Asmongold Reacts to "The Problem with Live Service Games" | by The Act Man

[@MrDekasOne]

The problem with live service games started when they went from being a service provided to the player as a means of continuing to play the game fix bugs and balance gameplay to a service designed to manipulate the player into playing only that game and continually spending money on it

[@luxinterna3370]

I would argue that the problem is that people are buying it anyway.

[@TacticalDimples]

Which is not the problem with live service, but with the party taking advantage of it. Live service is just a tool. And if it didn’t work, they wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. So part of the blame falls on the players too.

[@andrewnguyen4801]

@@luxinterna3370 Game studios hire psychologists for this very reason.

[@temporamen]

I would even say live service is now an excuse to sell an unfinished game.

[@NoName-hj6cs]

Live service games have become a category by itself

[@BerserkerNosaj]

Halo does not need a BR it needs content in general. Not having a BR isn’t what killed it. Having 6-10 month long seasons did.

[@spencerrex7531]

The game is also a buggy mess STILL.

[@deadcaptainjames6045]

I would say esports is what killed the Halo franchise. The franchise was greatuntil it became a massive sweat fest. Halo used to be the ultimate party game now it's the painful to play

[@zeallust8542]

@@deadcaptainjames6045 Have you tried getting good?

[@ZeroOne-mp1qe]

@@casted_shadows battlebit casually blowing the competition with normal battlefield game modes. what a surprise.

[@danm2756]

​@deadcaptainjames6045 idk man, halo has always felt kind of sweaty since halo2. I dont know who plays games and doesnt try. Dont understand this argument. Unless youre so bad you can't get any kills, its still fun to play getting beat

[@Gravewhisper]

I'd rather play ~30 great games a year that end after the campaign, than play ~5 live service games that never end and just lock you in endless loops of loot progression.

[@silenthour.]

Yep same here i want an ending so i can close off and move on ,unlike some people prefer having a infinite loop and play a trash game for 15 years and tell us it will be good one day.

[@blacklistedpirate4169]

@@someguy3508 your smoking crack man

[@Seb_Falkor]

Funny, I’d rather have the exact opposite

[@vitolapinta]

I play counterstrike. I have since 2000. That's the only game I play that could be considered infinite, and now it's technically a live service with loot boxes, but the gameplay is still the same. I play single player games way more than any multiplayer game unless it has campaign coop. I even played little big planet for the couch coop. Now all games are just convince stores you walk around in

[@powerrangerblue8566]

@@Seb_Falkor eh, thats your taste and everyone has different taste. As for me I'd rather just play games with my friends most of the time and sometimes myself. Yet I'd still play elden ring constantly by myself (if I had it) just like I still play dark souls 3 to this very day.

[@mikfhan]

For me it's simple, I can buy 3 battlepasses or 3 months WoW subscription, or an entire game on Steam discount. I go for the game, every time.

[@d.d5619]

facts just bought every single rockstar game (ultimate editions) on steam from a sale yesterday

[@chefffs]

I buy 3 battle passes a runescape subscription and buy the games on discount, I'm a slave to capitalism.

[@anthonyacosta5660]

My biggest problems with live service games are when massive triple A companies do it instead of releasing a full game at launch. It feels like getting onto a plane and you see the pilots wearing a parachute. Sure the flight could go fine, but I don’t like the idea of the person in charge being able to jump ship instead of seeing it through.

[@Jim-km1xt]

Yea, asmon playing it off as people saying old games had no bugs kinda misses the mark. Old games had bugs, sure... but they released the game with all the content included. I can't get excited about paying for a development team's promise to finish what they promised to deliver and already got paid for because they got sidetracked generating cosmetic items and an ingame casino.

[@garretthaskett7797]

@@Jim-km1xt Yeah, its definitely driven me away from some stuff like Destiny 2 & OW 2 which were both titles whose predecessors I sank several hundred hours into. I would rather pay the lump sum and get something substantial than for it to be 'free' and severely lacking/restricted. Definitely made something like Elden Ring look much more attractive. If they want me to be paying a constant stream of money, I expect a constant stream of content which just isn't happening.

[@Jim-km1xt]

@@tomguglielmo9805 For every live service game you can name that released with all content included at launch day, I can show you 100 that released unfinished. Nobody said "all". Just because you can point to an outlier doesn't mean the trend isn't real.

[@Jim-km1xt]

@@tomguglielmo9805 All I did was outline my issue with the way this business model tends to impact games. I didn't say you couldn't enjoy it... You came in here and told everybody they were wrong then when I explained how your criticism of my stance didn't make sense, you tried to act like I was attacking your preference. To be clear, we can disagree on whether or not we enjoy something. Your issue is that you're imposing your preferences on me.

[@Jim-km1xt]

@@tomguglielmo9805 The OP didn't say "all"...

[@beavershots]

I work in the product development/ project management world, but not software specific. There's a very popular approach to project management called "agile" that seems to have made its way into everything, but started as a software dev thing. Basically its when a team of devs starts with a general vision and build out features as they go. Its about short cycles of development that focus on creating a "minimum viable product" that can be shipped and then improving on in later dev cycles based on feedback. A more traditional approach is to plan everything upfront, execute all the work, and release a product based entirely on the initial vision. That is sometimes called "waterfall approach". I am speculating that maybe this is a chicken and egg kind of thing. Are live service games the result of agile product development? Because I guarantee that is how they do their dev cycles. Or did live service happen and it spawned this type of project management?

[@GreatRusio]

From what I can tell the waterfall plans are definitely used in bigger studios but fail due to shareholders and incompetence within the team itself. As dead-lines, unrealistic promises/expectations or even sheer incompetence pile up such a methodology is quick to break down especially with how tight the schedules usually are. No wonder there are so many horror stories of employees living in their offices

[@catbuikhang6482]

I may be wrong, again, I MAY BE WRONG please correct me if I do. The Waterfall Approach must be done with the backbone of the product already been completed and then gets better as time goes on, meaning, the CORE deliverable of a product must be made first before perfecting it. Let's say you create a robot that can clean houses, then people must be able to see that it can clean houses effectively before adding features like clean better, watch kids, groom pets etc.... If, the function of cleaning houses itself are faulty and needs perfection or the customers do not enjoy the way the robot cleans the house then it is just an incomplete product not waterfall approach which is the case of many many examples above (No Man Sky's "infinite universes" planets are just Ctrl C+Ctrl V at first, Overwatch 2 promises the major difference being story mode then surface WITHOUT it, etc...)

[@ferinzz]

If you ask any dev what's important for their game design, they will say quick iterattive design. Basically this 'agile' approach. It has its place when trying new ideas and functionality, but you can't push out a full product and continue building like that. Because of pressures from shareholders, you'll never be able to go back and fix all the bugs that are appearing 2 features ago. That's where the larger waterfall structure needs to take place. I've not actually heard a breakdown of the concept, but I imagine that it's something similar to my company's go live procedure. think of a feature, review the need for it, add it to a roadmap, provide a beta version for a small portion of users, test/fix, provide training internally and let the rest of the users and sales people know it's live. A company my company acquired was still in this very 'agile' development, which meant that half the things were breaking in a way an engineer needed to fix and there were features that only 12 companies were using. It was a mess for months trying to get to a point where the product could actually be supported in a decent way. On the other hand, our company rolls out a new product feature very rarely, but supporting what we have is pretty standard daily business.

[@neoperol]

I don't think is a chicken and egg thing. Some services games are way too big to able to be develop at their fullest in 3-4 years. Look at Zelda Breath of the Wild and Genshin Impact, one single player with 1 character and one fixes map and the other with 50 plus characters and a bunch of regions. And just imagine when they "finish" Genshin Impact story how long would have take to develop all the characters, all the maps and all the events. The problem is that people want MORE.. Genshin Impact could take you 200 - 300 hours to finish it until the current patch but for a lot of people is not enough, and the game lacks content.

[@GreatRusio]

@@catbuikhang6482 yep you only move onto the next stage after making sure the previous one is complete.

[@sunnyhero1922]

I like how I watched this video before Asmon reacted and now watching it with his reaction feels exactly like an update to it

[@TheBlackYousaa]

Act Man: Wrath of the Bald King

[@mem2881]

its a live service

[@ultimaxkom8728]

Meta.

[@OhNoMrKoolaidMan]

Asmon DLC

[@ovinophile]

What is real life if not the ultimate live service?

[@winterhell2002]

Old games might have had bugs, but you didnt encounter 10 game breaking ones on every playthrough, you had to really really fish for them.

[@jashloseher578]

Or have to wait many months just to play multiplayer.

[@NarratedStories55]

To be fair, games now are immensely more complex than games were then. There are thousands of extra variables that can and will create bugs.

[@HiUnidentified]

@@NarratedStories55 yeah and it just so happens that these games couldve improved with a proper QA and optimization phase rather than tossing the shit out for a quick christmas buck lol

[@trevorburton3290]

@@NarratedStories55 while that is true the problem is that as the games increase in scale and technical complexity so do the tools to make the games. So development isnt the problem its the publishers pushing the development before its ready. On top of that the live service model or the publishers attempts to milk money out of a game doesn't benefit the people that make the game and ends up making them and the game look worse when you encounter the constant bugs or broken mechanics.

[@Terribadguy.]

As someone who has played countless retro games and grew up with hand me down consoles and handhelds from my mom and her siblings my whole childhood, I can't agree at all. Not only are a lot of those games broken, but there's no patching something like that. Some games just don't work how they are supposed to as well. Have you ever played Biofreaks? That game is an unplayable turd and that's just off the top of my head. I'd argue modern games have more bugs, but they aren't game breaking. It's mostly just visual bugs that don't effect gameplay. You also have to consider that it makes a big difference that a lot of modern games have online capabilities. That changes everything for the stability of the game and how it has to be programmed. I've played modern games only made by a hand full of people that work better than a lot of older games made by entire studios. I used to have a massive collection of older games anywhere from Atari to PS2, but that was when you could go to flea markets and yard sales and actually afford them. Now grandma thinks her box of assorted Colecovision and Atari games are worth a small fortune. Obviously though, as games get more complex there is a higher chance of bugs no matter who is making the game. It's just that now those issues CAN be fixed retroactively. Hell there's a huge community of people that fix games for emulation because they need it, and obviously none of these companies are gonna rerelease 90% of these games and fix their issues (*cough* Nintendo *cough*). I've played WAY more retro games that are bad and just down right unplayable due to bugs than I have modern ones, especially when it comes to cartridge based systems. Maybe my sample size it just a lot bigger than yours and that's why I feel this way, who knows. Probably the benefit of being able to go to Goodwill every week and get 5 or more new games I hadn't played for my assorted consoles growing up. I miss when retro games were affordable. There were a lot of bad ones but I've had more fun playing a shitty game with a group of friends on older consoles than I've ever had playing a game like OW 2 with a group for example.

[@TrampyPulsar]

The most insidious thing about games as a service is that for PC gamers our games have gotten strictly worse because they rob us of our ability to make our own content with custom maps and dedicated servers so that they can sell us skins.

[@simunator]

blame blizzard vs riot for the claim over MOB games because the executives thought they had legal claim over DOTA profits

[@Shiroi0moi]

Imagine if Orange Box came out as a game as a service. We won't have any good stuff that creative players came up with to spice up their own fun. The reason why I really dislike any modern game is that everything is curated, pre planned and soulless. You don't get no funky map made of Hitler portraits or replicas of map from other games. What a shame

[@joshallen128]

@@Spectrum0122 destiny 2 Fortnite work well on predetermined hardware and software which is consoles and Mac to an extent dammit but again we have megaglest a free open game we can modify so it balances it out on PC.

[@simplysmiley4670]

yup why bother letting the players do their own custom content for the game, to keep it alive if they can just keep it all locked from players and at most selling off some skins, maybe a map or two in a dlc, all while behind a battlepass to get the players to grind

[@solkvist8668]

This is lowkey why I respect trackmania so much for their choices. They allow custom skins and even map objects that are from the community, and they use that content to feed the live service aspect of it. The way that it’s sustainable for them is a pretty lax subscription service that opens up a handful of options in ways to play, as well as making and equipping custom skins in the client. The game got a significant amount of backlash for this choice of monetization of their otherwise free game, but honestly it’s pretty good. It’s live service in the sense of constant stream of content (at a rate that would be impossible without the help of the community sourcing new maps every single day), but without battlepasses, or basically any FOMO, unless you count leaderboards closing at the end of each season for their respective tracks.

[@romeyjclark]

I think the difference between the bugs in halo 2 and something like cyberpunk, is that if you play the game as intended you have less than 1% chance of even seeing something wrong. Compared to cyberpunks first release, where literal cutscenes would space lock you and driving was impossible lol.

[@FlameMage2]

Ya I saw his point but it's pretty disingenuous comparison. Computer assisted glitch finding for years vs day 1 busted physics and t-posing on a motorcycle just trying to play normally. Back when, games couldn't be patched after release so ya things were released at a higher level of standards (correct amount)

[@FlameMage2]

@@whuzzzup All 3 of Asmongold's examples about old games not being tested better were console games (N64). Specifically Super Mario 64 and Zelda OoT. So anyway in this context we're more referring to Asmongold's console games examples. Obviously PC gaming is superior but if you go far back enough you could not rely on a PC customer to even have access to the internet/broadband or gaming magazine patch CDs. You had to ship a mostly functional not broken game, and payed video game bug testers were an important part of that process. This is when they'd sell "big box" PC games for example, floppy disks and CDs etc.

[@TheFrmx]

@@FlameMage2 asmond opinion changes based on who he's watching. He has shir on live services and has made the argument "old gamea were better". If you point it out he always calls ya dimb and how its sk nuanced.

[@BIZaGoten]

@@TheFrmx damn bro bet you feel smart

[@TheFrmx]

@@BIZaGoten yeah bro super bigbrain smarts with 1billion IQ's

[@robertmosley1188]

Big difference between bugs that ruin your experience every 20 minutes and bugs that go largely unnoticed and are mostly just abused by speed running communities.

[@OrionDawn15]

Bugs are still bugs you know, they don't disappear just because you ignore them or don't find them.

[@СергейЕжов-с1м]

@@OrionDawn15 well at least they can't ruin your experience if you can't find them. Therefore, much less important

[@OrionDawn15]

@@СергейЕжов-с1м No, but they still exist and just because *you* don't find them doesn't mean someone else won't find them and have *their* experience ruined.

[@СергейЕжов-с1м]

@oriondawn7064 maybe for some bugs its true, but i don't see how bunny hopping\manipulation of script counter in Vice City\Jedy Academy cutscene excaping\many more can ruin someone experience. Most bugs are not reachable by accident. And these bugs can't ruin your experience(because you need to know exactly how to replicate them) - therefore its pointless to waste time on them, better focus on more reachable for regular players things. Multiplayer may occasionaly be exception - some bugs may give to skilled players too many advantages

[@OrionDawn15]

@@СергейЕжов-с1м I agree there, I'm talking more about game-breaking or generally awful bugs rather than exploits however.

[@Mugwise]

Shoutouts to Act Man, watched the original now I get the extended Asmon cut

[@reeeeeeee-e2g]

Welcome to free to watch videos!

[@GreatRaijin]

Best way to watch 🤙

[@dooddoingstuff]

Man got the asmon dlc

[@yameshraberts3652]

The Acting Male absolutely destroyed them with this one. goodness gracious.

[@FeiFongWang]

On the subject of games getting more expensive to produce... there are also far, FAR more people buying games these days, as well as digital releases which completely cut out physical distribution costs. So yeah, games are still making butt loads of money $60 or not.

[@luxinterna3370]

thanks. that is often kept secret. games like elden ring show that there is another way. it's not that it's not worth it, it's that public companies want their annual returns

[@schikey2076]

people still believing this "games are more expensive to produce" mantra lol...... i feel like most of the costs go to marketing more rather than developing ...

[@squaeman_2644]

@@schikey2076 that's is absolutely true for studios like Relic...

[@nftscreenshotter6436]

"more expensive to produce" also isn't an excuse when we have the healthiest indie game scene we've ever had, with one or two men dev teams. there's no excuse. A lot of money is uselessly spent on things players don't care about.

[@TheMasterblah]

​nftscreenshotter6436 seriously, the fact that most "indie" or self publishing studios make better games than most multimillion dollar AAA games is ridiculous.

[@messiusonline2817]

My issue with live service is just the heavy monetization right out the gate while the game has lot of issues that need fix first. This is basically every "AAA" publishers ship out a bugged out game but gotta makesure ppl can still spend muns with no issue.

[@Jim-km1xt]

Notice how the cash shop never has any bugs? Hmmmmm.... If I didn't know any better, I'd say they were more focused on selling the in-game casino than the game the casino is in.

[@Fismajster101]

Some of the best games I have ever played in my life, those that I remember the most fondly and often come back to replaying them were exactly those games that you play once and finish and its a great story, or great gameplay... Live service has its purpose too, but I personally prefer to just buy a game, spend 50, 60, 100, 200 hours on it and finish it. Add it to my list of completed games and move on, keeping it in memory.

[@ChrisBcards]

Yeah the replay value is much appreciated specially multiple ways of progressing through the game and different decisions you can make for different gameplay

[@michaelgallacher4800]

Yehh I'm the opposite. See thats how choices works. We can all do out own thing. There's a million good games. Live service is just catching up

[@1xxvipxx1]

it's just because you were young when you played them. I wonder how people will remember destiny when they grow up..

[@Edanite]

@@1xxvipxx1 I have fond memories of Destiny despite how things went. Then D2 came along and shot my passion repeatedly over 2 years before I left, lol. Destiny was a fantastic game at the time (aged poorly) but what killed my love for the franchise was the gameplay design changes in D2. But that's how I remember Destiny knowing full well I may be viewing it through rose tinted glasses.

[@coachred6872]

@@Edanite I remember thinking destiny 1 looked like dogpiss when it came out, Destiny 2 IS dogpiss

[@3ace9]

Live service is amazing when it’s about keeping the game alive. The problem is when games start out as live service instead of becoming live service for the players.

[@squaeman_2644]

I can probably count on my one hand how many games did it well, Fortnite and Deep rock galactic come to mind... I can now think with all appendixes on my body how many games have failed... Anthem, Battlefront, Battlefield...

[@mikeellchuk3787]

@@squaeman_2644 The thing to mention about Fortnite also is that its free, you can just download it and start playing. Its not like they owe you anything, because you havent paid for anything, and if you do then its just a cosmetic not a game changing advantage. If a game is live service and you PAY for it... that's almost a guaranteed recipe for disaster each and every time. "Live service" and "free" should go hand in hand.

[@squaeman_2644]

@@mikeellchuk3787 live service means you're dependent on the developers hosting servers to play. If the host servers end, so does your gaming experience...

[@joshallen128]

@@mikeellchuk3787 what about wow I mean you pay for that or is it because it's subscription based

[@Rekka7773]

ps1 and ps2 games were actually extremely easy to copy, in fact, all you needed to make copies work on a ps1 was a straw and a toothpick

[@Yoder023]

"There's only 7 or 8 premium currencies it's not that many" Bruh, there should be 2 AT MOST

[@scubasteve2189]

That was sarcasm, bud. 😉👍🏻

[@Tomp4ul]

I'm yet to play a 'live service' game that wasn't riddled with issues, from predatory monetisation to straight up just not being finished. Subscription based has been the best 'live service' experience so far.

[@LadyDoomsinger]

Just imagine the "Live Service" model in literally any other business than the video game industry: "Here's your brand new car, sir! Enjoy! Don't mind the wheels, we'll install them in a year or so. Also, the steering is a bit off, it'll be fixed in a patch in a couple of months." "Here's your meal, sir. Raw beef. Uncooked. Come back in a few months and it might be edible. Also, remember, you can RIGHT NOW buy from our selection of side dishes for just $5.99!" "Here's your new shirt - come back in a couple of months and we'll add sleeves. And for just 5.99 we'll dye it any color you like (once)!" "Enjoy our brand new big budget blockbuster movie! The final scene will be done shooting next month. Also, you can buy additional bonus content for just 5.99!" "Here's the key to your apartment. We'll add windows next spring. And don't worry about the plumbing, that'll come in a later patch."

[@lycanwarrior2137]

They are already talking about MTX/subscriptions for heated seats in BMWs. I've heard other people say that other auto companies will be heading down this road as well.

[@Genofsys]

Its true that live services with P2W features always feel like youre playing 80% if the game, with the other being locked behind a small loan of a hundred bucks. I just hope that someday when we "acquire" said games, ill get to see what is it that the whales had.

[@luxinterna3370]

there's nothing wrong with playing one game and then another when you're done. Back then, for example, I just played through a link to the past and then metroid and then mario and then terranigma and then final fantasy and then sailor moon... simply that way... who wants to play the same game for years? not me.

[@kevinbell5674]

Asmon defends live-service games like he's an abuse victim. "Yes, my partner does do horrible things to me on a regular basis, but they're fun to be around when they aren't so it's ok."

[@MangoTangoFox]

Cyberpunk 2077 is ABSOLUTELY NOT, IN ANY CAPACITY, a "live service game". Don't twist the definitions around, what live service was coined and built and continually used to reference, is online dependency for core components of the game to even function at all in perpetuity. Cyberpunk is a 100% offline game that simply has patches, and not only that, it also has zero DRM, so literally once the patch files exist, there is no server or account system or barrier of any kind to stop you from fully playing all of it. They DID have a separate multiplayer spinoff planned, and that would have been a live service, but it was likely canceled or moved back to come out with Cyberpunk 2, and was said to have run in a completely separate client from the main game. Also 2:36 "a million concurrent players ONLINE"... there is no "online", it was simply Steam and the GOG client recognizing that the software was running and adding that to a tally, there is no server that anyone is "on", and the number was likely higher than what they could even calculate because of all the DRM free cloned copies out in the wild that shouldn't be reporting back to any server at all, or at least not if blocked in firewall which many do as a precautionary measure.

[@nottoktik]

There isn't a problem with live service games, there's a problem with bad live service games. You have games like LOL, Fortnite, Genshin that are F2P and casual friendly that also get content almost weekly, because of whales.

[@yourbanhmi]

Key word.. F2P friendly.. People dont have money straight off the bat to dump on a game.. Making the games accessible without money & giving a choice to spend for rewards will attract long term players.. These games also come out with new game modes/new maps/etc..

[@PoopaChallupa]

The rocket/sword glitch in Halo was super fun. Melee climbing walls just made the game better. Sad when they removed it.

[@AverageEmu]

It's interesting how companies like EA created the problem of too many battle passes and then "solved" the problem by making all in one monthly passes that include a small library of games.

[@DavidBrocekArt]

I feel like in a couple of years it's going to completely turn around, majority of gamers will grow up and hate battle passes and marketing departments will start fake gimmicks like "Buy our game, it is only one time purchase... NOT LIKE THE OTHER GAMES". Something like they try to sell stuff with a sticker "NO PALM OIL" as if they were better than the other products.

[@TheHalogen131]

Ross Scott has a great video on games as a service and he clearly and honestly despises this trend. Hard to blame him, it's difficult to assess if this is even a legal practice.

[@ebenezerspludge8369]

You would say live service helped Cyberpunk a lot. I would say it created the problems and offered the solutions years later.

[@nftscreenshotter6436]

Exactly. And Cyberpunk wouldn't need live service to save it if it was a complete and competent game on release. THAT'S THE WHOLE PROBLEM. Saying "live service saved cyberpunk" is completely missing the point. We shouldn't need live services to "save" games in the first place, they should be done and ready on release.

[@ebenezerspludge8369]

@@nftscreenshotter6436 Agreed. There should be a system for companies who don't offer us a finished product. We should get refunded $50 and they should get small amounts of the money back as the game get's fixed.

[@alcoyot]

A company like Fromsoft. Is basically updating new versions of the same game each time. They just refine the engine more abs more, and create new assets and enemies to fight. Each game kind of like a DLC of something they started in the 90s with kings field. Just improving on everything each time, but building on the same engine.

[@matthewwilliams3579]

Isn't it a bit awkward that Act-man advertised a live-service game inside a video dedicated to the evils of live-service games...

[@BeiyongError]

I do think being able to update the game after the fact is a great thing , but if the base game isn't good it suffers at the start till word of mouth goes around saying the game is better later on.

[@fullreinhard]

And they rightly should suffer, games now are one of the few mediums that can be changed as time goes on to better please the consumer but time and again the consumer gets fucked. There’s no live service food, no live service movies, they can’t just go back and change stuff, they have to be good the first time. Yet this advantage is twisted into an excuse to putting out garbage and having diehard fans defend it solely because they promised it will get better

[@alexandermackey7629]

I dig Vermintide and how they run it. I have hella fun until I burn out in a few weeks, then come back in a few months to see if things changed mich. I'm so hype about the new 40k Dark Tide that I upgraded my whole setup

[@masteroutlier]

The more I watched this video, the more I realised how much respect I should have for the people behind Path Of Exile. In regards to monetizing whilst maintaining the bottom line, POE is a present game for the future - the game, its fun, its gamers and developers are all protected in all their bottom lines. It's a remarkable case-study - a live service that works for everyone.

[@MrVibes-tj3ie]

3:40 This is so true and soooo many people do not understand this to be the case. Most big studios have maybe 100 QA people, max. Which compared to the millions of players that are essentially also testing the game, is NOTHING.

[@dragonninja3655]

I've never heard someone call a game that got a patch or update a 'live service' game. Live service games are where they try to get you to play 1 game forever. Why would I waste hundreds of hours on repetitive gameplay when in that time I could play dozens of other amazing games that have actual endings in that time?

[@diy-hyrum9842]

Well, wasn't even FF15 technically a live service game?! It did regular seasonal events. My brain is trying to remember, but didn't they even have weekly hunt events?

[@ygnizemcenia6059]

yep they even have the co-op dlc: Comrades which was at first cool but didn't last long.

[@AllegoricSiren]

It’s kinda crazy how *good* EPIC has gotten with live service. Paragon died because of how poorly they handled updates and how they ignored what the community actually wanted. As someone who was a huge fan of the game it was crazy how much they ruined it. But Fortnight? It’s honestly really good when it comes to updates and events. I don’t play it, but the fact that it’s still so prevalent after all these years really speaks on its behalf

[@imperialtutor8687]

Price of making video games at least for triple a studios is 10 fold of what it used to be. Back when I was a wee lad( mid 80s and 90s) a lot of video games were made by a handful of developers. It’s only during the early 2000s that studios started actually growing in size and make games more cinematic and involved (not necessarily bigger) .

[@imperialtutor8687]

@@whuzzzup probably enough to increase production costs.

[@harleygator]

The ability to update games after release is a blessing and a curse. Yes, complex games like Elden Ring can be patched, and new content added. But, the overwhelming flip side is that many games are now released unfinished, even games which are released "finished". For example, Football Manager Mobile is an excellent game (if you like that sort of thing) which is released "finished". The new version was released on Tuesday with a host of great new features. I love it. BUT the game obviously didn't have proper play testing... in fact, post-release bug reporting IS the play testing, it seems, and there's a lot of stuff that obviously needs fixing, including fundamentals of the match engine and sorting tools. So, what you have is a game that will be a perfect little mobile game... in 2 months. When they fix everything that fans are complaining about.

[@lilavenvoss8319]

The problem with developers releasing live service games is that they make the mistake of adding Early Access as well. Release a full game and make it live service and we'll stop being mad at them

[@Velacroix]

Most gamers were never a 'one game Andy', that's just the bulk of WoW and FIFA players like yourself.

[@_Just_John]

14:59 - When you look at RimWorld reviews on Steam you see a lot of people with 1000+ hours played because the gameplay loop is based on growing and getting pushed back by bad events. The game has massive player retention because it's fun.

[@lateralus6512]

Yeah exactly, the developers need to ask themselves: What is a fun gameplay loop?

[@offworlder461]

6:45 Asmon really knows just when to pause, as always. Never change.

[@calmkat9032]

Basically, I think a live service game is good unless the makers call it a "live service game". Paradox Interactive is a dev studio that makes games like this and it works, yet they never advertise the game like that. And because of that, they make sure the game is at least functional, but they add a tremendous amount of content ever 9 to 12 months. Same with successful MMOs

[@lateralus6512]

Yeah, I’m happy to pay the small monthly subscription service for EU4 instead of buying all of the DLC.

[@emilemil1]

Nothing wrong with an ongoing service. If I'm going to spend a long time (and a lot of money) on a game then I want it to be constantly updated. I don't care if that's through patches, expansions, microtransactions, user content, whatever. If the game isn't being updated then I'll get bored with it eventually, it's inevitable, and I'm certainly not going to buy skins or whatever for a game I know will be dead in a month. And that has absolutely nothing to do with the game being released in an unfinished state. The only game I've ever played for a long time beyond when it stopped receiving updated was Diablo 2, and that was because I was 10 years old and literally had no other games. It also has nothing to do with early access. Against the Storm: banger, Gunfire Reborn: banger, Phasmophobia: banger, Vampire Survivors: banger, Risk of Rain 2: banger, and the list goes on.

[@a656582540]

Live service game is a fancy word for early access for triple A devs

[@psd906]

Live service games need to transition to a "static" or traditional functioning game prior to the game servicing ends. Give the games to the people once you abandon them.

[@ShamSoap]

Halo Infinite isnt dead because there wasnt a Battle Royale mode, it died because 343 didnt have any plan on what to do with the game, no updates for major fixes on launch then no content, no fuckin classic MP modes, no forge, broken multipayer ( it was fun when it worked). Halo doesnt need a BR, it just needs a company that cares about quality and service to the fans.

[@meteor22]

Look...the hard truth is that when it comes to these AAA dev's like EA, Acti/Blizz, and 343 for example, when they are presented with the option of turning a game into a live service they absolutely take advantage of it by often doing the bare fuckin' minimum for content while maximizing anti consumer profit strategies. It's nothing but an excuse for them to put out half baked shit. Not EVERYONE that employs a live service does this...but there sure are more bad ones than good ones.

[@jeanpaulmeyer5772]

on the bugs, while old games had a lot a bugs, you had to go far out of your way to find or do them. they didn't just happen while switching weapons, or climbing stairs

[@afroponix3414]

This was such a good Acting Male video

[@CountZakula]

RIP Wildstar, I wish the strongholds in Lost Ark were like those bases~

[@christom5334]

Yeah games had bugs back in the day but the core gameplay was quality. Can’t say the same for a lot games now

[@Tsuusetsu]

No. Thats wrong. The cost of games has risen a lot, but that doesnt excuse them charging more. Not only are most games digital now, removing shipping and handling costs, but they have a much higher customer base. Especially with digital products. Their sales have massively gone up. They made more profit now than they ever had before before the price hikes and live service products.

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

"hard to copy a Nintendo game". Dude. Ever hear of emulators? Snes9x was on Windows 98. PS2/PS3/Xbox is where it got hard to emulate. Dreamcast didn't even need a jail break to use burned CDs.

[@TheNiclon]

As Software developer i can assure you developers, we have no last word if it will ship or not. It all depends on manager and higher ups. Higher ups with some of the developers will make high level estimate which are most of the time not constantly changed. Once you say it will be done in a year but during the time you get in some problem or need to wait for some of the requirements which at the begining you didnt expect then first estimate is not changed. So in the end it will be 1 and half year. But They still expect what they wanted in a year because of money. In this case Developers need to make it possible to be somewhat playable/usable. But at the end of the day if it would be up to developers they would not ship product which is not done. They are using developers as some puppets to make connection with player base so player base feel like they can make changes. Its all up to higher ups and money.

[@damenbdo4781]

I thought live service games are those which you literally cannot play if you dont have an internet connection. I wouldn't call Cyberpunk a live service game because although yes they can push out updates to it literally every game can do that at this point via Steam - later in the video asmon even said that live service games can come to an end and then you cant play it anymore which is exactly my understanding of a live service game and why I hate the concept and hate the trend of having everything be live service.

[@savagex378]

I completely agree. Games have been releasing updates for their games via the internet for MANY years long before the concept of a live service was even a thing. This would also include DLC as well, both paid and unpaid.

[@damenbdo4781]

@@savagex378 yeah fully agreed.

[@Strongbah43]

Anyone else remember the overwatch 2 trailer promising PVE and dual/combined or varying Ults? 5 years and they added nothing new, while removing a tank from each team.

[@Lord_Alimdor]

Asmon has never played a great single-player game and it shows....

[@cpypcy]

Factory games? Factorio! 2D survival colony story telling game? Rimworld! 4 player coop games? L4D. There is always one that started it all!

[@ebenezerspludge8369]

On the pirating of music. You went from buying albums and owning them to stealing them and owning them, now you pay monthly for Spotify and own nothing. Anyone who thinks that is a good thing is sadly mistaken.

[@butterz9066]

Yeah man live service games have been a huge positive for game devs, they get to sell demos for full game price and then finish the game whenever they feel like it, yeah cyberpunk 2077 is now playable 2 years later wow so impressed

[@gmoney9469]

The reason why I am such a Genshin Stan is because I love that it’s a live service game that actually provides you with frequent content updates. Takes me back to the good ol’ days when Valve actually gave a shit about TF2

[@FishSkeleton-]

I attribute the rise of all this to Team Fortress 2's Meet the Pyro update that added a bunch of premium skins for weapons and accessories and whatnot. Before that you just got crates by playing the game, and you bought keys to open them, but they gave impactful stuff like weapons with different functions, not things like a tuba flamethrower shooting bubbles.

[@iXSIKOBOIXi]

There are a few things that we need to bear in mind about bugs then and now. Back then when Gaming was still in its relative infancy, devs were still learning on the fly and didn't always have game dev courses to learn how to code, model, map etc, nor did they have a vast discography of games to learn from. Not to mention the tools nowadays like even Unreal or Unity have so many users, so much documentation larger teams of coders and testers than ever before. The tools are easier to use, the teams have bigger budgets and more experience and documentation at their fingertips and yet they somehow release games in worse states. Yes they're often more ambitious because the hardware has moved forward, but relatively speaking they've not gotten much more ambitious. Take open World games for example, Spider Man 2 making a large open world on the PS2 with such technical limitations was incredibly ambitious. The expectations have gone up and it feels like the standards haven't followed, and yet even with these unfinished trashy games, they still want to milk you for as much money as they can.

[@Remedy462]

I always thought the idea of getting rid of split screen coop was to force people to buy the game instead of mooching off company dime. More profitable but less ethical in my personal opinion.

[@Shatterglass23]

TOTALLY AGREE with Act 🎬 Man and people DONT want that.

[@Great-Dao-of-Elegance]

He keeps pointing out the bugs on old games to counter the argument of old games being complete and finished. Those bugs are forced and you really have to go out of your way to do most of them. The point is that old games didn't have half their content cut on a paywall and most were already playable right from the start.

[@antares3030]

I have no idea why is he calling Cyberpunk a live service game

[@obviouslykaleb7998]

"Games cost so much more to make yet they cost relatively the same, and that's where battlepasses come in!" Good sir gaming is mainstream now when it wasn't before. Put concisely: there are simply more players. Also, disks aren't a cost anymore for 95% of people (though that doesn't have much of an effect).

[@mrsalty1019]

It's incredible how many things Asmongold is wrong about in just this video yet he never admits it.

[@johnnyraincloud4734]

imagine being broke in 2012 to becoming a millionaire 10 years later..Well played Asmongold, you inspire me to follow my dreams!

[@NolsHub]

An issue with live service games is that it can give a game the illusion of being good. If Fallout 76 released as the standard it's at today, people would have probably thought "atleast the game can't get any worse". When you prove that a game can be worse and then improve it so that it's not at its worst, for some people that makes the game look decent.

[@Winters004]

Halo Infinite didn't necessarily need BR, but it definitely needed campaign co-op and Forge on release.

[@inukiasa]

Asmon likes live service games because he's rich and can afford them. FR FR NO CAP ON A STACK.

[@WWE2KUNIVERSEELITE]

Asmon is right live service games will not die. For the companies to profit they need to continously feed content into a game that can be paid by money they need to recoup what they lost for the entirety. That's why you are now seeing 70 usd AAA games which they were 60 and 50 the years before.

[@nom6758]

I just love the copium asmon has about live service games.

[@awesomeguy9513]

Once the live service is made stable enough to play or login the monetization is usually hell. That and some games have large content by droughts like halo infinite comes to mind with its I think it was 6 or 10 month long season

[@Hamdaddy]

I love when asmon pushes back on act man’s “arguments” in this video I love to see people have their own thoughts and brain it’s nice to see. Edit: also love to see act man peddling a dogshit live service mobile game for money surely a man with consistent values.

[@Hamdaddy]

@@gaijinkuri684 Still makes him a hypocrite

[@arcadeinvader8086]

Every game having a full battlepass is like when teaches give you homework as though you are not taking any other classes

[@younited8959]

Hates live service games Promotes shitty mobile game Ok

[@chubmouse]

The problem with saying that the "live service" turns out positive for the cases you mentioned is that it ignores the fact that if they didn't have to rely on it as a crutch, instead of releasing a fractured, buggy and broken game, at least to the astonishingly bad levels of CyberPunk or ButtholeField, it would be finished on day one. Although, in my mind, I would separate offline, server-independent games from always-online titles like all the F2P garbage deluge we're drowning in these days. I recoil far more if I hear the game is "F2P" than the definition of "live service" we seem to be discussing here (meaning consistently updated over time a la No Man's Sky), unless it's a paid game, while also having always-online requirements. Diablo. Temtem. So in this sense, I certainly agree that it is all around a betterment for the industry and the consumers. Take Terraria, for example. A personal favourite, and a perfect example of live service done right. No monetization, no online requirements, no tricks or traps to emotionally manipulate you into a grind cycle ad infinitum, nothing but heapin' spoons of extra content, fantastic game mechanics and sky's-the-limit mod support. But I'd also very much rather play a complete experience than loop my time into an endless charade of a game with no end like MOBAs or BRs if that's the definition we're going with.

[@chubmouse]

And I HATE the idea of battle passes. I have no idea how this concept got past the public, but here we are, drowning in them. Paying for something you don't get, but instead have to earn. Otherwise you can't have what you paid for? We allowed this??? Absolutely mind-boggling.

[@chubmouse]

Also also, I think using speedruns as an argument for how buggy old games were is disingenuous at best. Speedrunners are actively looking for ways to break the game, and even though they may find many, it's rarely something you'd run across in a normal playthrough. Modern high-profile live service games though... It almost seems like pure luck if your experience is less than 50% bug-ridden in the first year.

[@matts6350]

I love how all of these youtubers talk shit about microtransactions and live service games and then take sponsors for sketchy companies who make shitty app games souly designed for micro transaction..

[@MichaelThorage]

I agree that in theory life service should be good for a players but in practise AAA companies just use that term to scam players, charge them more for something what should be free or deliver unfair gaming experience. 60$ game doesn't need mobile like monetization in it, subscription based game doesn't need to charge players for an expansion, you don't need to pay for rewards you earn by playing the game, players shouldn't be paying extra for fixing issues caused deliberately by a developers just to sell a fix later, etc...

[@roxstar5088]

The problem with live service is that if you like a game, you want to keep playing, you want to know what's next. But the big publishers think that live service is the easy platform to milk their consumers of money. So they are not fun to play, there is no "What's is next" as the next thing are cosmetics, battlepasses, lootboxes and other predatory ways to get you open your wallet. That is why games that grow into live service organically are still around, those who are "designed" to be a live service all fail within a year depending on how long the publisher can keep pumping money into it.

[@TheFixer_1]

Blockbuster rentals for PS2 games... if you got yourself a PS2 hard drive you could copy a game straight to the HD within 20mins & it was yours from then on...

[@matthewmorrison3745]

Fuck dude I wish I knew this back then but I was like 10 lol

[@Cyberc50x]

"One game player" is very much a good description for a lot of people growing up. It's not that it's the only game you play of course, it's just the one you devote the most time too. Sometimes your "One Game" is such because it still has a playerbase, even way back in the day. Game I played the most growing up was RA2: Yuri's Revenge, even though that wasn't my favorite game - I actually preferred Battlezone II growing up to that, but it's MP community was dead in comparison. Well, dead is perhaps a little harsh to it. Their certainly were servers still running, but with a big fat 0 player count. The servers that did have activity, they'd be running one of the larger mods that my internet wasn't good enough then to download. And after a point, the few servers that still had activity turned into "OG Vets or fuck off" hangouts.

[@avaliantsoul5408]

50:38 - The problem is, you hit the nail on the head here and destroyed your own argument by accident. Back then, yes, games launched with a ton of bugs. But the VAST majority of players would never actually EXPERIENCE those bugs because they require very specific circumstances. Nowadays, it is very common for games to launch with game-breaking bugs that large portions of the player base experience. Technically, you're right; old games were buggy. But they typically weren't buggy as far as the majority of players knew. Now, everyone knows that the game is buggy because they experience the bugs. BF4 was hella buggy, and everyone knew it. I've never met someone who has played Ocarina and found it to be buggy, unless they were LOOKING for exploits/bugs.

[@Fuzzed8]

Game prices has over all just gone down if adjusted for inflation, stagnated if not. Not increased by 30%

[@dwaynewrighton8547]

I do play live service video games but there are a few issues that are always present with each one; the single largest one being: somehow, active day/week one players are always incorrectly estimated, always casuing server queues. And I swear; some games never leave beta

[@Mucknuggle]

"where the do other 70% come from?" from the 2-15+mio copys sold more than back then.

[@OnBrandRP]

My issue with LSG or GAAS is many of them just release monetized cosmetics and super grindy gameplay that really goes hard on sunken cost fallacy. Not enough actually produce quality content with bug fixes and such.

[@Lakylog]

What's the definition of a Live Service Game? A lot of things I'm hearing is simply patching a game after launch. They were doing that in the 90s, were those Live Service Games?

[@nackedsnake1]

I don't think the problem with battle pass is there're too many. Rather, most battle passes Road-block / Bottom-Neck your game-play, destroy the fun we could've had without them.

[@bonly4889]

Admittedly, a lot of Halo 2 bugs still weren't game breaking and just became new features.

[@FenixWindail]

I believe that the problem of live services is that they start as fun and engaging games at the relase... but then over time sometimes the developers start not being able to please everyone and they don't always listen to the players then sometimes making changes to the gameplay and balances that are not necessary or that benefit too much a slice of players, many times the developers pay more attention to skins or cosmetics rather than fix the game, the even greater problem is the servers... when a live service game starts to have his years and the servers are no longer what they used to be this is very affected by playing online... and the players will start complaining... then in my opinion more than the live service game... and this is a basic problem in all types of games (MMO, Fps, Mobas etc...) and the comunity, sometimes the comunity can be too competitive or toxic or Simpy and this could also ruin the growth and development of a live service game because of usually these types of subjects are not a bad thing... they are vulgar and arrogant and sometimes the developers listen to this type of people more sometimes and this is not good because as I said at the beginning it ends up that if one part of comunity is satisfied the other part does not remain happy and this in a competitive live service game is not good, balancing a game is not easy but it is still the task of the dev (and not the players) to find a solution.

[@lyrand6408]

"Back then"... It was simple: 1) The only way to make money as a development studio was to make a GOOD GAME. 2) If you released a good game, guess f_cking what, IT SOLD, and your studio could keep on going. 3) That created a _pressure_ to perform well and come up with ideas and produce fun video games, because you'd know otherwise your job (or your studio) would be in jeopardy. 4) If you produced sometimes just one single bad game, that was it, it's over; pack up your things because either the studio you're in fires people to save money or the studio itself closes. The "margin for errors" before it started to negatively impact a devs studio used to be paper-thin. There was NO room for complete failure of games (especially not 2 or 3 bad ones in a row, which could cripple any studios that ever existed in the 80s and 90s, or even into the 2000s). TODAY though, all you have to do is Half-Finish games, release them as Early Access (they're Alphas) and create a "battle pass" or some sort of MTXs and you're set. You keep making money while the consumers go on your official forums to complain about how this and that in the game doesn't work, crashes, or is blatantly imbalanced. The public became the "testers" and we are being made to pay for Alpha-Testing, until the game is someday finally decently-finished usually 1 or up to 2 years later. It's not that "back in my days" games didn't have bugs. It's that back then games WERE finished, and did have some bugs lingering in them. But today games are NOT FINISHED when they come out in way too many cases, and in some cases don't even run, crash on startup or have game-breaking glitches that prevents your from being able to finish actual quests (Cyberpunk will live on in infamy regardless of how many years of extra patches they keep throwing at it to make it "better"; and the latest Saints Row remake isn't that better than Cyberpunk was at launch either). The disparity in overall games quality at launch in modern years of gaming compared to the quality of games back 15+ years ago is absolutely staggering.