THIS Is Why Live Service Games Fail...

Apparently a lot of developers are failing with their fundamental math when it comes to building live service projects and its led to mass failures across the industry.

[refugeehugsforfree]

I Honestly don't think they're capable of creating another actual battlefield game anymore.

[hanero]

The vibe I get is there are 3 major lessons live service need to know:
- find/create a niche, fill a hole in the market
- Don't launch like crap, makes recovery difficult nowadays. Have enough bang and polish for players time/money
- Have offline options/player servers incase the game dies, adds security to a purchase

[thegiantgaming]

Battlefield is failing because its battling Battlefield.

They tried to escape themselves by reinventing the wheel, while truly the thing most ppl wanted was a current age tech remake of a BF3/BF4 with some added/modernised content & a roadmap.

The vast amount of people who stepped out of BF went to play CoD or Apex, or finals or Battlebit. Because those games or -stay true to their roots and basicly keep expanding on their formula (in CoD a bit too often imho) or -fill in the blanks that BF left with the fail of 2042 🤷‍♂️

[Saved_By_Grace-os]

Live service is a cover for putting out an unfinished product in order to meet a timeline to appease to the shareholders. Then polish the game in post production to appease to the fans. Games inevitably fail when you put the desires of the fans last.

[TT-jlqs]

For EA to bring battlefield back from the dead they need to release a BATTLEFIELD game! Stop chasing other games and what they are doing.

[ESOdanny]

It has partly to do with these companies history. I knew when Riot released their new FPS game that I could buy a skin without needing to worry that they would release Valorant 2 next year and I'd lose all my progress. Even Warzone (COD) has more of a long term progression/game sale model that Battlefield. If you want players to invest in a game you need to make sure they know you won't be replacing it on such a frequent basis.

[anadin]

Let's not forget, content creators were some of the loudest voices pushing for free to play/ live service.
Premium was always a guarantee of content, it was contractual.

[talon]

You're wrong about titanfall 2, it didn't fail because of live service. It failed because EA had the grand idea of launching the game between the release of COD:IW and Battlefield 1

[baken]

Problem with live service is simple.
Live service should be a completed game and the live service should be for extra content to build on the product.
However developers/publishers seem to think it’s to be able to release an unfinished game and fix the game as they go. Which then delays the extra content and the cycle goes on.

[TheOtherOtherAccount]

Great video, one of the best discussion ones lately.

Games as a service was really just “we don’t like games being products: products have specs, and things people can demand. Services can be more wishy washy”

It turns games into weird gambles where seemingly everyone loses
“Oh you like MW2 cause it’s gone for a more serious tone, with more realistic mechanics? Well here’s a bunny costume for some reason”

“Oh you like we marketed this game using military gear in the trailers? Well here’s Andrew Tate (Crawford) in a fur coat for some reason”

It’s why BF4 won’t die for me.
Tons of issues in that game, but god did 3 and 4 commit to immersion. Rolling 4 tanks out of firestorm looks amazing.
The HUDs feel true to life, the systems we can use feel good.

And then the premium model brings in some great content over time and people end up happy.

With 2042 it’s all zany “personality skins” and reworked 6/10 maps.

[Nick]

Great topic, a lot of good discussion here and the napkin math analogy pretty much hits the nail on the head for why there's so few risks with these games nowadays

As far as battlefields concerned, i think all EA/dice has to do is have a solid vision throughout development. This series' biggest flops were caused by them not knowing what fans would enjoy, so we always end up getting half a classic battlefield game mixed with some trend-chasing alternate game mode. The result is two half-games in one package and another 3 years of fans getting pissed off.

Just give us Battlefield. No battle royale. No extraction shooter. Just 32v32, big maps, vehicles, one consistent theme (ww1, Vietnam, etc), and only put it on store shelves when it freakin works

[HazelPlace]

I can only hope the next Battlefield title abandons the live service model. I would rather have a BF3/4-esque Premium offering than live service.

[I_am_ENSanity]

I love how Battlebit is destroying 2042.

[JRPGGUY]

I had no issue with battlefield premium and if i could id go back to it

[Badhero]

Live service is just a cover for companies to spit in the face of loyal fans. Modern day Blizzard is a great example of this.

[Pac_o]

Premium was the way for the battlefield franchise just look at the amazing content of BF3/4

[terrantheblack]

I vividly remember telling folks about live service being a bad move for bf.

[CyDoneTV]

I think Battlebit proved that as long as you have solid core gameplay, the players will come.

[GreenHobbit]

My only hope for EA anymore is that it gets bought by Microsoft so they can revive all of the old game servers.

[gomezdeals]

I could care less about live service and extra content. It’s all about making a fun game through gameplay. That’s why I still play BF4 Golmud 24/7 everyday.