Live Service

Sep 9

Posted by

In “researching” my Concord post, I came across this IGN article in which analysts were asked why the game failed. One answer in particular was extremely interesting in a state-of-the-industry way:

“Live service games have a high failure rate,” Deane said. […] But while the risks are big, so are the rewards. It’s no secret that many of the highest-earning games in the market today are live service games. According to our data, only about 16% of the total revenue of the games market now comes from traditional full-game sales. Publishers are going to keep chasing that 84%.”

On the one hand, it shouldn’t be that shocking, right? Fortnite, Genshin Impact, GTA Online, Call of Duty, every MMO, and almost every mobile game are all live-service titles. Fortnite by itself generated an estimated $5.7 billion in revenue in 2023, for example. That’s per year. Genshin is another billion per year, GTA Online (aka GTA5) is approaching $9 billion lifetime revenue, and so on. Also, apparently Call of Duty mobile hit $3 billion total revenue in only four years and is now officially where the majority of CoD players are. Oh, and I guess Minecraft is also a live service game too? Another $300 million or so.

On the other hand: Jesus fucking Christ. 16%?! What the goddamn shit? Holy mother of god.

Roughly 16% of a dollar, for reference

Ahem. Well, there you go. That’s the state of the industry right now. Or I suppose been the state of the industry longer than I’ve been paying attention. If you’re interested in just making like, a game, you’re competing over literal scraps. “Why are there so many live service games these days?” Right now I’m amazed there are still regular games. Of course, 16% of $350 billion is still $56 billion, but that’s much less than, say, $294 billion. And of that much smaller number, you are competing across all the available genres of regular games. Good thing development costs aren’t too prohibitive…

Posted on September 9, 2024, in Commentary and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.

  1. bhagpuss's avatar bhagpuss | September 9, 2024 at 8:46 am

    It was most amusing to read Tobold’s post on Live Service and yours one after the other! I was going to reply to his ridiculously tunnel-visioned take on the supposed failure of the model and how it has no future but then I literally could not be bothered. It was great to read some actual facts after that. I’m not saying Live Service will be the mainstream option forever but it sure as heck isn’t going anywhere because Sony made some mistakes and one game didn’t make any money. I suspect a few people wish it did mean that, though.

    Like

    • Azuriel's avatar Azuriel | September 9, 2024 at 10:07 am

      I was very tempted to reply to his post with a link to mine, but as a persona non grata, I refrained.

      But, yeah, predicting the death of live service games when it constitutes 84% of all gaming dollars spent is… a little premature. Nevermind the fact that “live service” is a payment model, not a genre. It’s like predicting the end of movies because Borderlands flopped.

      Now, there could be an interesting conversation regarding how much space is available for newcomers into the established live service market. For example, from another article:

      Games that have been out for six years or more are responsible for over half of all playtime, and that number is going up instead of down.

      Just five games, all of which are over six years old, accounted for 27% of all playtime in 2023: Fortnite, Roblox, League Of Legends, Minecraft, and GTA 5.

      GTA 6 will likely subsume GTA 5’s numbers, but the others? Very possible they keep consuming most of the oxygen from the room, and live service dollars from wallets, for years.

      Nevertheless, established giants does not mean breakthroughs are impossible, especially in unique genres. Valve’s Deadlock is doing well, miHoYo has hits in multiple genres, and Sony’s Helldivers 2 sold 12 million copies as of May. Will we see many more hero shooters specifically? Probably not. But live service in general is here to stay, and game companies are going to chase those dollars wherever they lead. And the good (or lucky) ones will succeed.

      Like

      • SynCaine's avatar SynCaine | September 10, 2024 at 7:49 am

        Just speaking about LoL here, at this point I don’t think it’s fair to call it an older game in the traditional sense. It’s been constantly updated and evolved, and while the very core is the same (5v5 PvP), almost everything else in 2024 is different from 2009.

        At this point I’d view it more like a new professional sports league starting up when you already have the NFL/NHL/NBA/MLB going. You have to have a plan to pull eyeballs of those, because the room is pretty full as is.

        Like

  2. Esteban's avatar Esteban | September 9, 2024 at 5:32 pm

    The CoD Mobile stat blew my mind enough that I went to look at gameplay footage. It looks… really staid and reduced and arcadey. I’m not a CoD-head and maybe I’m dumb, but can you even lean or shoot into the rear quadrant while running forward? Is that what all those people – the actual CoD people – want?

    I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of the mobile blind spot. Lack of intuition about that space is going to remain one of my all-time shameful boomerisms, I expect.

    Like