Live Service Games Don't Work Anymore. (Here’s Why)

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Multi-million dollar budget, years of development, hyped-up launches, sponsored streams, and all of that just to be labeled dead in weeks.

[00:00:10]Why does it keep happening? At what point do we admit this just isn't working anymore?

[00:00:16]Today, we are going to be deep diving into whether the live service game model is dead or does a change in people's mindsets have something to do with the whole picture? This game is garbage, hot trash. Oh my goodness. I'm looking at me I'm hating on the new game right when it released. I'm the coolest.

[00:00:34]STOP!

[00:00:37]WHY ARE BIG COMPANIES still trying to cash in on all these shallow generic online shooters expecting a massive player base of MPCs when fun little indie games and well-written stories are what seems to be doing the best right now?

[00:00:51]Hit like and subscribe to help a small creator out. Get some snacks to eat as we go along today, and let's get into it.

[00:01:03]All right, let's start from the beginning so you can hopefully understand the pattern as you've been seeing this time and time again.

[00:01:11]Every once in a while, a big company within the gaming space announces this new innovative live service shooter at an awards show with a big budget and seemingly lots of potential.

[00:01:21]The hosts really hype it up, and what you're seeing looks decent.

[00:01:25]So, trailers start flooding your social media, and the game starts to gather attention.

[00:01:31]Maybe even an open play test comes.

[00:01:33]Although, some choose to take the very risky approach of just deciding to launch the game without even that, which is usually a very dumb move. Anyway, the game comes out, and most big streamers get sponsored to play it. A lot of them even praise it and say how they enjoyed it and it's their new favorite game. And then you never see them touch it again or even mention it unless sponsored.

[00:01:57]Within a week or so, actual reviews from real people start coming in highlighting the problems of the game and its player count slowly starts to dwindle.

[00:02:07]A small community of gamers may actually develop an attachment to the game, but fundamentally the live service model requires a very large active player base to work.

[00:02:17]Any fluctuations can result in massive losses for the company.

[00:02:21]I might get to that later.

[00:02:23]So, another week or two will go by and the game is now labeled dead.

[00:02:28]Nobody other than the small dedicated community cares about it and everyone else has already forgotten and moved on to the next such thing until it follows the same fate.

[00:02:38]The studios let go employees to manage the losses, but still a day comes when even running the game is futile. So, they decide to announce a date to shut it down and then the whole company falls apart if it's a smaller company, that is. I doubt Ubisoft even cared to announce the fact that it flopped.

[00:02:56]They just fired most of the employees that made it and carried on with their other projects.

[00:03:01]And if you don't remember that game, that just proves my point. It launched more than 2 years ago and got praised for being essentially a better COD. And then people played it for 2 weeks and went back to Call of Duty, so it died.

[00:03:14]Boys, this is not a recent phenomena at all. It's been happening for years.

[00:03:20]I love how we're labeling all these recent games as the new Concord when Concord was far from the first one to start the cycle.

[00:03:33]So, why does it keep happening over and over again?

[00:03:37]What's the big flaw in the live service model?

[00:03:41]You see, launching a game the traditional way with no never since the dawn of video games is very safe.

[00:03:47]Just slap a low price tag on it and people buy it, play through it, and maybe wait for a sequel that you can sell them again if the game becomes a hit.

[00:03:56]You're going to get money from the gamer when they buy the game, and that's it.

[00:04:01]Stuff like microtransactions and loot boxes weren't really a thing till like 2015-16.

[00:04:07]And those were just the beginning.

[00:04:09]As some of you know, Fortnite was the first huge game to really popularize the free live servers game that only relies on cosmetic in-game purchases movement.

[00:04:19]Although some of the games we're going to be talking about today aren't even free and still do that. But anyway, the sheer profits it generated back in like 2018 to 2020, when it was super huge and every kid was doing the dances, made other companies also dream about a piece of that.

[00:04:36]And in fact, within a couple of months, we already saw multiple live servers failures following the exact cycle I discussed.

[00:04:44]The corporate world saw that while initially risky, the Fortnite model is very, very profitable and surprisingly sustainable when it works, which as we've seen is not very often.

[00:04:55]So why not take the gamble multiple times until it does finally work?

[00:05:00]If you're a huge company like Sony, you can afford to lose a couple of times until you finally score a win. And when you eventually do that, you can milk it for as long as possible.

[00:05:10]Sell the people the game and get them hooked, and then sell them a battle pass every 2 months and shiny new skins in the shop every week.

[00:05:18]This way you're also guaranteeing yourself loyalty and longevity because if your players have put a lot of money in your game, it's going to be harder for them to just let it go for something else.

[00:05:29]They have already invested in your product.

[00:05:32]Yet, there are still limitations.

[00:05:35]As I briefly mentioned in the last chapter, a game that relies on microtransactions needs a huge player base as most gamers would rather not spend money on dumb cosmetics, especially in this economy.

[00:05:47]In fact, most games usually rely on a very, very small group of players called whales that give them most of their profits by essentially buying every single gooner bait skin.

[00:05:58]That's why if only 1,000 people play your game, nobody is going to buy any cosmetics cuz they won't have anyone to show them off to and they know the game won't last.

[00:06:08]And that's why High Garde got shut down barely 45 days after it came out. It couldn't even cover the server costs cuz nobody bought anything.

[00:06:17]I've been talking almost exclusively about online games and I'm sure at least somebody will flame me in the comments if I don't mention single player games that also function as a live service and need to connect to a server. And I'm not even going to waste time on that because it's just downright scummy and I cannot defend it in any way.

[00:06:36]Thank God the EU is finally in on stopping games.

[00:06:45]Now, that's basically the surface level stuff, but let's see what part the public opinion itself plays into all of this as recently there's been a lot of drama and relevant topics.

[00:06:55]Surely if a pattern repeats itself enough times, people will finally start to notice it and in my opinion, this finally happened with Concord. It became a major public discussion after that and because nowadays hating is what people do best on the internet, they immediately started to attack every single new live service game that comes out. And by attack, I mean absolutely [ __ ] [ __ ] on it.

[00:07:19]Every new game is quote-unquote the new Concord and it's trash and dead on arrival and you shouldn't try it even if it's free. You're just wasting your time if you try it. Instead, just be one of the cool kids and hate on it just for the sake of it.

[00:07:33]Yes, indeed 99% of the people saying these stuff haven't even tried the games in question and I know that because recently Marathon actually scored very positively on Steam and every single platform that requires proof of purchase in order to post a review and initially got destroyed on the ones that don't.

[00:07:52]Now, is it possible that a portion of the Steam reviews are fake?

[00:07:56]Perhaps, but surely you can't fake 40K positive to 6K negative reviews, right?

[00:08:02]Anyway, I'm not saying we shouldn't criticize products, but wanting a game to die just because without having ever played or knowing what it's about is kind of moronic. And while public reputation does play a large part, I don't think it's actually what kills games in most cases.

[00:08:20]I've been a long-term The Finals player by heart ever since day one and there was a year-long period soon after launch when everybody was saying how the game is dead and overdone slope and whatever, which was never true.

[00:08:33]The game still managed to retain a loyal player base and even slowly grew out of that reputation to where a lot of people actually praise and respect it now.

[00:08:42]Also, can we briefly mention how stupid it is to constantly obsess over player count sites?

[00:08:48]I'm not going to waste time on this as I have a whole hour's video about it in The Finals and most of the things in it apply to pretty much every single game I mentioned today.

[00:09:01]So, if good games you do good no matter what uneducated people say about them, then why exactly are all these new games failing?

[00:09:09]Well, here are my two cents.

[00:09:12]Concord was overpriced, bad and boring with extremely bland character designs.

[00:09:17]I don't think anyone ever played and said anything good about it other than woke journalists.

[00:09:23]That being said, I've also never played it, so I don't have a 100% valid opinion on it. But I've played both High Gard and Marathon.

[00:09:32]And I think that if the High Gard launch wasn't so overhyped and they did an actual play test where they saw what direction people want them to lean into, the game may have had a chance.

[00:09:42]It had okay gameplay, but was in an incredibly unpolished state and just all over the place in terms of concept.

[00:09:49]Also, blaming the gamers for it is kind of clown behavior.

[00:09:53]That being said, Marathon had multiple play tests and took into account most of people's critiques and is actually doing somewhat okay for the time being, despite the fact that it's a $40 game.

[00:10:05]Yes, it did lose players after launch, but so did The Finals and it's still here. The main problems of Marathon are that it's quite hardcore and not very beginner-friendly at first.

[00:10:16]I think the main reason people actually [ __ ] on the game is because they really hate Bungie as a company and want it to fail.

[00:10:24]My roommate used to be a long-term Destiny player and wouldn't touch Marathon exactly for that reason, quoting, "It's just a greedy company with a history of not treating its players well."

[00:10:35]But anyway, let's finally answer the question from the beginning. Is the live service model dead?

[00:10:43]Unfortunately, the answer ain't simple.

[00:10:46]What I can say though is that there are so many great games coming out right now that don't follow that model and they are doing amazing.

[00:10:55]And while I don't think a new Fortnite is going to come out anytime soon and generate such record profits again, as that niche is just way too oversaturated, you never know what the future holds. I assume the people that actually work in the industry and have a lot of experience have good reasons to keep doing what they are doing.

[00:11:13]It may be dead for us, as in the fact that we don't enjoy these types of games anymore, but if they are still doing it, then it somehow still generates profits.

[00:11:23]Also, when it comes to people hating and stuff, that's just one suggestion from me, but maybe we should try having a more positive outlook.

[00:11:31]Like at the end of the day, not everything has to be about comparisons and politics.

[00:11:37]If you like the game, play it. And if you don't, then it is what it is.

[00:11:41]Games are meant to be fun. And if something isn't fun to you, there are way more productive ways to use your time.

[00:11:49]I recently decided I'm burnt out on online games in general. So, I went on a little adventure, doubling in some single-player story games I could get my hands on through Steam sales and also free stuff on Epic.

[00:12:02]You know, as a self-sustaining 20-year-old, I can't really justify paying AAA tax regularly. And yet, I still managed to have a ton of fun. So, I recommend you do the same thing at some point.

[00:12:13]There are both great classics and pretty fun indie games to explore and have a good time with, even on a budget.

[00:12:21]Anyway, I want to know what's your opinion on the gaming industry right now.

[00:12:26]Do you think the model is dead or there are still good live service games coming out? And also, have you ever taken a break like me and what game recommendations can you give me?

[00:12:37]Thank you for watching till here and I'll see you in the comments.

[00:12:41]All right, boys. I hope you enjoyed this, as it's a stray from my usual The Finals content. I already did one of these broader topic experiments earlier this year and I have ideas for many more to come.

[00:12:54]Also, I'm happy I finally got to put all of that random footage I had laying around to use.

[00:12:59]Anyway, if you haven't noticed, I've decided to kind of give up on my short-term channel success and will from now on be doing and talking about stuff I enjoy, both The Finals and the gaming scene in general.

[00:13:13]I'm here for the long game and it's better that way, instead of just doing the same thing until I burn out.

[00:13:20]I've been so busy lately with some IRL stuff that I would love to share, but it's just a bit too early. So, I guess you'll need to wait for my next outro.

[00:13:30]Anyway, if you enjoyed this video, click the one on the screen from last year where I discussed how the quality of FPS games has progressively fallen off over the years.

[00:13:40]I appreciate you watching till the very end and I'll see you next time. Peace.