That's the question asked in this article: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-live-service-game-bubble-looks-ready-to-burst/1100-6511171/#comments-block-33597461
A brief recap of what it says ('cause I know we're all to busy to
click on it and read it for ourselves ;-):
While some games - Fortnite in particular - are thriving, a number of live-service games - including Knockout City, Anthem, Apex Legends
Mobile, Rumbleverse, Marvels Avengers - have closed or are closing
soon. Which ones live and which ones die seems disconnected from their quality or value; even popular games with users numbering in the
millions are being shuttered. Is a sign that the live service 'bubble'
is going to soon burst? And what does that mean for the industry and
the hobby?
Now, the article makes a number of assumptions, the largest being that
there is a 'bubble' with live services. God knows I've little use for
games that (often pointlessly) embed live-services and
microtransactions into their games (often to the detriment of the
gameplay itself). There might be a bubble in people trading for the
hats and other cosmetics they get from these services (but probably
not), but the services itself? Probably built on far sturdier
foundations based on psychological manipulation tactics of getting
people to buy stuff they really don't want or need. If that's a
bubble, so is the almost the entirity of the Western economy.
Still, there article does - somewhat tangentially - bring up the fact
that these services aren't only demanding our money, but our time. In
order to get real value from these services, you have to dedicate much
more time to a game. A product like Fortnite might, ten or twenty
years ago, have occupied a player for a few hundred hours tops before
they moved on to a different game... now - with its hats and seasonal
passes - people play the same game for months or years. And if you
vary your gaming 'diet' a bit, there's only so many free hours in a
day that you can waste on games. Which means there's only so many
games you can play per year. Which means that - with live services -
people are going to buy fewer games.
All of which makes the market for games smaller, not larger. It's sort
of like how streaming video services (Netflix, HBO, Disney, etc.) have expanded to the point where you have to select one or two. You just
can't afford - because of limited time or money - to have them all.
And then the services wonder why they're losing subscribers.
Except games - not backed by major media networks - have much smaller
margins and their developers can't afford to keep them running long
enough to establish an audience. Hence the closures.
So another reason to hate live-service games. But a bubble? Still
don't see it.
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