“If we expect all games to attract players indefinitely, Buckley says, ‘we’re just going to get more of these really soulless live service games that come out and get shut down nine months later, 12 months later, because they’re not making enough money.’”
We need more developers talking like this.
I think generally the majority of developers do think like this. They’re normally the ones passionate about good games and see fads and trends for what they are. Unfortunately it is not usually these developers in control of major decisions or greenlighting projects at [large] games studios. Even less so at publishers.
I would like to state, while its not said it’s implied, the statement “palworld is dead” is not correct anyway, Palworld is currently ranked 34th in players active on it at the moment on steam at 37,000 players playing. Obviously it declined from initial release because the game doesn’t have much replayability. Similar to ark, once you have played it once, you played it a billion times, aside from the order you catch your pals, there isn’t any difference between runs, and unlike ark, there is no incentive to log on daily to verify you wern’t raided, pals aren’t starving etc. It’s a game you play every once and awhile with your friends then ignore it for months. If anyone in their company expected infinite growth from a game with this kind of style, thats kind of on them.
Am I the only one who has only played single player?
No you are not. I exclusively play single player
I have to say i never understood the grind.
While all this is true, I feel like perhaps people are missing the point of what all this stemmed from to begin with.
Didn’t anyone back in the day play a game with a large online playerbase to slowly see that playerbase dwindle? It took longer back then, of course.
Do people really complain that there’s not enough Quake 2 multiplayer servers anymore? You know?
Isn’t this an unfortunate consequence of the normal lifespan of a game coupled with the fact that so many games come out and are competing for people’s realistically limited time and money?
Back when my example, Quake 2, came out, there simply weren’t as many games in the same genre competing for your attention in the same time span.
No, it doesn’t serve to focus on the “dead game” thing, but at the same time… it’s a real thing that really happens, and if you blow it with your playerbase early, that “dead game” time can come fast and fuck all your hard work. It can also make the true believers who backed you feel betrayed since they have no one to play the game with.
It’s not healthy at all, but neither is the games marketplace/working conditions/etc etc etc. It feels like it’s a consequence of how the industry works and the sheer number of games coming out and it’s not necessarily something people purposefully chose to focus on other than wanting to spend money on games other players would actually be playing in a multiplayer game. People have limited money and time and don’t want to waste it. What’s wrong with that?
soulless live service games that come out and get shut down nine months later, 12 months later, because they’re not making enough money.’
What if, shocker, they’re actually not making enough money to be viable and pay their workers a living wage? They should just keep being slavedrivers for their workers for the sake of gamers? I don’t get it.
If their financials are fine, keep going, but if the financials aren’t actually working out, what’s the real issue with shutting it down?
This is all nonsense.
There are no server costs you have to absorb and do predatory bullshit to pay for if you let the community host their own servers and form their own communities. The second you take a penny from a player for anything locked behind access to your servers, you should be obligated to provide those servers for a minimum of a decade and you should be required to refund any purchase of any amount made within a period of multiple years before you end support.
Locking the game people are paying for behind access to your servers absolutely comes with extremely strong obligations to every single person playing your game.
No, fuck this dude. You don’t get to release an EARLY ACCESS game and then tell people they should worry less about the pace it’s being developed at. If you can’t finish your product in a reasonable amount of time, either hire more staff, make (and advertise) a smaller experience, or don’t start taking money for your product until it’s complete.
Released in January 2024, has had 16 Steam version patches and 18 Xbox version patches.
What, exactly, is your problem?
Fell for the rage bait I’m assuming
