Why Dead Games Are A Good Thing

It feels like every month a new game is being labeled dead. Games live and die nowadays by how relevant they can stay after launch. Which is why it’s weird that the creators of Palworld are actively encouraging players to play other games. Do they know something we don't?

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📃 Research Links
Actman Palworld hype clip
Asmongold Palworld dead reaction video
Bucky from Pocketpair's Tweet
"Customer Acquisition vs. Retention Costs"
"Customer journey stages"
Peak Steam charts
Palworld Steam charts
"Larian Studios Won't Make Baldur's Gate 3 DLC, Expansions, or Baldur's Gate 4"
Blizzard FOMO posts
"343 Pitched '20-30' Halo Ideas, Including New ODST Games"

[GoingIndie]

What's your favorite "dead game"?

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[doubt]

it's better to die in glory, rather than having your corpse dragged along for eternity

[GameOver-rtjs]

I remember some people tried to slander Elden Ring as a bad game because most of its player base dropped as after a couple of months as if it was meant to be a live service game and not a primarily single player game

[PolarbearYGT]

"Game is dead" -live service brainrot

[slm]

I think a dead game should apply to online based games only as if there's no players, you cannot play the game

[steffenbryde]

70000 people played Palworld on Steam last night - not sure if the devs would call that a failure.

[memedeathgriplord]

When I hear a game is dead I immediately think that it's no longer available to be played.

[SusiFer]

When it comes to single player games, I've always found the term "dead game" strange. Like what do you mean by "dead game"? I can open it whenever I want and play it. As far as multiplayer games go, I get it. Because if I'm the only one who decides to open it and play it. Then playing doesn't really work.

[lasercraft]

It reminds me of the whole "Two Week Minecraft Phase" thing... People act as if only playing a game for a few weeks before playing something else is a bad thing. You aren't _supposed_ to play the same game for months on end!

[arttukettunen]

How to enjoy games

1: Don't blindly jump into the bandwagon of popular games/opinions about them, consider what you want to play.

2: Don't always rush playing new titles. Usually taking it a bit slower will make you have more fun with the game longer. Also, don't google everything about the game beforehand.

3: Give different games a chance. Try to avoid swiping games away after just a few minutes, let the game show what it has to offer, unless you know it doesn't have much more to offer.

[Portato]

Everyone sometimes forgets that you can play Palworld without the internet and that a real game should be like that. Almost all games nowadays require an internet connection even though it's single-player gameplay. Also, I really support the way Developer Palworld explained to their player that we should not stay for only one Palword, there are a lot of games we can have fun with, and we don't need to force ourselves to wait for the updates. It's just incredible to me when I compare it to modern games nowadays when they captive players to stay with them aka "Live Service"

[ipum]

what still amazes me is that left for dead 2 still has a consistent 30k players on steam. amazing for how old that game is. and of course this is similar for other games as well

[PopcornMax]

We should call big blockbuster movies that people aren't watching en mass anymore as dead movies.

Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings trilogy. Dead movies. No one going to the cinema to watch them anymore, dead, yeah, big failure.

[spark_pigeon]

I find it stupid when people say games are "dead" and discourage people from playing them because of that. It does not matter if the game doesn't get dev support or if people dont play it much anymore. If you can play it and have still have fun with friends or by yourself then play it and dont let anyone discourage you from playing it because its "dead"

[jonatanrobledo]

"Palword is dead!"

Since when is that game a live service? The only games that can "die" are those that you can't play anymore (the crew).

[augustday]

The mentality brought to our industry via GaaS has been terrible. As a primarily singleplayer-focused gamer, it feels like the vast majority of publisher budgets are going towards multiplayer treadmill games and live service slop. You could have made a few really great singleplayer games with the budget that went into just one of the many live service flops we've seen, such as Suicide Squad or Concord. Thankfully the indie scene is still filled with devs making singleplayer experiences and I'll always have great games to play.

[ceballos-exe]

The moment you hear someone say that a game with tens of thousands of daily players is dead you know the kind of crippling brainrot they suffer from.

It's honestly annoying at this point

[thebrickcraft]

Palworld still has 30k players at average. For a single player game that's not bad. Of course the 2 million it had weren't going to stay.

[aquapendulum]

Dead games are 99.99% of what I play. I love dead games!

[nicodemous]

We should only apply the term "dying" to live service games. Because if it's a live service then it needs to keep the thing going with steady growth or at least by maintaining player counts. If it's a single player game, then it doesn't matter how many other people are playing it. Pal World for all intents and purposes is a single player game. It has online, but that's not it's primary way to play. The primary way most people play is single player. Maybe with some buddies, but in a private game with only up to four players. Servers are not the primary way people play Pal World.

It makes no sense to say it is dead, because it doesn't require a huge numbers of players to be enjoyed. Unlike say, World of Warcraft that absolutely does need a player base of at least a certain size to actually be enjoyed by the individual.