through drip feeding content and, often, trying to get me to play with randoms online. Therefore I understand it is not for me at all, as I prefer to experience a wider number of games alone.

That said, most are reskins because they are appealing to the same market in an attempt to get the same spend as those that are very successful.

"The company’s goal, then, is to build a game it owns and controls where it takes 100% of the revenue generated."

Exactly that. And the last thing they want is for Valve to get the other 30%.

You could argue that it will come at the expense of single player games, @get2sammyb, if teams like Bend are taken off making single player games in order to make Live Service games...

And I hope they keep getting more concord level disasters as karma

@Fiendish-Beaver The Days Gone 2 pitch was for a fully co-op shared world game, not a single player game. That sounds like a studio that took themselves off single player games.

I think they should set up separate studio(s) to do live service games. Not tasking studios famous for single player experience with producing GaaS products.

@get2sammyb no 💩

@AdamNovice Live service design inevitably changes game experience for the worse. There will be grinding, to keep players engaged. It will become harder to play on my own pace unless I'm okay with missing content which will be tied to daily, weekly and monthly events.

So, not necessary trash. Just in general worse.

I shall stick to my single player games, thank you

In the spirit of not sounding like a broken record, here are some live services I would be okay with PlayStation making:

>a cartoonish kart racer featuring classic PlayStation mascots
>a life/social sim
>a PlayStation Home successor
>a new Twisted Metal game
>a super gory PvP FPS that has fast-paced action and verticality like Titanfall

Despite my public statement that "PlayStation has no business in live services," there are ways to get even someone like me onboard. Helldivers II is great, for instance. The problem is that Hermen Hulst and his ilk have zero knack for embracing unique and weird ideas, and they are way too up their own asses with PlayStation being this slick and shiny brand.

This is a bit of a simplified way of looking at it. Sony is making its money off of pre-established big hitters. That will continue to happen regardless of what they do.

There is no way these live service failures haven't stung them a bit, hence the reason they have cancelled so many of them. I predict another single player game pivot, with the occasional live service game sprinkled in.

There's nothing wrong with live service games especially under two conditions.
1. They are fun.
2. Don't abandon other types of games like single player games.

Not sure why gamers cry so much though.

Live service comes in many shapes and forms, it just doesn't help Sony thinks a bunch of extraction shooters will hit the mark.

Why don't they just accept that Genshin Impact has captured the live service market and take their 30% cut from this and already popular games?

Sony will never make a live service for PS5 that will take off moving forward. Concord failed. Fair games will fail.

The thing I worry about is that Sony DO get a hit, something as big as Fortnite. It’s the greed that will follow and they will literally keep going, turning all their studios into live service. They just wouldn’t stop at one game being a hit and they will chase more. I have zero interest in live service, I want single player games, and I worry about that being jeopardised, but I do understand the financial gains that come with success. It’s just a huge worry..

@AdamNovice There is a lot of cherry picking when they say that...

I think this article does bring up important information. I hate it, but the reality is that a vast amount of gaming revenue is microtransactions. The enthusiast crowd here on Push Square is only a small portion.

As I’ve mentioned before, my issue is the way PlayStation approached their strategy of funneling its resources into chasing the service game market. They committed the greatest portion of their studios toward that effort, and now they are all being cancelled and shut down.

A better strategy would have been more targeted exploration of the GaaS arena, and not assigning nearly every studio a live service game to develop. Harness that vision better, like focused projects from maybe 3 or 4 studios should have been plenty, rather than 12 or whatever it was.

@CielloArc To be fair Bungie had already decided Marathon was going to be that even before Sony bought them.

I'm personally wouldn't mind Sony chasing the live service trend, making one or two live service games. But as long as they keep prioritized making their bread & butter: single player games either AA, AAA, or both.

Maybe they should continue leeching off of existing live services rather than investing that profit in their own ones that keep failing.

@johncalmc Yeah, I’m with you, and I think that’s was the Factions project was. I believe Druckmann said that it had a robust storyline and was on par with the single player world building at which Naughty Dog excels. Most players feel like it would have been a hit. In the end it was going to consume too many resources to make it work, or whatever it was they said.

But I definitely agree with you. Naughty Dog does need to stay in their sphere, but certainly another studio could take up the mantle of making their usual high quality single player output into a live service. Like maybe Bend or Housemarque.

Since they're eager to keep chasing this why not give The Last of Us online to a different studio and have Druckman oversee rather than bungie? They threw money at Concord why not at this too?

While I entirely understand the sentiment of the article, I do wonder if the current market trends that Sony are chasing are somewhat indicative of the newer, 'younger' generation of gamers, and what passes for entertainment among them. Case in point- most of the games listed are free to play; ergo, the earnings come from being a platform holder and taking in microtransactions: "Skins for the wins".

The problem being, those of us who grew up with a PS and favour actually paying for a game, that feels complete and then can be finished and put away, is we feel like the current direction is disregarding the loyalty of said long time user base, in favour of the trends that (it seems most of us) we disdain.

I think shifts in culture; having streamers, and the apparent commodification of being a 'celebrity gamer', have also had this (in my opinion) negative impact on the market, where they appear to be controlling the direction of these trends and hence, the profitability of live service games. I feel like most gamers would be rather playing as many different and varied games, than collecting likes for streaming and playing the same game over and over. That doesn't make you a fan of games, it makes you a fan of "game x", and it has a clearly detrimental effect on the industry as a whole.

I'm not Sony shareholder so I don't give a crap what's profitable for them. I never payed micro transaction and I never will.

We all know it makes money, why would anyone chase it if it didn't also I am sorry but when has a so called "golden goose" stopped a company from finding the next one. It never ends and you are naive to even suggest this. Sony can do whatever it wants and I can keep ignoring it but let's be real about this live service push not affecting single player games.

@Oram77
I know, my gripe with it is more the fact they are trying to make the genre work falling in the same old pitfalls instead of analyzing why it doesn't work.

Just goes to show that the majority of gamers enjoy live service games, and those that detest them on this site are the minority.

If you can beat them, join them. Can't wait for concord 2, the new fairgames game (where the studio boss already quit), and many more. Heck, forget concord 2, I can't wait for concord 3

@ChrisDeku is that real? I pay really careful attention to the games industry and I never heard that...

@somnambulance problem is they need live service they can't just stop

Think about it Ms bought big company with live service such as cod

Sony needs there own stream of income

Unfortunately single player games not gonna cut it it dont make as much money as live service.

There an reason they keep trying to make one they will lose their spot

They could add some elements of live service in single player games but again people complain

Times have changed people

"If Sony finds its golden goose, then it’s not going to come at the expense of the single player games we know and love; if nothing else, it’s going to help the platform holder bankroll said risky projects for years to come."

You're argument is completey at odds with reality. Chasing live service projects completely tanked the single player output of this entire generation. Not only that but Sony tried both. They forced their pedigree studios to try and make one of these schemes and failed, and they also bought studios that specialize in or were wholly dedicated to making them and those also failed or are about to.

The reality is, that those big microtransaction money makers like cod, gta, hoyoverse slop, fortnite, roblox, apex, etc, Have been the only ones to to really put up such numbers for a long time now and have been at the top for the better part of a decade or more as they were the essential founders of the entire goose. They have the market share and it's been proven time and time again that nothing else has come even close to achieving what those games produce because the idea of pulling people away from them actually doesn't make sense.

The few that do have some moderate success, albeit nowhere near these giants. they have done so with unique breakout experiences of which Concord, fairgame, marathon, defiant, blah blah blah are not. Sony is trying to find a golden goose in what's already been done. Done better and the marketshare for that slop already eaten up. They learned nothing from hell divers as to why it was a mild success.

The true strategy would have been merely to invest in the giants already pretty much owning the predatory scheme market and thus take more slices from their profits and in tern making it the premier platform to play them on, which in some aspects is already happening as they are the dominant console in terms of player base.
Then make what you became successful with, marquee single player experiences.

Instead this generation from the first party front has been cash grabs, price gouging, hardware sales, remasterakes and failures. Yet yes they had record profits, ironically not just the 30% from mtxs, but the other 70% from subscriptions, third party digital sales, and more. Not to mention those record profits would have been even higher had they not had massive losses from Concord, and the half dozen or more other canceled projects they had their other studios working on for the entire generation while they pushed out AI led remasterake cash grabs.

It's pretty hard to keep making this golden goose argument when we see it failing and player sentiment toward new iterations to this unicorn chasing waning.

@bleeflooflah it's open and publicly available information as disclosed by the game Director but people chose to ignore it

Another week/month and another article why Push Square doesn't understand why people hate live service games.
It's not the genre as a whole it is the way most of these games ARE SET UP in a way to squeeze the last euro out of the gamer. Unfinished games on release, drip feeding content, broken updates, lack of support, missable content, ... The list keeps going.
Also: people don't have the time to grind a game for hours on end every day just to get somewhere in a game. And yet that is where these games put their focus on. To put gameplay mechanics in these games that practically forces people to buy mtx.
I'm already scared for GT8 and especially for GTA VI.
And to be honest: the frustration against live service games will keep growing.

@DDDD Sammy is an utter embarrassment at this point with his unwavering defence of live service and gatcha games. Every article he writes reads like a Hoyoverse press release, it's absolutely sickening.

@Ooccoo_Jr Imagine someone liking different games to you 🤯

"Live service" encompasses a lot of different types of games, honestly. People will flock to a fun, interesting game in this vein like Genshin or, heck, Sony's own Helldivers 2. The issue is Sony keeps investing in the most boring, generic looking multiplayer games like Concord and Marathon instead of making something that leans into their strengths as a publisher.

It also doesn't help that this is in conjunction with a fairly anemic level of quality first party support this gen for their single player titles.

It's incredible to think about how many resources Sony is blowing chasing trends as of late.

@Ooccoo_Jr So people can't enjoy live service or gacha games? 90% of console/pc gamers play those games, billions of mobile players play those games. Sammy really liking gacha games doesn't make him an embarrassment that makes him just another gamer with similar tastes to millions of other gamers.

@DDDD it's not the genre as a whole it is the way most of these games ARE SET UP in a way to squeeze the last euro out of the gamer

Strange as I've put over a thousand hours into Apex Legends and never spent a penny, hundreds of hours into Overwatch 2, HellDivers 2, Rocket League, Wuthering Waves, Tower of Fantasy, Split Gate and Warframe without spending a penny on MTX.

If a gamer wants to spend that is their choice, no one is being forced. Also with most live service and gacha games they give you enough free currency just by completing challenges and events to do a lot of free pulls and even enough to get the battle passes etc

The main crux of this is that Sony just do not have a brand to compete with the billions spent in the biggest titles. They don’t have the NBA license, the FIFA license, the NFL license, Microsoft own COD etc. So they have to make their own, which is a massively risky proposition even when you’re creating a game with a modest budget. Creating one where you need it to make billions and make it quickly? Almost impossible. Helldivers has done well but its ceiling was reached a while back, I don’t see Sony making anything that will ever reach Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, COD, FIFA numbers. If you have the numbers, the revenue comes. They lack that colossal market penetration.

If Sony wants to make good live service games, which at has every right to despite what people say, then they need to be creating interesting games in that space. They shouldn't be chasing trends. They shouldn't be slapping IP on basic mechanics and ideas. Or at least put an IP on a concept where it makes sense (like TLOU would have).

Where is there extraction shooter? Where is their racing game? Where is their concept we don't even have a name for?

They keep trying to make competitors to the big boys. They should stop and come up with original ideas that play in new spaces so that fans want to play the titles first and foremost. That's why they're simply seen as chasing trends. Nothing besides Helldivers has been truly original, which is not going to set them apart enough to pull players from the existing heavy hitters.

MAG as a giant large-scale FPS with a meta war game/front element.

A Killzone extraction shooter where you have to dip behind enemy lines and escape. (This concept could also work for SOCOM, honestly. Doing it alongside a squad would be awesome.)

Twisted Metal as a car combat battle royale.

TLOU Factions.

Hell, any of Media Molecule's games where they end up creating platforms - if marketed properly - could be huge "platform" hits like Roblox if Sony had the vision for it.

Instead they greenlit a God of War live service game and Concord. Like... how did they ever think people wanted that stuff?

Some people have a blanket hate for live service games. That's fine. The only way you'll win them over is making a game they want to play first and foremost. Sony has been failing at THAT worse than anything else. They deserve all the criticism they receive for that blunder, not chasing the golden goose.

They can keep making them. I and many others who have bought their games just will no longer do so. Their first party studio revenues will wither and they will have to do layoffs and closures and articles will be asking why this is happening

Paid DLC, and I am talking proper expansions is a good way to make extra money of a well selling SP game (you only need to add content, not design engines, gameplay systems etc - you probably already have half the world assets you need too).
Yet Sony (and others eg Hogwarts Legacy) seems intent on 'leaving money on the table here" as there are plenty great games without any real DLC. Just look at how much people who enjoyed the game are looking forwards to Lies of Ps DLC - you would think it was a sequel.

Depends on the game, I don't mind live service games. If it's a shooter, not interested. If it's 1st person, not interested. If it's a team based RPG, then I'd be interested. If it's a nice beautiful world, then I'd be interested.

Gaming is cooked

Unfortunately my comment is buried so doubt anyone will read it, but does anyone feel like the answer to appeasing fans when Sony puts out Live Service games is to have a single player portion of the game, like a campaign?

@somnambulance I assume that the issue that publishers see with this is with the rising cost of game content, assets, motion capture and the like, they assume that with the single player portion it would have to be of such a high production that the budget would just blow past something viable. Like your example, COD, look at how much it costs to make a COD game with a 4-5 hour campaign. So, I'm sure there is a way of doing this so it isn't so expensive, but it is clear that devs and publishers have not discovered it. For me, in a live service game, just give me some basic 4-6 hour campaign and I will be more than happy but with the fans on here that can't stand live service, I'm sure that won't be enough and something with the highest production values and at least 12 hours would be more their style which would only end up right back where the problem is. Too expensive. I guess I answered my question.

Someone tell Sony to give me a call. I know a game that will make you millions… FACTIONS

I have zero interest in any live service Garbage at all if that's the way sony want to go I'm done with them

A pretty often over looked game just got another update gt7 has been a pretty successful live service game , not to mention years later no man’s sky is still getting updates.

If there is a game which You like and it gets continuously updated. What is the problem with that ?

For example, GT7 is one of the greatest psvr2 games and a live service game although never really called like that.

GTA V is presumably one of the most successful live service games. But maybe people just bought it on every system multiple times because of the single player content?

Anyway I don't get it why people automatically hate on every sony game that carries the live service sticker without even waiting for the game to come out. Marathon seems to have a very cool world and also seems to play well. I am not really much into multiplayer games, but if there was a psvr2 version I would definitely give it a shot.

I’m genuinely ok with live service games. What I’m not ok with is the fact that the vast, vast majority of them do nothing new but instead copy paste existing games and just slap a new coat of paint over it.

Live services can be good. The studios making them just need to be creative and that’s hard apparently.

most of sony's revenue is generated from 3rd party games... which means sony themselves don't need to take the risk in creating their own live service games! they are in a positon of privilege. why squander your own resources with such risky and high probability of failure projects if you don't have to?! have the shareholders become gamblers and are content on losing more money with all these failing projects? if the goal is to lose money, then sure, keep walking down this path. it makes far more sense to sit by the sidelines, encourage the other publishers to take the risks, find the needles in the haystacks, capture lightning in a bottle... than it does for sony to do so based on their horrendous track record.

Totally get why Sony wanted some first party live service games,especially after the Activision buyout, as insurance on GTA or Fortnite etc.,having such fates.

However,the manner in which Jim Ryan went with Hermen Hulst as his "yes" man (& pushing aside the experienced Shuhei Yoshida,& possibly even before him Shawn Layden), into Indies ,has continued to be a circus!🙄

Trying to come up with the next Minecraft, Fortnite, GTA Online,COD etc.,is hard, no question....but the Netflix like dartboard greenlighting, especially between the Bungie purchase (and some of their staff seemingly having Hermen's ear enough to get green lighted into spin off start up studios to make the likes likes of Concord or pushing all their top first parties into online games with largely similar sized teams as had been doing single player projects (thus causing others like say Bluepoint being dragged away to be a support studio in between),was a shambles.

He could had considered using the remaster masters to say convert the Resistance games, or LBP, Motorstorm or others that had mtx & test the waters on a full reboot/new pame.
But given the rare instances we'd hear Mr Hulst when he wasn't talking up Spiderman, TLOU & its streaming spin offs, or HZD,(& I like HZD), or how "just wait til you see our multiplayer stuff!", I would note he seemed to ignore Sony's gaming back catalogue of IP's in a way Shu Yoshia or Shawn never would.

Then he wonders how the likes of Concord & other projects not only he but worldwide studios people (including ex Guerilla colleagues he's surrounded himself with), or the Bungie advisory group loved seemingly aren't gelling with actual players whom he's never had the relationship with online like Yoshida etc did?

There's a difference in hiring people who'll talk you what you want to hear & those that'll tell you on occasion what you need to hear.

The problem I have with live service games is that they almost always seem to set devs up to fail. There'll always be probably no more than three domineering 'services' in a single ecosystem, because how can people have time enough to play ostensibly infinite games and share their hours between, say, half a dozen?

So it's worrying to me from a developer standpoint, because it seems like nine out of ten of these nascent IPs end up flagging. The surviving one ends up becoming some cynical, microtransaction-swamped vehicle for profiteering.

The problem is they are sacrificing their own identity to chase the GAS dream.

No one's gonna buy a console just to pay for MTX. People buy consoles cuz of the solid console games.

I think like anything, most of the games that have become successful, really wasn't trying to become what they have, sure they wanted success, but I doubt they ever dreamt it would be this popular for them. Sony are constantly chasing it, not leading it. So they will always be behind. They'll be a new invention of game and that will become the next thing, but I doubt it will be someone chasing the pack.

Chasing the games as a service trend for the almighty profit at the expense of consumers. One may be a winner but it's going to disappoint the silent majority that want more Twisted Metal, Ape Escape, Legend of Dragoon, MotorStorm, Resistance, Killzone, Sly Cooper, The Getaway, Bloodborne, Wild Arms, Gravity Rush, Little Big Planet, Syphon Filter, Warhawk,

They should remake/reboot Warhawk. That game was amazing and a lot of fun. Would be great as a live service.

Doesn't mean I have to buy them.

@Th3solution Make two or 3 good service games instead of trying to make everything liveservice i totally agree. Things like Twisted Metal could that not be standalone game with extra cars like they do in COD maybe even extra levels and bosses. Storymode with online multiplayer.

@1UP-HUSKY I agree why they just wont do that and they have some other games. How about MAG, Socom.

@AdamNovice Because GaaSes are trash at it's core. As same as casino or mobile games. No matter how it looks, it's purpose is always about robbing you with copy/paste mechanics.

@Flaming_Kaiser those would be great to. They could even only make remasters of those games. They have so much potential IP's, it's sad they aren't able to see it.

@UltimateOtaku91 I disagree. I think it shows the majority of 'people ' like live service games, but most 'gamers' prefer single player. Most people aren't gamers.

@somnambulance I agree with you, they were more fun. Or at least, the fun that they output resonated more with us. I see people enjoy those games that you listed and they have a lot of fun with it. But for me, I haven't had fun playing Fortnite since 2018 when it came out, COD was only fun for me when I was playing zombies with friends, I dislike Apex quite a lot.

I agree with you, but I think those new live service games are still fun, but for a different audience.

@1UP-HUSKY How did they not give things like Infamous a new lick of paint. Damn i think i would like it better then Spider-Man.

Shadow of the Erdtree is listed as ‘Add-on content’.

Are they bundling in their numbers DLC packages categorized as ‘Add-on’s’?

If they are, their numbers are seriously inaccurate and misleading. Hope their investors realize it.

@somnambulance yeah, easy to be doom and gloom about it, as many do on this site, but I think gaming is in a good place at the moment. What needs to improve though is devs and publishers limiting the amount of money they pour into games and adjusting their estimations on returns so it is commercially viable for smaller and mid size games to thrive.

About Apex, I don't know what it is about that game but it is some of the least fun I've had in live service. And I've played Destruction All-Stars (not boring but after two rounds gets old fast). I don't know if its the unengaging premise of a gameplay loop that involves shooting, running and shooting again or the fact it plays like a loose adaptation of Titanfall but I simply don't like that game lmao.

@somnambulance yeah man we got so much backlog as well, I find it hard to play everything I want to! Yet to try Alan Wake, game looks bonkers so maybe when I get to Control I'll just go straight into AW2 after that. I'm really excited for Ghosts of Yotei, DS2 and System Shock 2.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with that Apex feeling because everyone I speak to about it loves the game. I feel like I'm being gaslit

If Sony stops making singleplayer games outright and shifts to producing only free-to-play titles then 100% of their revenue can come from live service games. They can do this immediately and have that to report to shareholders next quarter.