Over the years, there’ve been various red flags in gaming, for me at least. Multi-media. Full-Motion Video. Day-One DLC. Microtransactions. The latest one is Live Service Game. I find the idea repulsive because it immediately tells me this is an online-required affair, even if it doesn’t warrant it. There’s no reason for some games to require an internet connection when the vast majority of activities they provide can be done in a single-player fashion. So I suspect Live Service Game to be less of a commitment to truly providing updated worthwhile content and more about DRM. Instead of imposing Denuvo or some other loathed 3rd party layer on your software, why not just require internet regardless of whether it brings value to customer?
What do you think about Live Service Games? Do you prefer them to traditional games that ship finished, with potential expansions and DLC to follow later?
Very much so, because to me it openly announces that the game is centered in its design about something between:
- Microtransactions
- Extrinsic motivation
- FOMO
None of those are a good story, great characters, good world building or good intrinsic gameplay design. And they don’t need to be for a live service game, but it also means it’s inherently worse as a game than the same underlying idea not developed as a money squeeze service.
Unless it’s an MMO, or something like an online aRPG, the tag “live-service” immediately means that you’re fully expecting to release an unfinished game, collect your preorder money, get backlash for the game being unfinished garbage, and then release a few patches as a “Sorry we got caught” excuse.
The days when you’d buy something, and you would know that is the final version of your software, have been over for a long time
Live Service Game, the idea…I find unappealing and just plain skippable. Live Service Game, the phrase…is so much better than “Game as a Service.”
But hey, not every game/genre/delivery method is going to appeal to everybody. The industry is big enough to cater to multiple niches, even if some are much (much, much) bigger than others. I’m happy that people can find whatever game they like, and I can find my favorites as well. That doesn’t make anybody more correct than the other.
“Service Games”, gotcha games, games with excessive DLC (looking at you sim games), internet required and Denuvo games are all hard passes.
I don’t have the time to play live service games. The next time I play a game it might be completely different? No appeal to me at all
I have nothing against mmo/live/gaas games but the quality is never there to justify it. If anything gaas have less content than a singleplayer offline game. It’s a total bait and switch.
I’m not a fan of it. I think live service games generally comes with battle passes, which are essentially preordering DLCs. DLCs that have not been announced, with no details and nothing else. They also often offer some exp bonus or in game items. I think this has an impact on how the game is balanced. The bonuses can’t be game breaking so they have to nerf the base game experience to make it “valuable”.
I think it can be done well if the base game is free. Dota 2 and csgo are good examples of it because the bonuses that come with battle passes are mostly cosmetic, and they help the support game development. If the base game is £60, then the company can fuck off. I prefer standalone games with expansion packs being released at a later time. Being able to play offline is also great, even though I am rarely without Internet access.
On one hand constant updates and continuing a games longevity can be nice, but in reality it usually just means fomo which I despise.
Not at all a problem for me. I pretty much only play competitive shooters/racing games, so live service is a pretty important part to both genres.
Much prefer it to the older DLC models where DLC content would be dead half the time because nobody would buy it.
Edit: Love that the Lemmy hivemind is as bad as Reddit. Can’t have anyone disagreeing with you
It used to not be. FPS games were run by players, not corporations. The ability to run your own dedicated server was baked into the game. Today you can still setup a Quake 2 server without having to rely on the publisher or a 3rd party. It doesn’t have to be that way today, but people accept it.
I absolutely will accept it because it brings better gameplay. FPS games are more fun when there’s constant balancing changes and new content on a schedule. It’s infinitely better than older game models where if one thing is broken you’re stuck with it for the entire lifetime of the game.
Being able to run my own dedicated server isn’t even something I’d want to do, nor would I want to play on player hosted servers.
When games go EoL, sure, require them to open source the multiplayer engine. But really, it’s not a big deal that an individual can’t host a Battle Royale server.
I absolutely will accept it because it brings better gameplay. FPS games are more fun when there’s constant balancing changes and new content on a schedule. It’s infinitely better than older game models where if one thing is broken you’re stuck with it for the entire lifetime of the game.
How is this different than Valve continuing to patch Team Fortress 2 decades after its release? There’s no Live Service model here.
Being able to run my own dedicated server isn’t even something I’d want to do, nor would I want to play on player hosted servers.
I think that’s true for most people, but a small number of a community can support the vast majority. It would ensure a game isn’t dependent on a company to exist, either.
When games go EoL, sure, require them to open source the multiplayer engine. But really, it’s not a big deal that an individual can’t host a Battle Royale server.
If that was an actual practice that’d be great. There’s no incentive for the publisher to do this, however, and they’re profit driven.
TF2 was technically a Live Service when it was actively receiving updates. The fixes that are added by valve are an outlier, and doesn’t change game balance. Constant balance changes are a necessary part of any competitive game. I’ve got no interest in something that isn’t being updated semi-frequently.
Self hosted servers don’t make sense in most of these games anymore. Communities like this vastly overestimate the want for custom servers. Most gamers don’t really care, for better or worse.
Op, I think you’re a little confused. I can’t think of a live service game that isn’t a multiplayer game in some form. the required online is because that’s literally what the game is.
Be mad about the scummy lootbox practices that prop it up, don’t be mad that other people like online games.
“in some form,” being the key part of that. Someone mentioned Diablo 4. It doesn’t have to be always online. Gran Turismo 7 is another example. It’s a trend.
Butnot a problem in free to play games, not in full price gamesNo and I think it’s kind of silly that people find the mention of the term so upsetting. Content aside, I like multiplayer games. I’ve been playing them for years. The idea of a multiplayer game that gets content updates is nothing new. CoD (just one example) has been doing it since 2008 and I’m supposed to be upset with that now that the big chunks of content they release are free and it has a different term describing it?
Like I said, just one example, but that’s generally how it goes. And you’re free to buy whatever cosmetics you want. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been one for microtransactions and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything because skins I’ll probably never use are up for sale. Which is the flip side to more complete content packs being sold.
Also, the idea that games are unfinished simply because they’re offering more content is weird to me.
Multiplayer games are great. I think the upsetting part is that from the word Go, whether it warrants being a Live Service Game or not, it implies an expiration date and an online-only requirement. When I bought Overwatch, I never heard them describe it as a LSG. Maybe they did and it just didn’t register. What I know though is that having bought 2 copies, one for PC and the other for PS4, I cannot play those games now and in their place is a reportedly substandard product (one I didn’t pay for or ask for).
So now I have this game which I loved and still played occasionally is gone because the publisher made a decision to expire it arbitrarily (read: to get people to pay them more money).
Overwatch could’ve run on player driven servers. Much of this stuff can. That might only serve a few thousand or few hundred people 10 years after launch, but that’s the right thing to do.
You really missed out not playing Command and Conquer
I played C&C, Red Alert 1, 2 and 3. Tiberian Sun was bad.
Just closed your eyes during the FMVs?
I love Red Alert’s, they’re still funny. :D
I’m fine with it, if it’s fun enough. I’m no gaming activist/snob.
I’m grateful for activists, particularly those with a focus on archiving gaming. That’s another area where I think supporting Live Service Games might be shortsighted on the part of the consumer. By accepting it as a practice, ownership is ceded toward the publisher or creator. We’re less owners and more renters when it comes to gaming property.
I remember when I bought Street Fighter 2 for the SNES and realized, I no longer have to go to the arcade to play this game. I no longer have to submit an endless amount of quarters to play what I can play endlessly at home for a one-time fee. It was an amazing feeling. And with LSG it’s like we’re coming back around.
Doesn’t annoy me in the least bit. I think most gamers are whiny and entitled the second something isn’t 100% catered to them.
