Every big publisher was chasing forever games, until reality set in
This article is part of a directory: The lost generation Previous The messy truth about Final Fantasy 16 and the PS5
For more than a quarter-century, game makers have chased live-service games. Ultima Online, Everquest, and World of Warcraft turned game buyers into long-term subscribers, and in the wake of Blizzard's breakout success in the MMO space, many game studios tried and failed to create their "WoW killer."
The race to make the next great forever game reignited with the explosion of multibillion-dollar games like Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto Online, and Minecraft, some of which have been around for the better part of a decade (or longer), but which still dominate player engagement charts year after year.
In their attempt to usurp these venerable gaming juggernauts, game publishers have made massive, risky bets during the current generation, hoping to secure the next forever game. Flush with cash and no shortage of hubris, companies like Sony, Warner Bros., and Square Enix have tried -- and spectacularly failed -- to transform themselves into games-as-a-service publishers, oftentimes in defiance of their own identities. The aforementioned publishers are responsible for some of the best single-player games ever made, but that success does not guarantee a repeat in the world of multiplayer, forever-updated, microtransaction-fueled video games.
Since 2020, the year the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X launched, dozens of big bets in the live-service space have come and gone. Many have flamed out embarrassingly, resulting in mass layoffs, game cancellations, and studio closures. After record growth came reckless gambles, and fallout that may represent a "right-sizing" of the industry, but also means the loss of thousands of jobs.
How did we get here? And what does the future hold for games as a service?
Around 2017, major publishers like Electronic Arts, Square Enix, and Ubisoft and Electronic Arts identified GaaS as a significant focus for their businesses. EA's market value increased more than eightfold during the 2010s, thanks in part to the monetization strategy behind the Ultimate Team modes in its annualized sports franchises. Activision Blizzard saw similar (but smaller) growth, thanks to live-service fare like Destiny and Overwatch.
Also in 2017, Epic Games launched Fortnite, which quickly started earning hundreds of millions of dollars per month. Fortnite's battle royale pivot earned Epic an estimated $9 billion in revenue in its first two years.
As a new generation of consoles approached and launched, the U.S. video game market jumped from $45.1 billion in 2019 to $58.2 billion in 2020, in part thanks to increased spending as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the U.S. market reached $61.7 billion, an all-time record. Game publishers, hoping to carve out their niche in the live-service market, and boosted by low interest rates, quickly expanded, hiring thousands of new employees and greenlighting projects -- many of them live-service games. The results of those decisions would have a lasting impact for years to come.
The failures came quickly. Square Enix tried to replicate Destiny's success with titles like Marvel's Avengers and Babylon's Fall, both of which underperformed. Warner Bros. tried to expand beyond its cinematic, single-player, and family-friendly Lego games with another Destiny-like, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and the Smash Bros.-inspired brawler MultiVersus. Development has ended on both. Sega scrapped the live-service shooter Hyenas after years of development, before the game actually launched. Even indies tried to crack the GaaS space; Velan Studios' Knockout City and Iron Galaxy's Rumbleverse are also victims of the live-service gamble. Remedy Entertainment's recent financial woes can be chalked up to the failure of shooter FBC Firebreak to convert Control fans into live-service shooter fans.
Perhaps the biggest bet on games as a service came from Sony Interactive Entertainment, which acquired Destiny maker Bungie for $3.6 billion and then announced plans to launch more than 10 live-service games by 2026. That included a since-scrapped multiplayer game based on The Last of Us IP, a reportedly canceled God of War game, and the infamous Concord, the first-person shooter that shut down and saw its entire development studio shuttered just weeks after launch.
Sony has since retreated from that ambitious plan, catering to its fan base with the AAA single-player fare it's known for, like Ghost of Yotei and Astro Bot. The fate of revealed live-service games like FairGame$ remains unclear. Sony's next big gamble, Marathon, will be a major test for struggling Destiny developer Bungie.
Why did so many of these games fail, or fail to launch? Part of the reason is that many consumers have already invested immensely, both in time and money, into established games like Fortnite, Minecraft, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, and Call of Duty. The war for the forever game, for many, was already decided in the previous generation. Many of those older games still dominate monthly player charts across PC, Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox platforms.
Some more recent live-service titles have broken through. EA is finding early success with both Battlefield 6 and Skate, games that have been thoroughly playtested and shaped by the passionate communities behind them. Publisher NetEase found an audience with Marvel Rivals, combining a love (or familiarity, at least) with Marvel's brand of superheroes and the tried-and-tested gameplay of Overwatch. Sony and Arrowhead Game Studios broke through with Helldivers 2, using a mix of refined gameplay mechanics and savvy player-first messaging.
Many game makers seem to have gotten the message: There's only so much time and money to go around. The winners have, for the most part, already been decided. That's been a costly lesson though, both for big companies and the regular people who were hired to make those games.
The future of live-service games is still an open question. But with fewer and fewer big gambles in development, it's increasingly looking like a less crowded market.