The introduction of live service games in the industry has flipped the business on its head from where it began. Where gamers would normally buy a game, beat it, and move on, we now live in an era where games don’t have to end. Games such as Fortnite, League of Legends, Destiny 2,and GTA V, for example, all keep players engaged with consistent and exciting updates that always offer something new to do or earn. The longer these games exist, the more content is added and the harder it becomes for a new game to offer enough to draw people’s attention away.
Areport by researcher Newzooconfirms just how difficult it has become for a new game to compete with older titles that have decades of work under their belt. According to the study, 66 games accounted for 80% of all playtime in 2023, with 60% of that time being spent in games at least six years old. Fortnite, Roblox, League of Legends,Minecraft, and GTA V alone gobbled up 27% of the total playtime for the year despite many being more than a decade old. Given the current trends, this data shouldn’t come as much of a surprise and will likely only become more pronounced in the future.
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Living games
The MMO model
The shift from games as singular experiences to ongoing experiences can be traced back to early MMOs. We’d occasionally get expansions to games as well, such as Starcraft and Warcraft, but these were almost always sold as separate purchases and acted as semi-sequels. Once World of Warcraft and other MMOs hit the scene and were charging players an ongoing fee to play, expectations changed. If we were going to start paying for a game in perpetuity, it should keep delivering content for just as long.
We all have our favorite game, and if that game could never end, why would we want to play anything else?
It took a long time for that model to branch out to other genres and only gained a foothold through the free-to-play model. Now, we could play a game for “free” but get sold smaller pieces of content as they were made. The special sauce to the success of this new live service model is twofold: Fortnite, Roblox, GTA 5, and all the other games on that list appeal to players on a base gameplay level, but also offer something more than just a “game.” They offer community and comfort. We all have our favorite game, and if that game could never end, why would we want to play anything else? At the very least, we would keep coming back to it.
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New vs old
What’s old is new again
Even if a game is packed with content upon release, it can’t compare with a game that has close to a decade of updates and additions, or even an endless amount of user-generated content.
For the first time in gaming, newer games are at a disadvantage upon release. Normally, the newest game gets all the attention, and players flock to the latest and greatest. New games still do get a lot of attention, but their time in the spotlight is much shorter-lived. Even if a game is packed with content upon release, it can’t compare with a game that has close to a decade of updates and additions, or even an endless amount of user-generated content. Live service games understand that players will go play the new game for a bit, but can count on them all coming back once they’re done and the next season, patch, or expansion is out.
Games don’t get old anymore, they get better. Fortnite gets more modes, skins, characters, missions, and events. GTA V gets more vehicles, heists, guns, and modes. There’s no need for developers to take such big risks on new games when it can just keep the captive audience it has and cater to them for as long as possible. It’s even a safer bet than sequels, or at least it was.
The lines have been drawn in the sand for live service games. Despite everyone wanting to get a piece of that pie, the data shows that gamers have already settled on which ones they will invest in. These games have become something more – they’re now platforms that have become too big to fail. Newer games would be wise not to try and compete in that fight but instead offer the best possible complete package.
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