The Secret Advantage Of Non-Live Service Games

[@MarkDarrah]

Probably actually too late for Christmas: old-game-dev-advice.creator-spring.com/?

[@OrbitalWings]

Been thinking about this a lot lately. It's amazing how much people have trained themselves to 'monitor' the performance and success of live service games to the point they now retroactively do the same for NON-live service games. You'll see people mocking a game for it's player count declining and it's like, yeah? It's a single-player game that's been out a few months now, what did you expect???

[@MarkDarrah]

Very true

[@jizamkizam9611]

What I like about non live service games is I can play them at my own pace. I used to play older mmos and the older multi shooter with friends. But once it switched over to constantly having to be online each day for rewards, buying battle passes, season passes etc, I just gave up. Starts to feel more like work rather than a way to unwind and have fun.

[@MarkDarrah]

Very true. Also once a live service drops in population, it is forced to cater to the remaining players. This can radically increase the barriers to new players

[@jiggerypokery2962]

I remember playing Diablo 4. Loved the campaign. Then the end game came and I felt like my life just got a ton of added stress. Be here for helltide at this time be at world boss at this time. Suddenly I wasn't making my own schedule and realized it was a negative effect on my life and stopped.

[@robertking7465]

As someone who has played both forever games and stand alone story game. I think they both have their place and both are enjoyable for what they are trying to do. I think my favorite approach is somewhat in the middle. Which I don't really think many games have done. The best example I can think of is Borderlands 3. I played it more than I would have if it was just a one and done game. They were doing buffs to guns each week and having a lot of good paid and free DLC. Most forever games have required multiplayer which I am not really a huge fan of personally. I like that about borderlands as well where you can play one character in co op when you are both on. Then you can have a second character when you are just playing alone. I think a lot of Ubisoft's more recent games have been doing it too but I am not 100% sure on that. Not sure why but I like the hybrid approach a lot. Also wanted to say I am enjoying veilguard. Just one trophy away from getting the platinum. Doing a second playthrough to pick up the trophies I missed while playing blind. Hoping it doesn't take another 10 years for DA5 lol.

[@MarkDarrah]

The issue with games in the middle, is that their size can be a barrier for some.

[@robertking7465]

@ what do you mean by size exactly? Like too much content?

[@MarkDarrah]

@@robertking7465 Yeah, I'm less likely to buy Skyrim content if I've only seen 5% of the main game

[@DonLionheart]

Your point about how only The Witcher can provide the true Witcher experience really resonated with me. It speaks to the conflicted feelings I had about Veilguard while playing it (which I beat, got the plat, overall great game). It felt like Dragon Age wasn't trying to provide the Dragon Age experience anymore during combat (and to some extent with character interaction), despite giving me that Dragon Age world and lore and storytelling quality.

[@MarkDarrah]

I think Dragon Age hasn't ever had a real idea of WHAT it wanted combat to feel like

[@DonLionheart]

@MarkDarrah I agree to some extent, it's been a bit inconsistent, but there was always a throughline, lots of abilities available, companion control, etc. Losing that made me feel disconnected, if that makes sense.

[@cvarc3736]

​@@DonLionheart Same for me. ff15 added companion control later, but as part of dlcs... so chances of the same for dav are minimal sadly

[@PrettyGuardian]

​@@DonLionheart Did Dragon Age 2 have more abilities than the Veilguard? I'm not sure this is a unifying theme of Dragon Age combat.

[@DonLionheart]

@@PrettyGuardian 2 had the spellbar on the bottom like Origins (and I think Inquisition? I played on consoles), and you had access to 8 abilities on consoles with them all bound to face buttons. I think Origins had more abilities on PC.

[@thedude882]

Something worrying about games as a service is that they almost seem monopolistic in their respective sector or niche. The bad thing about lack of real competition is that innovation is stifled.

[@MarkDarrah]

This is very true. #1 will have 4-10x #2 which will have 4-10x #3 By #5 you are VERY niche

[@Pyrian]

I don't play much live-service games in the first place, and yet the divide between "one and done" versus "come back to again and again" games is still very real in my playtime. The "come back to" games for me are instead mostly Roguelikes. E.g. FTL and Invisible Inc. each have over 1,000 hours of my time. Basically replacing live content with procedural content, lol.

[@MarkDarrah]

Yeah, forever doesn't necessarily mean live service. Though most are

[@DarthKrytie]

You're so right. If I played another MMO, I'd have to give up SWTOR. And I've so much time and money invested in SWTOR, I can't imagine what sort of MMO would make me give it up. Even at SWTOR's current state of lumbering along.

[@MarkDarrah]

Exactly.

[@Arauto_Kagnos]

Yeah I'm in the same boat kind of, I played SWTOR until about last year when I quit and during that time I only picked up one other MMO, ESO, and even then it was only to play the story. I haven't logged in to actually play the game in forever. And no other MMO has captured me like SWTOR has, so for now I have no MMO to play. Besides the occasional ESO for the story.

[@OGWardenofMyHeart]

@@Arauto_Kagnos I played ESO religiously for 5 years. Husband introduced to me to SWTOR and gave up ESO for it. Absolutely loving it. It was time for me to wave ESO goodbye, I had done everything and it was time to move on.

[@Arauto_Kagnos]

@OGWardenofMyHeart I am very glad you are enjoying SWTOR! I don't play it anymore myself but it's always nice seeing people give it a chance and enjoying it. Definitely one of Bioware's most underrated games IMO.

[@OhManTFE]

Starcraft Brood War is my forever game and what keeps it alive is UMS (use map settings) user generated content, and of course it still has a competitive scene where people play the vanilla game in 1v1

[@MarkDarrah]

Oh, wow

[@arodin]

A lot of indie games kind of work as "forever" games. I guess the nature of smaller, less complex games means their developer can keep adding to it forever. Sometimes it's paid DLC sometimes it's free content updates. Rimworld, The Long Dark, Medieval Dynasty, Gas Station Simulator, and of course Minecraft... every time I come back to games like these there's something new.

[@MarkDarrah]

This is an interesting point.

[@NizarElZarif]

I think the forever game limit the the story telling potential or at least i haven't found one yet that doesn't limit the potential. My favorite game always has a fixed start and impactful finish that mostly respect your time (Draogn age, mass effect, Neir, Dragon quest, persona, Cyberpunk ....). i just can't see how a forever game can deliver an impactful story if the whole goal is just to keep playing. You know your characters and their companions and other mission givers is practically always safe, and world mostly won't change because the goal is just to keeping playing and maybe spend more on cosmetic, and in game microtransaction. I think it would be good if some games retire so other can flourish. it sad for the gaming industry that most money spend is on games like "fortnite, GTA online, Minecraft, overwatch, Apex ..." because it limiting the potential consumers for brand new experiences, and it is driving every publisher to see if they can be the one to have a successful live service.

[@MarkDarrah]

To do storytelling in a forever game means that new story needs to be CONSTANTLY be created. Sounds exhausting

[@BoxingDawg]

I find analogies the best ways to make someone learn or understand concepts/ideas/informations xD

[@MarkDarrah]

Almost always

[@BubbleoniaRising]

My forever game is Fallout 4, and most of my "new content" is free, large-scale quest mods like Sim Settlements 2.

[@MarkDarrah]

Interesting

[@abysskun9518]

Obviously an unrelated question but since you've worked on old Dragon Age games, why do you think the games have veered away from Dark Fantasy with each new entry?

[@MarkDarrah]

A few reasons: -Team desire - in the early days, a corporate push to be more mainstream

[@cshahbazi1220]

There's a problem here though that explains why our one and done games are almost going extinct in the AAA commercial space. And is that well they do actually compete. Not directly like each of these kind of games do with each other, but to play a new non live service game, players still need to be convinced to stop playing a forever game if they don't have enough free time to do so otherwise. And that personal free time budget is a shared resource that everything competes with. A lot of us have probably been in such a position where we passed over a game we wanted to play because we didn't want to give up playing League or Genshin. Then there's also the other problem of the growing backlog. As time goes on, so long as the rate of games released that players want to play outpaces how many games they get to play, people's backlogs keep growing and growing, and with digital distribution now it's like you've got a whole street of hamburger stands competing for your patronage. Oh and tangentially, I do prefer mid size and cheap hamburger shops over the gourmet ones hehe.

[@MarkDarrah]

Yes I have to stop playing whatever is using my time. The stand alone game demands less but if still demands it

[@HarryH256]

Deep Rock Galactic seems like a good example of a smaller live game that carved a solid niche. Splitgate is another one. I do know that as I've aged I just don't have time to commit to a live service game, even though I loved multiplayer shooters in my 20s. I do wonder how much that factors into these live service games, if you don't pick one up when you have free time, do you ever go on to pick one up when you have limited time?

[@MarkDarrah]

Interesting. Could be. There is certainly a feeling of being behind the curve when you join a service later

[@OldyAlbert]

I have a trigger when i see that a game is trying to make itself a habbit rather then something i can eventually finish and move on and this feeling completely turnes me off liveservice games even though i actually do have time to play them. I don't think i even replay singleplayer games outside of short and challenging ones like Furi or something like that. Even games that try to make themselve replayable by locking difficulty behind finished playthouth - i'd rather download save on the internet to unlock it from the start and just play hardest setting from the get-go. I can see myself playing a bit of liveservice game if it doesn't resctict me with timegates, maybe something like PoE 2 when it's out of early accsess. But i'm clearly generally not the target audience for the genre - i didn't even like WoW or other MMOs at their prime, even when alot of my friend did and activelly tryed to get me to play it. I did, i hated it every time.

[@MarkDarrah]

indeed

[@beccangavin]

Sometimes I like little AA games or little indie gems. In fact, I even have a little $2 game that I’ve played repeatedly. It’s a good game. Some of those little cheap games are very creative. They can take chances that big developers can’t and sometimes we get something really unique and special. I also like my big AAA games but I’m more particular about them. Probably because they are more expensive. It has to have something unique about it that makes it engaging or I’m not going to spend the money. The one type of game I do not play is any kind of forever game. I like my games to have a point and you can’t have a point if your game never ends. I’m hoping that publishers and developers really are seeing the value in single player games with defined endings. I don’t even like new game plus content. If the game is done, it’s done. I’ll do the story over again if I want to stay in the world. I might be in the minority on that one. I don’t know what the stats are.

[@MarkDarrah]

I see signs that we are getting back to this. But I admit it may be wishful thinking.

[@lilathrone]

Strangely enough, my forever games are generally single player titles. I'm playing through Kotor once a year at least for 20 years now. Same with the Mass Effect trilogy. I imagine it will be kind of the same with Baldur's Gate 3. Most likely I am the exception though. From my player perspective, I have multiple issues with live service games (mostly mmorgps, the I am mainly interested in the RPG genre), that just doesn't make those appealing for me enough. One of those things is that with every new expansion, they can fundementally change the game and you cannot go back to the previous version. It's like when Mass Effect 2 came out, I am not allowed to play Mass Effect 1 anymore. Other thing is that in order to keep the game relevant, they must "reset" the progression for every player every season to keep the grind going and keep players engaged. In order to keep up, you need to commit to the game to some extent and in order to commit my time to one game, that needs to be significantly better than anything on the market and I don't think that is achievable for live service games with today'a gaming landscape. There are a lot of other reasons why I dropped live services but I think these are the most important ones. One thing that I would personally love for SP titles to copy from live services(with my mindset of course, I could be the very tiny minority) is studios to upgrade their older titles to keep them relevant. Some studios do this and I think even EA could see how ME: LE did well. Just tiny things, like for example raising Inquisition cinematic framerate to 60 or improving the resolution on consoles would be very welcome.

[@MarkDarrah]

Yes I would love to see more studios do what Bethesda has done with Skyrim.

[@realhumanbean21]

Hi Mark! Great video as always! I wanted to ask you what do you think about games being licences that can be easily revoked from players and not being in their possession? Do you think this concept has a future with some legal battles being fought rn

[@MarkDarrah]

I think the existing EU petition could lead to the disappearance of a lot of live service titles… If you MUST maintain a service indefinitely, that closes the door on a bunch of things

[@Shenec]

I picked up Anthem. Loved the game. But for me, and i put the emphasis on my personal opinion, it failed not because the competition it faced, but because of the glaring issues it launched with, the tremendous pre-launch hype that did not deliver and the "too little too late solutions". I was really hoping for Anthem 2.0 but we all know how that ended...

[@MarkDarrah]

Can you describe the "glaring issues it launched with"? Because, for me, it seemed like it had a fine launch

[@Shenec]

@MarkDarrah Frame rate/performance issues, plethora of bugs, game not launching across multiple platforms, poorly constructed missions (personal opinion again)... To be honest I could go and look up what the launch problems were, but it has been so long now that it's a bit of a moot point

[@MarkDarrah]

@@Shenec bugs were lower then average for a game of that scale (but not the already running Live Services), Game DID launch across multiple platforms... (maybe cross play was broken at launch?). I don't remember performance either way. You are 100% right about the missions. But that's a comparison to it competitors I'm not saying that you are wrong, its just not what I see. I see a game that launched FINE. In a genre where FINE isn't good enough. FINE is shit compared to a Destiny that has been running an polishing for YEARS. But if that isn't accurate, I want to know.

[@rtn6518]

​@@MarkDarrah i remember especially the wall block bug/glitch after launch. if you were in instances with randoms and cleared an area and you were NOT fast enough to fly to the next part with your team mates a energy-wall come up and separated you from you teammates... that was really annoying and it happend constantly with random groups. it was fixed later but while this was acitive, boy o boy. the next one was the soundbug. the sound just droped completly and you could not do anything else except restarting the whole game .... this was also fixed later but game suffered much, much longer from this bug. (probably a more complicated bug to remove) these bugs were nasty but they didn't kill the game. the progression system was one of the things that really harmed the game + the lack of proper goals and rewards. it was also lacking of likable basic multiplayer things, like a good player hub, where players want to start... (yes there was a seperate room in fort tarsis where you could technically meet other players but that didn't nailed it) personally, i had always the feeling that the devolper was not able to change the game in a rapid pace. every change felt slow for a service game and the roadmap was pointless very fast. so, fundamentally, anthem ist still not too far away from its launchversion, but with much less bugs and some added side-activities.

[@timmygilbert4102]

The issue is that the king of forever games currently, Minecraft, Fortnite and roblox, are also game platforms in themselves. They are the malls that hold the supermarket and the smaller shop. You don't have to go anywhere else 😢. Also the main attraction is basically game series in themselves, the concept of season is rich enough that they (mostly Fortnite) are an entry in any other games, by having enough unique gameplay elements around the core, to feel distinct. For example the spy season is my favorite Fortnite event. And having such good fondation also allow them to pivot quickly, spellbound was quickly sucked dry because in the marvel season you had a copy of it with the concept of power. And it's free! How do you compete with quality for free? I can't afford other games, i stucked with Fortnite. Add on too quality for free gacha game like ZZZ, genshin and honkai, and the competition is left dry. Anthem was good despite it's production difficulty, the world and gameplay fantasy had potential, it had distinct in identity there, i think a proper redo might work, since the foundation are there. Or someone else will, the story need more meat though 😅

[@MarkDarrah]

Fortnite and Minecraft both tend to age their audience out. If this doesn't happen or UNTIL it happens, you are 100% correct

[@mjohnsen8606]

You mentioned Skyrim as a potential forever game. Why do you suppose that, for as big as Skyrim is, they aren't constantly pumping out expansions? Like 1 a year at least until the next Elder Scrolls game. Player retention seems to still be really high with that game so I doubt you'd get to a point where they're unprofitable.

[@MarkDarrah]

Initial scale can work against DLC. If I have only played 10% of the initial game, you are less likely to want to add 10 more hours of content to that.

[@thedude882]

They have been releasing small dlc's throughout the latter history of the game: paid mods with Bethesda taking a cut.

[@Arauto_Kagnos]

I agree with your analogy, mostly because it applies pretty well to my experience with those two types of games. I played SWTOR for a decade, from 2013 to 2023, and during that time I picked up many single-player games I hadn't tried before. Yet I only picked up one MMO, ESO, and even then I didn't play it as a forever game I played it as a self-contained game. Once I was done with the story, I stopped playing. To get me to move completely to ESO or even just play it alongside SWTOR would've been hard because of all the effort I had already put into the later. And even though ESO is far larger than SWTOR it didn't provide the same MMO experience, so the corn in the hamburger was missing so to speak. Which made me stick with SWTOR.

[@MarkDarrah]

Yeah, exactly

[@someguy4040]

I cannot fathom why anyone would buy a live service game. They are the same thing over and over again, offer little value and sloppy gameplay, but always include a cash shop with macro transactions. Want blue? That’ll be $20, meanwhile the campaign is starved of content/rewards because they would cut into revenue. Most of them flop within a month because no one has the time or money for 500 different battle passes

[@MarkDarrah]

The ones that hit make massive money. As to motivations…

[@p2rt]

Anthem did not fail because it was online game and it had WoW as competitor. It failed because it had no endgame. It was not thought through on gameplay concept level. Remove raids and dungeons from WoW and it would fail too.

[@MarkDarrah]

Destiny launched with a weak end game as well. And that's the point. Destiny was basically alone in its genre. Anthem was competing with Destiny and Division that had established end games

[@seanburton9428]

Anthem failed because the complete lack end game content and the poor grind. It felt like a bait and switch and for that, yeah, your players left. The game play was fresh and felt great. I wanted play what the trailer had, but it wasn't that. My honest take is that the bean counters of the world are killing games that had a great idea but simply wanted micro transactions on a paid $60 game... Diablo 4 is another that started great, but now is micro transaction hell. Hard pass. We need more companies that make games like Deep Rock Galactic, Satisfactory and like.

[@MarkDarrah]

It definitely had a lacking end game.

[@thedude882]

Another game that managed to be both self-contained and forever game is gta5. That game was basically 2 different games in 1.

[@MarkDarrah]

Absolutely. They have made more money on the live part then on game sales at this point

[@Kafka-Youtube]

You had golden oportunity with anthem and still do if you go and do a final fantasy 14 relaunch but also apply everything you say in this video, anthems combat feels amazing, ui? Horrible, cash shop? Atrocious cant buy what i want rotates, seriously just copy good things from Warframe and Destiny improve put your own spin and your own features and you fucking reek in money, good product = money simple as that

[@MarkDarrah]

I have no involvement with Anthem any longer and haven't in a long while

[@Kafka-Youtube]

@MarkDarrah shame what happened to that Game so luch potential...

[@sirlionheart4614]

Typical ex bioware dev talk. Quick to remind you on the "masterpieces" theyve worked on while also telling you their flops werent really flops, they were just "misunderstood".

[@MarkDarrah]

Ok... I guess. Interesting take