Live Service Games Annoy Me

It all started when some guy made fun of me in Fortnite. I decided I didn’t like it anymore and I went and made this video.
Back in my day we used to play real games, games like “Gotham City Imposters” and “Doritos Crash Course”. You young fools have no idea what you missed out on, and I’m gonna learn ya something good.
Patreon:
/ theknowledgehub
Soundcloud:
/ user-503704039

[@lemmonboy6459]

All in all, “The Line MUST go up” And we all suffer for it

[@NoxideActive]

Not all the time.While I do see how a private company would have more control of the decision making compared to appeasing investors, in some cases a private company make really terrible decisions, (for their customers), and if they are big enough then it would be next to impossible for the company to change course. Although public investors do vote for leaders that priorities growth, it doesn't always play out in ways that cause the user-base to suffer. Sometimes investors know or are convinced that there are different paths to growth that benefit all, it also helps when employees and genuine fans of the company own stock as that sways the influence in their preference. In short, for a private company you vote with your wallet, for a public one you vote with your shares. Buy some stock in the public companies you like and learn about your voting rights.

[@bloopahVIII]

@@NoxideActive no, i will not waste my money on speculation

[@64bitmodels66]

infinite growth in a finite system. gotta make the line go up

[@game_boyd1644]

This is the inevitable end point of Capitalism. Not Corporatism (doesn't exist), Crony Capitalism (regular Capitalism), but Capitalism

[@64bitmodels66]

@@game_boyd1644 don't tell gamers though, they'll whine and scream and spout nonsense to distract them from the reality that the games industry is a result of the terrible system we live in

[@Mrnotpib]

I love how snowmen and cats are the new aesthetic of not a geography channel anymore.

[@dragon_ninja_2186]

You mean his other channel KnowledgeHusk

[@thezipcreator]

@@dragon_ninja_2186 I forget that these are separate channels

[@Stryfe52]

@@dragon_ninja_2186 isn’t that his brother?

[@Stryfe52]

@@dragon_ninja_2186 or, his brother’s old channel.. this is confusing

[@fallenmango8420]

@@Stryfe52 that is his other channel. Both this and knowledge husk are the same guy. His brother runs alternate history hub.

[@pajamapantsjack]

I’m really happy the blumbo classic servers were made by the community, great for anyone who wants pre NBC blumbo (New blumbo combat) gameplay. The community is still strong and it’s great to see

[@suckassmork2972]

Yeah it's called Blumbo-topia. Great place!

[@Gatorade69]

Nah dude, if you actually go back and compare it with the original combat everything just feels spongy and less responsive. I've been playing since the start and It's just not the same. All the new weapons they released are overpowered and now the meta. It's bad.

[@sodapone]

Now we just gotta hope The Blumbo Company doesn't C&D the groups maintaining the Blumbo Classic community servers.

[@tombstonesoda1005]

…and there they go! Look at that, the blumbo company is now hosting their own version of blumbo classic! And it’s a 20 dollar a month subscription fee. Joy.

[@game_boyd1644]

@@tombstonesoda1005 also they just issued a cease and desist order to the Blumbo classic group

[@drg19841]

The whole "going back to the first game" bit hit hard. I recently tried going back to team fortress classic. The guys playing there now are the true die hards, the ones who have honed their skills to insane levels. I got stomped.

[@plebisMaximus]

I used to play CSGO on an almost tolerable level back in 2015-16 and while it's not as bad as some of the really old games like Team Fortress Classic, I could still feel the skill floor has been raised by a lot when I returned last year. That's still an ongoing, supported live service game too. People are dedicated to their favourite games.

[@lumirairazbyte9697]

Unfortunately this is why matchmaking in live service games are skill based and contains bots: Nobody has the time to improve in games that are played by people who doesn’t touch grass. Casuals quit, and so any potential microtransactions consumer.

[@nano5696]

@@lumirairazbyte9697 but, i like bots. if a game doesn't have bots i don't play it

[@sovietunion7643]

compare this to current team fortress two which is basically one big shitpost of a game and an hilarious community

[@JamesTDG]

Thankfully for me, I was able to pwn the guys playing quake 1 MP, the funny thing was that it was my first time playing quake 1, lol

[@jkitty542]

It doesn't matter if the vast majority of gamers prefer single player experiences over multiplayer live services, as long as there are a relatively small number of "whales" who get addicted to and go bankrupt on games like Diablo Immoral, then AAA companies will continue to divert developers and funding from single player games in order to make them. This is at least in part why the indie space has been flourishing over the last few years.

[@OffTheRailGaming]

Remember that guy who spent $10,000 on diablo and now they're not allowed to play PVP because they're too strong?

[@savary5050]

@@OffTheRailGaming it was like 400,000 bro Edit: Sorry 100,000

[@OffTheRailGaming]

@@savary5050 my bad, thanks for correcting me

[@flamingscar5263]

I wouldn't say the indie scene is "flourishing" it's still not profitable and also very hard to find new good indie games due to the AAAs having a higher advertising budget Indie devs still overall lose money per game made, they just normally have 1 game do well enough to fund a few more and then have to pray one of those few profit Idk where the idea that indie gaming is doing well comes from, indie gaming is at an all time low, just because good indie games are coming out and you may play them, doesn't mean everyone is

[@histhoryk2648]

Mostly with low-poly and pixel stuff

[@Modenut]

To be fair - Elden Ring was not successful in a vacuum with no context. It came from Miyazaki and years of work with a thoroughly proven track-record with Souls/Borne/Twice in its back. Not to mention George Martin. It didn't exactly start at square one in that sense. I do see your point, though. :)

[@hazzmati]

Exactly I found it odd he said that..

[@lycanwarrior2137]

It's also more of an outlier.

[@Gnidel]

Exactly. People viewed it as Dark Souls 4 BotW Style Open World Edition.

[@altdoe9699]

I feel like the success of Elden Ring is really more of an endorsement of not flushing your reputation down the toilet for quick cash.

[@thelel6591]

@@altdoe9699 i feel like its because video games are becoming more and more popular and because mostly all kids/teens dont wanna play something old (even though dark souls 3 isnt old at all but to them it is) they get interested when a new title is coming out. it reminds me when certain movie sequels make so much more than their first. i was in shock when alot of people said elden ring was their first game when they knew dark souls was a thing. people just like to jump on the hype train.

[@CyrusKA]

That whole first part about Blumpo is totally relatable. I was super not bad at Quake 3 Arena like 20 f'n years ago. Every time I've gone back to play it only the superhardcore players are there and they eat me alive.

[@PonkeyPoe]

I used to be really, really good at Jedi Knight 2, which was essentially just Q3A with a star wars paintjob. Grew up on it, got good, then got bored. Whenever I go back the remaining players knock my entire dick so deep in the dirt it hits water. The worst part is I know that the people doing the dick-knocking are either half my age or are the same people I would dunk on 15 years ago who just never left.

[@chronostrafe]

I have that same experience with Halo Reach's Swat mode. I was exceptionally good at it back on release, but years of not playing a single halo title (4 kind of killed my interest in multiplayer and story content), only to try and go back to it before it was added to the MCC in 2019... man, it was rough. I was getting domed every time I spawned in.

[@CyrusKA]

@PonkeyPoe Yeah getting murked by a 15 year old hits different when you're 40 rather than when you're 20.

[@mallusaih]

i actually just got into quake arena and left Wondering why i even started a 20+ year old game as a new player

[@Silverbolt0953]

Ross Scott's main video on why he hates Live Service games are also really valid. He comes not from a current consumer perspective but from preservationist perspective. The video is quite long but I highly recommend watching it. You might also know Ross Scott as the guy behind Freeman's Mind & Civil Protection.

[@MatanVil]

The biggest problem with most live services is that they do care a lot on ways to get money but do not think about good gameplay to keep players. And clearly the fall of SVB and its knock-on effect on the economy might be another death blow for this type of economical thinking. Live service might have been a thing because of the cheap money era of the 2010's, companies will try to try again, no more short-term gains only.

[@TheRedCap30]

I agree, like I tried Fortnite for the first time a few months ago and I was impressed by how fun and solid the gameplay is. The fact they made a no build mode is a godsend for people like me, who don't want to spend hours grinding 90s only to die to a stray sniper shot lol

[@lycanwarrior2137]

It's also a consequence of the huge wealth gap between the rich and the poor, along with the shrinking middle class.

[@lumirairazbyte9697]

@@TheRedCap30 In 2017, in the season 2, Epic said that the Battle Pass for now on will be purchased with real money only. They backtracked and they have the most popular and generous battlepass offerings.

[@jubies6286]

We'll never see a "no more short term gains only" mindset from these publicly traded games publishers. The US ones are literally obligated by law to pursue short term gains, if they don't return value for their shareholders they can be sued for it.

[@crylec6534]

@@jubies6286 Welcome to capitalism. It’s how you see a social media company making record profits then to lay off over 400 employees next week. Because Infinite growth must continue and gaining more short term profits for the next earnings call is worth it than upkeeping the site.

[@maximuscesar]

"Elden Ring didn't came from an existing franchise" technically yes, but not exactly.

[@krystina662]

"large companies and corporations fucking hate users of their products" in other words

[@jorger1818]

If anything, it's more like corpos are legally obligated to care astronomically more about their investors than their customers

[@spinyslasher6586]

@@jorger1818 It's basically dictatorship in corporate form. You are by design better off caring for investors than the common populace.

[@plebisMaximus]

@@jorger1818 God forbid multi-millionaires who put their money into a start-up actually risk losing a bit of it for the average consumer. We need that legislation protecting the most comfortable.

[@burnttoast26]

I mean, the WotC leak literally said that the corpos see customers as obstacles between them and "their" money.

[@BubbleTea033]

​@@burnttoast26 wait what? Wotc as in Wizards of the Coast?

[@E-shinobi]

There are two words that represent a good live service game, where you pay a small flat rate for the whole game and the only thing behind a paywall are optional cosmetic packs, and the money goes to support cool devs who care about their player base. Those words are ROCK AND STONE!

[@plantbot9593]

ROCK AND STONE, YEAAAAAH

[@Appletank8]

If you don't Rock and Stone, you ain't comin' home

[@sverxrazum1130]

That's it, lads! Rock and Stone!

[@jankygrunt]

For Karl!!

[@Vortical_IV]

STONER ROCK

[@rosecity_chris]

Fortnite and COD really corrupted every corporate suit in gaming into thinking they have to do a live service to make money

[@Roxor128]

Seems that corporate suits are very likely to be sheep. Whatever lead someone has, they're following it.

[@dstyKchp]

Another reason I don't like live service games is that I HAVE to play to get cosmetics not just taking me out of other games but my life in general. I'm an artist I'm a (practicing- ish) animator I have school. A game can be a live service and I'd play it over and over after school to throw out stress but instead daily quests and missions are just another obligation I wanted to escape from after a long day.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

The best way to keep a game alive is to have a compelling and replayable gameplay loop in the first place and add a robust map editor on top of it.

[@plebisMaximus]

Modding tools are like free life support for any game, but it doesn't really make any money and is thus not desirable. Same thing with replayability. I don't think major publishers really care about having their game be played, they just want a cashflow.

[@lumirairazbyte9697]

Fortnite has a creative mode, and is being pushed more than the main and OG modes. Halo Infinite now relies upon using Forge, for new rotating maps and modes. Overwatch 2 has custom modes. Fall Guys soon will have a map editor.

[@lumirairazbyte9697]

@@plebisMaximus Activision, EA and 2K (by being an IPO) are an example of how much detest maintaining a live service game for too long. The most recent example was Warzone, which Activision shutdown their free to play access in favor of 2.0., in which you can’t transfer your skins and other mtx purchases, forcing the player to purchase new ones. The OG Warzone only lasted 2 years, while Fortnite now has 5 years old and outgoing.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

@@plebisMaximus Yup, and that's why I don't play AAA games, they're just not worth it.

[@itsrainingcats9968]

@@lumirairazbyte9697 Fortnite is still thriving though

[@AhPook]

And this kind of thing is exactly why I hate the stock market and find both it and investment culture as a whole to be detrimental to anything it touches. Things cannot grow forever, this is reality.

[@SS5Ghaleon]

It's not even just growth, but in some cases a RATE of growth that keeps increasing. It's impossible in the long term, yet it keeps happening.

[@lumirairazbyte9697]

@@SS5Ghaleon Life is too delicate and short. Nobody will invest on things that only will be worth it in decades or even hundreds of years.

[@sergiowinter5383]

Things cannot grow forever, so they dip, I buy the dip, things go up again, I sell, easy money. Enjoy working until you die I guess

[@williamspell5692]

My mom tried to get me into investing, and I hated it. It's like gambling, but if things go bad, it's not just you that loses it all but the whole economy.

[@FelipeJaquez]

@@SimuLord Virgin Socialism vs Chad Mercantilism Realistic economic growth that won't overtly stifle individual achievement.

[@hamelconsultancyllc]

This is the same conversation we had about MMOs 10 years ago.

[@MrEffectfilms]

And multiplayer shooters about 12 years ago.

[@charmlb3401]

I seriously feel like this mess can all be traced back to disney

[@janfungusamon4926]

or Rockefeller

[@jayl5032]

@Juan martin Lepio bruno How so? Disney has never been strong in the video game scene.

[@Gatorade69]

@@jayl5032 You just don't get it ! Disney ruined everything ! Now everything is WOKE !

[@plebisMaximus]

@@Gatorade69 As we all know, Disney created politics. Before that, everything was amazing and nobody ever did anything controversial with art.

[@Anonymous0C]

Nah. It can be traced back to Elder Scrolls Oblivion's Horse Armor. It started microtransactions. Now we're here.

[@NamelessGamer29]

Even though I don’t like Nintendo’s “release an empty game and add free updates later” policy they’ve been doing the past couple years I can at least respect that they don’t try to nickel and dime you with micro-transactions

[@NoxideActive]

It would be nice if Nintendo went private so the incentive from investors to nickel and dime the player-base won't be as strong. So far they have done a better job than most gaming companies of comparable size.

[@ThatAnnoyingBird]

Are you seriously implying that something like Splatoon 3 launched "empty"?

[@jorger1818]

@@ThatAnnoyingBird I think they're implying more like Animal Crossing launched empty, though it made more sense for that game. Maybe the Switch Online retro consoles?

[@ananastudio]

@@jorger1818 that or the new Mario soccer game

[@sweatbot5000]

What I don't respect is Switch LAUNCH TITLES still priced at their original MSRPs. It's ridiculous how they rarely drop prices on years-old games...

[@votekyle3000]

Certain industries really shouldn’t go public, it kills the art for the sake of pleasing Wall Street.

[@rexthewolf3149]

The problem with that is is that you can’t make art without money. You have to pay your devs somehow.

[@vizthex]

@@rexthewolf3149 yeah, but you could probably get some money without going public, right? hell, if you're dedicated & patient enough you could save up money to hire people or make stuff as a hobby or what have you.

[@lonelychameleon3595]

Imagine this: You’re in 5th grade. It’s Friday. You come home from school and your family is ordering pizza. Mom and Dad are going out for a movie date, your older sister is going out with her friends. You have the house to yourself. After dinner you go to your room and fire up Blumpo with your friends online. Life will never be this good again.

[@DeadBaron]

Dude revisiting Blumpo is exactly my experience with the Tribes games. They were still relatively active but the only people that play them now are people that have played since the late 90s and never stopped. You just can't compete with them and while skiing is still super fun, the veterans are *scary* good.

[@KyleJohnsonVA]

I will never forgive Hi Rez for sabotaging Tribes: Ascend. They were right on the cusp of being a highly popular competitive shooter at the dawn of the Twitch era, and they thew it all away to make a shitty League of Legends clone. Then CS:GO ended up taking the spotlight they gave up.

[@DeadBaron]

@@KyleJohnsonVA hi rez is the kind of studio that chases fads and profits, and will abandon their games at the drop of a hat the moment it isn't profitable

[@burnttoast26]

Never forget. VGS

[@hihellothere9569]

Live service games are very popular in Asia mainly because of media literacy Most story based and single player games are so based on Americans and it's ideals so foreign that most Asian audiences won't care or to pick up from. Like I have somebody said that Uncharted wasn't a great game because they didn't understand the story and wish that multiplayer was fun and had more people on it they knew Meanwhile everyone is playing CS:GO and Valorant. Because they are free and they are accessibly Live. Like one of my favorite games Undertale, I went to Cosplay for a school event as Ralsei from Deltarune and nobody even recognizes me. Meanwhile the girl who cosplayed a more popular League Of Legends Rip Off mobile game got more recognition I dunno

[@hihellothere9569]

Adding on to this. The western view of gaming has been fueled by nostalgia Whether you like it or not nostalgia is a bias that affects your views on new things. It's a given. A lot of these live service games aren't meant to cater to a existing audience but rather for a new audience to build off of. Id imagine Fallout 76 would have popped off in Thailand. Hell the reason why Genshin Impact is a hit it is because it's accessible to everyone and catered to the Asia market specifically

[@PlatinumAltaria]

The biggest problem in the gaming world today is "promise". - Why do people preorder? Based on the promise of an amazing experience! - Why do people forgive bad games? Because the game "shows promise" - Why do people fall for live services? Because they promise to be around for ages That's all they sell today: promises that maybe some time in the future you'll have some fun. Better spend $60 on this hot new game! Better buy the sequel a year later! Better buy this skin, I promise you'll look really cool in it! Make sure to pre-order the DLC! It's got some promising content! And don't forget the battle-pass, look at all that stuff it gets you after just one more game! People have to stop falling for this eventually, right? I really hope the whole AAA industry collapses.

[@vizthex]

pre-orders mostly promise exclusive in-game content rather than "an amazing experience" (which is used in more general marketing), but yeah you're right.

[@MEYH3M]

Warframe is celebrating their 10 year anniversary this year, it has been consistently in steams top most played. Live service isn't the problem, greedy publishers and devs is the problem. that's why warframe is self published.

[@Lordsandero]

Let's be honest here, Blumpo was a masterpiece ahead of its time.

[@SpookeyGael]

I still hate the idea of paying for cosmetics in a video game. I despise how completely normalized it has become. Why can't I just buy a game and have access to everything in the fucking game?

[@deadlyninja112]

Amen

[@CybershamanX]

Because "Line must go up". Hopefully, enough people will someday realize corporations are actually a net _bad_ for consumers and then start paying more attention to who they vote for each election Until that day comes, though, the Line...it must continue to go up...

[@DakotaofRaptors]

It sucks when you play BF5 and they have all the cool, historical skins locked behind a paywall or one-time limited event.

[@naf8787]

in a free game? understandable they gotta make money. for a paid game? kill it with fire

[@chesterstevens8870]

I'm sick of the lie that cosmetic micro's don't affect gameplay. They absolutely do; they inform the social hierarchy that comes inherent in live service multiplayer games. Ask any zoomer, "f2p" is now a slur word and paid taunts have replaced the teabag.

[@Hazzy113]

People forget that we have gone through this whole thing before with MMOs, WOW came out and was incredibly popular, others tried to copy it not realising that it needs a lot of work to make a game as good as wow and most no longer exist

[@AlexanderTheGrey]

5:48 hit the frickin nail on the head with that one

[@blazikem]

6:25 genuinely why I love the steam deck feels nice to have a handheld gaming device where the games arent all locked at full price

[@keinname2481]

im someone who recently started playing tf2 (i have like 80h up to now) and i can say that i certainly notice that there are a ton of better players around but the game is still fun and playable. More annoying are the bots and cheaters and things that are just broken in the game

[@Sasha-zw9ss]

As for bots, one of the most bizarre experiences I had was literal MvM: all-human blu vs all-bot red. I was using the Vacc because I use it all the time anyways. We won)

[@keinname2481]

@@Sasha-zw9ss lol how once headshog sniper bots spawncamp its usually over also if you are in a team with bots they show the very interesting behaviour or trying to votekick you once you try to votekick them

[@Sasha-zw9ss]

@@keinname2481 It's not over if you have Vaccinator)

[@Ahmadabdal_]

They annoy Me too wimshu...me too

[@hdog9046]

You know, it sounds like the communities around live service games are rather cult-like. The leaders try to get new members into the cult via promising something valuable, and then once they're in, you isolate them from their non-cult peers and the higher-ups extract money from them, and indoctrinate them into getting new members and enforcing orthodoxy in order to get a higher status in the cult. Replace the leaders of the cult with publishers, and members with regular players and you've got the live service model. This even extends to how the more cults there are, the less attention any one of them can have, and the older ones have more staying power unless the new one stands out.

[@MrDorkbot]

Funny enough the problem you demonstrated in the intro already happens to live service games. I forget where I read it but a lot of these games have a dedicated fanbase that doesn't really grow and new players dont go into these games because they dont want to play catch up.

[@ethans6539]

“Live service is bad” is like “The sky is blue”

[@vizthex]

ah, the infinite money train. just one problem: you can't just keep adding cars, or you'll run out of space on the tracks. really hoping this system doesn't impact singleplayer games, cuz those just can't be live service and succeed (as seen with avengers). I'd rather just have a few expansions and/or sequels. More than happy to buy some DLC for a game I enjoy (provided it adds content and not just skins).

[@TheRedCap30]

Can't wait for the gritty reboot of Blumpo, Blumpo (2029)

[@Sound557]

Gaming companies would probably think that a mall filled with nothing but all-you-can-eat buffets would be sustainable.

[@Alovon]

Ironically enough I feel the GaS/Live Service devs could probably look at Destiny 2 or other MMORPG Contemporaries for how to retune their models. FFXIV has a 2 year update cycle between paid expansions, every 3-4 Months a big patch comes out that adds new story, dungeon(s), boss fights, raids.etc along with every even numbered patch raising the item level, allowing for sustainable progression for the new pinnacle level content. Destiny 2 has this but converted into a seasonal model over the course of a year, the power system may be different, but pretty much swap out subscription fee for season pass and big update for rolling content drop and it's a very similar system in concept. Now Bungie seemingly doesn't have the workforce to sustain D2 at that rate of content release with how their engine is aging atm (Doesn't help they are in a narrative squeeze already with them seemingly delaying the finale of the saga's story internally to next expansion). However I feel a developer trying to find a balancing point between these two can probably crack the code between a Live Service model that is sustainable despite Fortnite, Apex, and Overwatch's existence. And an experience that can be enjoyed as a casual single player or multiplayer...player. Personally I'd go 2 year cycle, 3 devteams. Launch - > 3/4 Seasons -> Y1 Small Expansion by an auxiliary team -> 3/4 Seasons -> Y2 Big Expansion by the launch team

[@ogami1972]

Gotta get me some of that CEO-mistresses'-boyfriend money.

[@Bergpoweryt]

Another thing is that most live service games (especially by big companies) often just feel soulless and aren't really fun or just feel like a cashgrab.

[@TheFoxMcfat]

omg i have been searching for this channel and video for MONTHS, i'm so glad to find it again!! ♥

[@mark-gj4mb]

It's also important to remember that Elden Ring doesn't exist in a vacuum and the reason it got so much hype and so many eyes on it for pre orders and sales is because of From Software's years of goodwill. If a company produces consistently good titles, then it is much more likely that people will buy their new titles and talk about them and recommend them to their friends and online. So there is definitely a "line go up" chance for single player experiences, but that is only in the long term and companies need short term success

[@IkeSan]

One of the few examples is Team Fortress 2. Even after 14 years that game still has players, still has community making content. It is free to play and even with the bot problem and the long waited heavy update people play even after Overwatch tried to take it down. It may have broken mechanics like random crits but the game is good as a team game multiplayer.

[@ironicdivinemandatestan4262]

When did the Overwatch devs ever talk about "taking down" TF2? TF2 players undeniably forced the comparison, and now just use it as a naked cope because it's clear Valve hasn't given a shit about it since Blue Moon.

[@peeks7165]

Tf2 has never been competition for overwatch

[@Torpoint.]

Tf2 and Valve do not fit into this argument Valve does not have public stock Tf2 has been abandoned not because 'valve is lazy' but because the community actively insults them anytime they try to do anything with the game

[@SolidusCurncer]

Its not that much of a "team" game

[@jonathanbohm6489]

I think CSGO and team fortress have been the benchmark for these types of hop in and go

[@vizthex]

as much as everyone shits on Valve, they're easily one of (if not the) best triple A devs around. they don't make a game very often, but whenever they do it's a banger that's worth the price. not to mention all their games regularly go on sale for 50 - 90% off. indies are kinda carrying the industry rn imo. Seems like every new triple A game is broken as fuck cuz it was rushed, or a greedy live service failure, or some other nonsense. not to mention the over-inflated budgets that don't really add much...

[@BabzaiWWP]

i really enjoy your art and editing style. There have been videos on your other channel that i didnt care about the context of at all that i still watched just to see how the visuals would turn out.

[@tylertriezenberg1399]

I don't work in anything close to the video game industry, but I'm thankful to work for a privately owned company. It's not perfect, but it's nice to be insulated from some of the short term demands other companies face

[@JohnnnyJohn]

As I lay here watching Whimsu rant about Blumpo and Splumbie, playing Angry Birds Classic on my phone (I really am 🤣), I think to myself, this is why I avoid FTP games like the plague they are.

[@godlyvex5543]

You don't really have to avoid free games, just don't give them money.

[@NoxideActive]

You bring up a lot of good points and the part about Paladins was very intriguing to me. This is also why I wish a few of my favorite game companies would go private. The level of control and self ownership are huge positives, although I get why going public matters for some.

[@ZeeBlueShork]

I still cant believe the NFL Skins in Fortnite made over 50M for the game no wonder people want to make a live service game.

[@LizardOfOz]

Live services "locking players to a single game" hurts not just other live services, but non-live-service games as well; In a hypothetical world with no live services players would be playing more games, because a rare non-live service lasts for more than a few dozen hours.

[@ChronoTango]

A “Live Service” game has seemingly only ever meant “Next to zero content at launch, but there will be ways to spend thousands of dollars by the time it’s offline” game for me.

[@markwheeler4245]

Cant fukin stand live service games, designed to be a GRINDFEST, 1 skin can cost more than a year or 2 old AAA game in store sales ffs, theres daily rewards, themes for xmas etc, battle passes, limited time offers where they sell u bullshit currency and ur left with a little left over to tempt u to buy more, then theres roadmaps! I just can't stand these games they are designed purely to keep u playing and spending.

[@oppenz3723]

CSGO is a testament of how to make a live service game done right. Not by quantity but basic quality with no impossible-to-balance headache gimmicky "features"

[@lumirairazbyte9697]

Valve is not a public traded company, so by making the gameplay and mtx worse overtime it doesn’t work for them.

[@godlyvex5543]

I don't really understand why you think gimmicks and features are necessarily bad things. They aren't. CSGO might be a good game with down to earth mechanics, but that doesn't mean that gimmicks and wacky unbalanced mechanics = bad game. Maybe a bad competitive game, but not everything needs to be competitive.

[@DOGEELLL]

​@@godlyvex5543itq bad gmae design if you add a bunch of BS that make the game unbalanced and unfair it will be trash We have see that a lot

[@godlyvex5543]

@@DOGEELLL You can't construct a sentence, I don't know if you're really an expert on much.

[@Greez1337]

How can anyone be tired of loud obnoxious live service F2P online games.... I love the battlepasses and the rosters of self aware diverse characters who all have tons of neon and pastel colour skins, sprays and dances that I can unlock from loot boxes. So epic poggers UwU!! Also they all try to give off this idolized street style.... Toootaly original and poggers.

[@zynet_eseled]

At least onrush had the line of being an unimaginably fun game...

[@peeks7165]

Unironically true

[@fake12396]

Le epic gamer rant

[@edwardsantiago9109]

Hah, can't fool me Black Mesa

[@Yerlockk]

Even if live service doesn’t go away, surely publishers would rather have a solid foundation at launch as opposed to busted. Think halo infinite; Microsoft needed to show growth to investors and didn’t want a 2042 styled backlash if it was a catastrophe. So they walked a fine line giving bare bones of game but also having it stable enough to play on. Reputation saved, growth achieved, investors happy. So sad this is how it works.

[@rackneh]

I think of all game companies Hi-rez is one of my favourites. Paladins and Smite are just fun. They're not spectacular genre defining games but they are consistently decent

[@Whalester]

I've mostly been player god of war, rdr2 singleplayer, death stranding, elden ring, etc. etc. you get my point. There is plenty of great story games to make me happy, and I know because there are sooo many people that also love great single player games, they are going to continue to be made. I am not worried about the video game industry as how it affects me.

[@crylec6534]

My biggest annoyance is that burnout feeling because the game has become a chore. Do your daily, do the weekly, grind the battlepass. At this point it’s frustrating and the moment I took a break from them. Played MCC, Elden Ring, Hades, New Vegas. My love for gaming restored, because they are satisfying, it’s not trying to buckle and dime me. And it ends.

[@godlyvex5543]

nickle and dime, not buckle and dime

[@crylec6534]

@@godlyvex5543 Auto correct for some reason

[@joshenderson315]

Man, Blumpo ruled so hard back in the day. Too bad there will never be a sequel to Blumpo

[@morgankw89]

Deep Rock Galactic, best co-op live service multiplayer game out there. No FOMO. Join us!

[@paulrobertsson8760]

Idk why TF2 was in the thumbnail, it's one of the best examples of how to do a live service game right, community servers still have that 2010 OG feel

[@benji-menji]

Play Deep Rock Galactic!!! It's not free but it's the fairest live service game out there. There is none of the BS that makes me suppress my desires for in game content while still having cosmetic DLC packs of various price points. There are even Supporter packs that are expensive but give gold cosmetics and mugs. ROCK AND STONE!!!!

[@BiscuitDelivery]

This is why the privately traded 'AA' industry will keep single-player games alive. They'll never be nearly as popular as your 'AAA' live service shit, but they'll be pretty good and they don't need to arbitrarily grow the company so long as they turn a profit for the private owners. Better model in my opinion. Long live Spiders.

[@byletheisner5006]

Finally someone mentioning AA games, most when talking about "hope" in the game industry exclusively talk about indie games, while in my opinion AA games tend to be much superior

[@jasonmorel2957]

Live service games sound good in theory because the prior model of dividing the player base through paid map packs really ruined so many games and communities. But now it’s just gotten to the point where these games are artificially suppressing their content in order to keep the players coming back under the guise of receiving content that used to just be there on launch day. For example Call of duty 4 launched with 17 maps, fast forward to 2022 and Modern Warfare 2 launched with like 8 maps and advertised a map that was supposed to launch with the base game but was removed for legal reasons as a new map for this season.

[@PixTron515]

What sucks is that Valve has the opposite problem of a Private-owned company: they have absolutely _no_ incentive to update live service games nor make good games in general CSGO hardly gets any meaningful content (even taking away its most popular map out of sheer spite from the developers), TF2 is rotting on its 6 year anniversary since a content patch came out, and even Dota 2 feels abandoned with a sore lack of meaningful balance patches and shoving its TI event with its Winter event (yes they just added a hero - ONE hero, within more than a year, when they used to release 2 heroes per year), with its newest games dying within months of release (Dota Artifact and Dota Underlords) Not to mention the massive amount of cheaters and bots within all of these games that Valve won't bother fixing - a problem that would tank even the most profitable of publicly-owned companies -the other biggest problem is ignorant and greedy Executives. They won't ever take the loss themselves to keep the line going up and taking that risk, _everyone else_ has to pay for that line (ActivisionBlizzard doesn't pay US taxes but rakes in millions of dollars worth of tax returns with our tax money! THANKS CALIFORNIA!) Overall Gaming _is_ fucked but has some very easy fixes if company executives stopped being greedy assholes and actually paid for their own damages

[@optimisticpasta4246]

Just got into Battlefront 2 and holy shit man this vid intro is 100% on point

[@IanThatMetalBassist]

Blumpo is Bungie era Halo

[@EnclaveOfficer1776]

Amen

[@godlyvex5543]

I tried playing some older halo multiplayer games and I thought it was fine enough. Some people were good but it wasn't even close to unplayable.

[@andycopeland7051]

The whole concept of games as a service is dumb. Remember when we played games simply because they were fun? The whole game would release day 1 with all the maps and game modes and the best of them are still fun decades later. Nowadays developers trick kids and childish adults into thinking they're having fun by making playing their game like a job with deadlines and selling them digital outfits. I'll have none of it

[@dulguunjargal1199]

TF2 turned from a Live Service to Just a Multiplayer game after 3 like 6 years of no updates

[@theJellyjoker]

All that live service stuff is a big disincentive for me to even want to try

[@zechariahcaraballo8765]

2:22 one point to the FGC people will go easy on you and teach u old games like street fighter 3 (honestly it feels like my teamates in valorant are more of an opponent that anyone I fight in a fighting game lol)

[@darthjc4]

Very hot take but fortnite does a good job of bringing in new and old players. With crossovers, new maps, rotating weapons and items,new gimmicks every season, the game never stays the same for to long. I haven't played for 2 seasons but i know when i go back it'll be the same but different.

[@Chickensea10]

Speaking of live service, EA is getting rid of battlefield bad company 2 from ALL STORES close to the end of April. They tried with mirrors edge series as well as over $500 worth of games but players backlashed enough so for now, they still remain

[@cybernetic_crocodile8462]

The conclusion: Stock market was a mistake.

[@mafiousbj]

Thay annoy me too, specially those that are actually fun but fail to attract a big playerbase and gets put down to sleep after a few months. I haven´t played online multiplayer games in 5 years now, and the last one was an MMO.

[@HeartAttackMan004]

This video ultimately taught me that the only way things will improve is if we topple Wall Street.

[@EranMadeMonsters]

Wow! that was a fascinating review of the new Batman game! I couldn't believe it when (SPOILERS) King Shark gave birth to Brainiac's child, and it said the line "I'M BATMAN!" And then he went Batman all over the place! 100/10 would buy the battle pass again!

[@Brickfrog427]

I think it's kind of interesting that certain Grand Strategy games like Stellaris or Simulator games like The Sims, Truck Driver 2023 or whatever, kinda fit into the Venn diagram of live-service games. Players invest hundreds of hours into these titles. I wouldn't want a bunch of gameplay microtransactions but a battle pass that has little fun gameplay ideas would be neat.

[@plebisMaximus]

Honestly, just add expansions to your singleplayer games and it's enough. Nowadays, continued development always just means cosmetic microtransactions, grand strategy games are pretty much the only ones keeping the old expansion model alive.

[@autisticgod3338]

honestly the thing that really bugs me about live service games is that they are usually defined as games that get more content over the lifespan of the game but most of the live service games will release cosmetics every season and call it content. imagine if apex or overwatch didn't have their battle passes and cosmetic BS and just released 1 new character a couple times a year maybe a new gun for apex once a year I wouldn't consider that a sufficient amount of "content" to claim the game is an active Live service game but with a random skin or crossover every once in a while somehow people still fall for their tricks

[@Drstrange3000]

Finally someone sees through the illusion of cosmetics packaged as "content".

[@meliodas8409]

Sorry, i got distracted. While you talked about growth I was thinking about Spyro inflation

[@theJellyjoker]

Consistent updates is why I don't play Stellaris anymore, it's no longer the game I bought, i don't find what it has become fun and there is no way to go back to that.

[@untemperance]

I've really come to respect single-player one-time games that respect my time. I play the game on my own time, and it's dependent on ME to actually want to play, not guilt tripping me for not playing by giving me the stress of missing out on stuff I don't even really want. I just play the game, maybe stop for several months, then come back to the same game. It's not moved forward without me. Thanks, single-player games.

[@nameguy606]

I love the imagery in your videos.

[@DariaJames3777]

calling elden ring an original ip might technically be true, but its still essentially just open world dark souls. kinda misses the point.

[@LizardOfOz]

The most worrying part is that successful "free" live service games are making BANK. And that bank is made not out of thin air, but because people fall for the exploitative monetization tactics. FIFA Ultimate Team didn't *just* make 1.6 BILLION dollars in 2021 - it *took* them from the players through exchanges which a reasonable person wouldn't consider fair.

[@AmIWhoIThinkIAm]

I was watching this while waiting for my modded Minecraft sp game to load.

[@johnathancactus]

This video is really neat- I’d love to see your opinion on how Splatoon 3 handles live service!!!

[@glameow12345]

At 5:25 a line from I think extra punctuation or the cold take on the escapist that went like this “you can’t expect people to dedicate all they free time in a day twice a day.

[@demongamer_IX]

I thought the funny looking cat would mention something about TF2. Still, good video.

[@DarrenSmith-j8m]

Corporation and investors when they find out infinite growth is impossible on a world with finite resources.

[@sergiowinter5383]

Then dip happens and I buy the dip. Good thing that the stock doesn't only go up or I wouldn't know when to buy

[@blacklight683]

Valve making great multiplayers and then inventing cases and battlepass:

[@pixelraster9588]

moral of the story, please please please don't make your company publicly traded

[@iDrinkRaid]

Good analysis of the state of things. Only nitpick is that Elden Ring is part of the Soulsbourne, From Software, Hidetaka Miyazaki series of games, and has been doing well for over a decade now, it's not anything new. I also think that it's not really reproducible in massive quantities, since the singleplayer space, especially for games sold on their difficulty, is pretty small and easy to flood.

[@tomer073]

bro this blumpo game is a perfect description of csgo

[@hothhead5677]

Thanks a lot, You just activated my Google Home and made it play some random song with your blumpo talk

[@elpavino]

i've been jailbreaking my old consoles just to play something good, games from the psx, psp, ds, literally anything other than modern games lol

[@FavoredPizza]

The only thing I’ll pay for in a game is DLC it’s extra content and not 20$ for a skin

[@bustergundo516]

Depend on the DLC. For me the DLC has to add something like new levels and more story content...not cosmetics. Some games were/are crazy enough to hide 50% of the game as DLC!

[@spacewargamer4181]

The move that Rovio did is followed by other devs that sell paid games in a similar fashion. EA with the Sims, 4K with Civ V or Activision with older CoDs. What is speciall about those? That they are all older versions of new games that are loved, and to make people not buy them they put again and keep those games prices as his original lauch prices to make people bought the newest instead, also from that point they never get discounts, since the new ones are a lot more cheap....well, you know how it goes.