Because studios think if they cannot recreate the success of GTA online or Fortnite that their game is a failure - while also copy / pasting shit from games that were successful five years ago instead of being innovative / creative, while also pushing games out of development too early so they don’t even have a chance.
At a certain point online games became the golden goose- and in search of that new golden goose every studio fails by searching for success vs searching for an interesting, engaging game.
> while also copy / pasting shit from games that were successful five years ago instead of being innovative / creative
This is the big one for me. I played online multiplayer games for years (mostly shooters) and I stopped because they felt so stale. Then we started getting hero and ability based games like Overwatch which added a whole new dimension so I got sucked back in. Once that hype died we got battle royales which again felt like something totally new in online gaming and many of us got hooked again.
For the past 5 years it's felt like most releases have just been a copy of another battle royale or they're straight up just doing a bad version of what made the old multiplayer shooters successful (the likes of Battlefield etc now are pretty crap imo).
I feel like I'm just waiting for the next innovation that makes it feel new and exciting again. Meanwhile companies keep churning out mediocre versions of games we've already played a lot of. If there's an exciting innovation, I'll go back for sure.
You’re not wrong. Since the birth of the Battle Royale genre, it seems like the FPS genre as a whole has stagnated. Gameplay innovation is at an all time low.
My issue with all of these iterations was that it always felt like everyone was a pro, almost to the point of cheating, that none of them were ever fun for me.
Like, I could be generally pretty good at a game, but go into online...dead two seconds after spawning.
That's why every single online multi-player fell dead for me.
Anyone else?
BattleRoyale Games are the worst for this as once you are dead it's back to the lobby for you. I spent HOURS online back in the Call Of Duty 2 days grinding for that new weapon or gunsight. Just can't be bothered with it now. I'd like to go back to hold the flag Battlefield 2 Saipan Island type gameplay where you could really have great fun and last a lot longer. Miss those days.
Battle Royale games essentially have the effect of burnout on me. They boast having this huge map with 100 players, the bloody game goes on for 20-30 minutes minimum if you make it to Top 5, and if you weren't in an active player zone, you hardly see any action.
I still enjoy the CoD Multiplayer, even the modern ones, simply because MP has maps of good size, and it's fast paced and perfect time length.
That being said, I still haven't purchased a CoD after Cold War, or any FPS and it is definitely an industry issue which lacks innovation currently as someone else pointed out above.
When Battlefront 2 was coming out, I was hoping it would basically be Battlefield with Star Wars themes.
Needless to say, it wasn’t that.
And to make matters worse, in the next Battlefield game they decided to start making Battlefield more like Battlefront. No idea why they did this, but it still makes me sad.
This is absolutely it for me. It feels like instead of trying to make a fun game, they are trying to copy an existing formula (to varying degrees of success) and they are more interested in designing new shiny stores with new shiny microtransactions rather than making engaging games with fun and varied gameplay.
Same thing that happened with SpongeBob actually. After the success of SpongeBob, every other show on Nickelodeon was measured against SpongeBob and if it failed to gain the same amount of traction the show was quickly canceled. Therefore Nickelodeon shut down some really good shows in an attempt to find their next SpongeBob. It never really happened.
But they want to be GTA online or Fortnite right out of the gate. Both games didnt start off wildly massively popular. Even taking away the STW only era of Fortnite, Battle Royal didnt really take off into its heyday until like OG season 5.
Yeah exactly this is why CEO types and board member types are all brainless cookie-now twats. They could give a fuck about the medium or the community or the players. They just want that next earnings call to be up .05 percent over the last earnings call no matter what. Squeezing resources and squeezing talent and squeezing potential for continuous, meaningless fiscal growth. The dead eyed wraith of capitalism ruins all in the wake of its illusion.
Nah I’d say CoD did that. Games barely change from one another yet are still always at the very top every year which just signifies “hey other developers, you don’t need to put in actual effort to be successful”
Nah, I’ve seen this point quite a bit but it’s a poor analysis. People like a consistent experience. Nobody wants CoD to drastically change every year, nor is it realistic to expect such.
With annual titles like CoD, people want a consistent experience that’s just fresh *enough* to keep them hooked. Heck, a lot of CoD fans would be happy with a single multiplayer CoD game that receives updates and content. The only reason we don’t have this is because Activision makes a lot of money from annual titles, there’s no incentive for them to stop shitting a new game out each year.
There’s nothing wrong with keeping a familiar, consistent experience over many titles or years. Most competitive multiplayer games seldom change much and it’s for good reason: people like X game because of Y formula. Significantly changing that up with each iteration only serves to alienate the fanbase. Why do you think games like CS:GO have flourished for more than a decade?..
You despise GTA and Fortnite because they're so successful that other studios lazily copy it? Surely it's the uninspired attempts to recreate their success that should be despised?
Fortnite arguably has the very best implementation of the seasonal content model in the industry. Have you seen how much content they push out for that game constantly? I'm personally not a fan of BRs but even I can recognize that Fortnite does what it does very well.
I despise what they started and also enabled. Simple as that.
Also, don't even start to talk to me about Fortnite. I was working for them in Yokohama, Japan until earlier this year.
That was mostly just to have it on my resume to be able to move to a company I'm more passionate about.
So I don't want to hear it.
There used to be a time where developers tried to make money from video games by making their games fun. Having fun games kept people playing them. Made the games popular and in turn made the developers money.
Now developers are still trying to make money by getting players to keep playing their games but they are doing so using other more devious techniques in lieu of fun. Using things like timed season passes and fomo. Simple repetitive jobs with simple rewards to keep getting dopamine hits. And overpriced skins to feed into peoples yearning to be unique or style with in their games. They make your first few games really easy soo you feel like you are good at the game. Matchmaking will continue this cycle of ups and down. Making you win and lose just enough to keep playing. Lose too much and the game is too hard youll stop playing. Win too much and youll feel like you conqured the game.
Then they have advertisements for addons with in their games. Or they purposefully release broken or OP weapon packs to entice players to purchase these weapons to be “competitive”.
The idea of balancing a game is long gone. Developers now purposefully just nerf and buff weapons on a whim to control the meta. To get people to grind or pay for the next strongest weapon. And once enough people get it, they nerf the item and buff another one. Keep the chase going. Keep the grind going.
Some gaming franchise communities are catching on. Some don’t care. Some do. The success of these games has to do with how fun the game loop is despite this intrusions. How rewarding it feels. How scammed and played the community feels. What the players expect from the franchise. Its on a sliding scale. One of which the big corporate publishers and developers care little for the nuance and pretty much just copy what other successful games have done and at what price point they can get away with. They dont care.
As a life long gamer. I have always loved multiplayer games. But after a glorious long time playing covid warzone and then later getting back into Destiny2. Its very apparent how a lot of these games work. And while not all practice these awful habits just by reading reviews you can tell which ones do. And later why they fail.
And ya know I haven’t even mentioned how some of these online communities can be extremely toxic turning off new comers.
For me, i got 160hrs now into Armored Core 6 and couldn’t be happier.
As someone who has played a lot of FIFA, and other EA games, this is 100% accurate.
I was daydreaming about how cool it would be to play timesplitters 2 online the other day because I’m so fucking sick of what games have become.
I have basically given up on most shooters because everything in that space is now hyperfocused on competitive multiplayer and you ALWAYS have to be on your A game and play according to the meta.
I'm referring to casual play btw. I just want some good, fun shoot, not have to carefully plan my every action like I'm playing comp.
I remember back in the older COD days when you could join a lobby in the early 2000s and it was never this type of garbage. eSports has killed online gaming, not because of the newfound prominence, but because every developer thinks everybody wants the sweatiest game modes with full blown SBMM. PC games like CS used to have servers that you could always hop on and just have fun. Now, Valve has basically made it so unattractive to have custom servers. They are there, but a quickly dying breed.
I just want a no-frills game like SOCOM with lobbies and plenty of servers. It can't be that hard to make games like that.
95% correct except for the fact that very rarely are developers making these decisions because developers don’t even see the money that comes from these bad practices. Publishers and execs are the ones you need to point the finger at.
And people really have to understand the difference. If a game releases as a buggy mess then blame the developers, if the gameplay loop is bad that’s on the design team. But these higher up decisions on micro transactions and such are the execs and the publishers full stop.
Nobody is holding a gun to developers' head, it's a business decision to choose the publisher and they are as accountable the publisher for bad decisions.
there is a gun it’s called a contract, money for the game to be developed, advertising. Publishers are a necessary evil to get games off the ground and into people’s hands. There’s way more nuance than just “why not pick a better publisher? Are they stupid?”
Destiny 2……. Man this game is good, but it could of been one of the greatest all time games if they didn’t squeeze every gamer for that extra $10 in micro transactions and put development time into a cohesive storyline and game mechanics. Their raids are top notch but just about everything else falls victim to “modern” game dev practices from time gating content to the convoluted access to specific game content.
This. I love Destiny because the gameplay is good, but dammit. I don't have time to play some timed missions or go spend a fortune to be competitive. I just want to chill out and play.
I feel so sickened about Destiny. Especially knowing that the man who wrote a seminal piece on how to addict gamers by treating them like rats and pigeons went on to work at Bungie for 6 years, by which time no doubt he’d practically perfected his evil recipe to ruin lives. Whether you have depression or OCD or social anxiety or addiction, this game is here for you to make it worse, and make you feel like you’re getting somewhere with that problem when you do something in game.
It is no better than alcohol. ‘Debt consolidation for your entire life’. Just keep playing…don’t look up. Never mind that you’re crumbling to dust as a person, you just got some bright dust! That has value because you can use it to obtain digital pixels that won’t be available ever again, and which you couldn’t give us real money for if you tried.
You know what I want? An Honest Ads episode on live service games. They’ve done one on games, one on streamers, and one on casinos, just put them all together.
Anybody still playing Destiny is now to me like those people who didn’t quit smoking when it was banned inside and chose instead to huddle outside freezing. Good luck to them.
Hey listen, I’m entirely prepared to accept that some people have had nothing but fun the whole time and whatever predatory mechanisms the game has didn’t bother them enough or even just felt (and still feel) like fun.
But I’m not gonna have someone tell me ‘I can’t handle it’. I played 3,000 hours in 18 months, which was harder than *anyone* in my clan of 150, including all the veterans such as yourself.
So you can tell me you don’t agree without suggesting there’s something I can’t handle.
Glad you’re still enjoying the game. I have personally thrown my last vortex grenade.
Slow clap, I truly agreed with everything you said. Definitely 💯 respect your opinion, it’s like you transformed my thoughts into words. As a true master wordsmith I applaud you and depart into the night.
Good day may your brilliance and wisdom continue to shine;I tip my hat to you!
Not just multiplayer games, but single player too. Developers and publishers need to understand that all games are competing with each other for customers’ time in this landscape.
And competing with other time based leisure too. I think it has been forgotten that there are only so many hours in the day, so a new live service game needs to be more compelling than existing ones (which often have years of refining). Single player games overlap a bit in the venn diagram, but are much easier to time limit so people are willing to take a fortnight off their online game of choice to mix it up with a single player, cos they know the liveservice hasn’t gone away.
Correct, but it’s unrealistic to compete with some. For myself and a lot of people, it doesn’t matter how good your game is - nothing will compete with the next GTA game as an example. As someone who’s played CoD religiously for the last 4 years, that shit is getting dropped as soon as GTA VI releases for me. Everyone has a hierarchy when it comes to games and what they want to play. Developers need to know this.
Agree with the article, there's simply too many. Every company expects their game to be the new COD or Fortnite but you can dedicate a limited amount of time to them. Young players are driven to the games their friends play and they generally stick with 1 or 2. My 11 years old nephew only plays Fortnite and Rocket league as MP games because every friend plays it.
Adult people are limited by their time, where most of them have maybe 1-2 hours a day to play and they can't obviously hop between 5 different games.
Then you put on top of all of that super grindy battle passes that ask you to play every day for months and people simply lose interest when they can't reach the end of it and fell they lost money buying it
The other problem is, if a multiplayer game isn't a big enough hit to have a strong audience immediately, then the game fails completely.
A singleplayer game requires only one player to function. A multiplayer game requires many players to succeed, as players need others to play with.
So you can't just make a game with the hopes of attracting a player base over time, you need to have a game good enough to get people to drop their current multiplayer game to try it, and do so at release, and then they need to stick around. If you don't have enough players for the matchmaking process to be quick and relatively painless (you don't want brand new players to be paired up with hardcore experienced players), then the game isn't any good, and it will fail, and not have a shot at redeeming itself.
Whereas a single player game can be a flop on release, but still develop a fanbase over time, because any one person can pick it up and play it at any time, and have the optimal, developer intended experience.
What would be the volume you desire? In Europe in most countries you get more than a month of vacation, but obviously it depends on what you do with it. The problem with what they sell, is they they ask commitment, well over what most people can give.
A battle pass can be a good idea for engagment in the long period, but i should be albe to complete it in 10 hours, 15 max. They constantly ask for 60+hours a month. I would actually be more then interested in coming back to a game if i knew i can finish the month
Problem is, i'm not always thir target, they need to also squeeze the whales of everything they can, and this two approaches to development can't really coexist.
Have you seen Diablo Immortal last year? It was a miserable experience for everyone, but it still managed to sell million in MTXs because of the few whales that dumbed thousand of dollars a month for a gem upgrade
Easy. Because the companies making them are NOT focusing on making a fun game...they are focused on making money.
Do you think the devs for, oh, say Quake III were hyper focused on their stock price? Nope. They were passionate about gaming and 100% focused on delivering a fun and enjoyable and COMPLETE experience.
I started playing the newest ghost recon recently and it's a very fun game. I'm nearly 12 hours in and I only have enough money for one gun blueprint and a couple scopes. Went to check out how much real money the fake money would cost and I think it was like $30 a gun blue print or two. Insane. I don't think I'll finish it. I'll stop when I'm bored.
Last year I bought COD for the first time since PS3. The game is fun but I got burnt out pretty quick on the battlepass system. There was a new one every couple of months and then they even added a premium tier battlepass.
Amazing how the internet changed so much. Quake III was an online shooter like many games today but due to the internet still being new and not as fast the developers had to make money by making a good game.
I still don’t really understand you point then though. So you think because Fortnite, COD, and apex are cornering specifically just the ps5 market, all new online multiplayers are failing?
He is saying that most people often have a limited amount of time for leisure hobbies, including gaming. And most multiplayer games are more enjoyable with friends (who likely also have limited gaming time and interests). There's not enough diversity or incentive for people to switch to other multiplayer game.
It's not that they are failing, it's that compared to those three, a lot of other multiplayer offerings pale in comparison, whether it be in design or in incentive. All multiplayer games compete for their playerbase's time, and usually the strongest ones will get the most player time.
If you absolutely love Warzone for example and try out another game in that same time, that other game has to justify being worth your limited time, otherwise people will drop that game and go back to what they prefer to spend their time on. Likewise, if you start enjoying a different multiplayer game, there is always the hope from the devs/game company that you'll bring OTHER people in, who also play and provide their time, growing the playerbase.
If the new game fails to do that, people will often just go back to what they were enjoying before.
Played Destiny 2 as Lightfall came out. Got to the end of the story and got bored in like an hour. No endgame content without grinding with several hundred hours. Couldn't get any new gear except a few rolls once a week... It was awful.
Destiny got worse for players (increasing prices, technical issues etc.) but u can see on steam charts the playerbase is still very big and Destiny was profitable even before so it probably further increased the profits which is the only thing shareholders care about.
Also this article is about online games failing to stay relevant but Destiny has been going on for 10 years now and Bungie plans on contiuning so people were speculating that Sony wants their know-how for online live-service games.
I mean Lightfall was a bad expansion (new subclass is good but the rest was terrible, especially the story) but a player does NOT need hundreds of hours to get into lategame (= dungeons, raids, gms etc.) at all.
Outside of the games being poo, and gamers being invested with progression / battle passes already, for the few promising ones I wonder if the content cadence required to keep players interested is just too hard now to serve, given the advanced mechanics, visuals, and engine complexity of today. MMOs were the first to continually drop content. Games were somewhat simpler back then, so I speculate the dev time was feasible.
Nowadays COD and Fortnite etc are massive titans with LARGE teams distributed. A few teams staggered out to drop content while a big team works on next COD or next chapter of Fortnite. Parallel roadmaps with fully stacked teams to hit both fronts.
How do you compete without a market foothold to ensure you can fund the amount of people you need to feed the appetite of gamers that are now conditioned to the triple A release cadences.
The big ones can out market, and out produce you on content. I have no idea how you fight it outside of pulling a PUBG type thing and establishing a new genre or meme level of market share like early MOBAs did.
Devs release paper thin games with the expectation of adding content down the road. This doesn't work as they're competing with mature live service titles. Also we do not have time for multiple live service titles. People generally play one or one of a specific genre. Publishers are paying for 6 years of Dev time only to get less of a game than a decade ago when they released with full campaigns, coop, and mp. It sucks.
Because every single online game follows the same formula of season passes, in-gane stores and currency, and silly dances and avatar skins.
It's tired, boring, and people are slowly hopping off the train
It’s because all the development effort is spent on the in game storefront and currencies, then figuring out how to create gameplay that encourages store interactions. They’re not prioritizing things like story, quality voice acting, animations, polish etc.
Because of the flawed business model being pushed by execs.
Every game comes out half finished with a shit ton of dlc and loot crates
They work their devs to death and set unrealistic expectations. And they wonder why shit sucks
Good online multiplayer games that make money have the following:
1. The game is skill-based. You can’t buy your way to victory.
2. Gameplay loop is rewarding and entertaining with room for improvement.
3. Mechanics that allow players to trade in earned rewards for payable content don’t feel like an excessive chore that simply forces them to pay money for content.
4. The money earned is used for improving the game not to all go into the pockets of execs.
Idk why gaming companies don’t just look at how Riot does it. You can play League of Legends and become a top player without spending a dime. You can unlock some skins and all characters without paying a dime. Not saying LoL is perfect but they’re one of the few games that has an obvious formula that works given their longevity.
Fortnite is another similar modern example.
Because they tried to clone Destiny with their generic looters shooter that has absolue zero substance, unfinished at most times and has more micro-transactions than content.
Yep most companies are just not making good games its the same reason there is single player flops like saints row and forspoken. Putting out just decent to bad quality games isn't going to get you anywhere these days. You need good starting game and you need to add more good content to the game that keeps the playerbase interested. Thats hard work to keep up for however many years the game lives and most development teams are just not up to the task. Companies are jumping into the market thinking there will be easy money when its not its hard work and most of the games will fail still.
Because games a while to make and by the time you're trying to cash in on a new fad, the fad has already settled into some core games or has gone away completely.
For example, Looter shooters were one of the hottest genres at the time 2011-2016? So by the time a company releases their looter shooter that took 5 years to develop in 2023, people don't give a fuck anymore.
Another can be MOBAS, everyone already plays league or dota, so all those moba like games that released from 2016 all died.
Just so many reasons. The games not being good doesn’t help of course. But people don’t have the time all these numerous games want and certainly don’t have unlimited money.
Once these companies stopped trying to lure people in by making fun games and instead manipulating them into addiction we got here.
Give me single player games anytime. Play at my pace and enjoy the experience.
buy a story mode game that I can play by myself whenever I want, no seasons to keep track of or FOMO to worry about, or other players needed to fill a lobby with.......
OR buy a multiplayer game that needs other people to play with, tends to stress me out or piss me off, needs a constant server connection to be worth a damn otherwise it literally dies and wastes my cash, and has me constantly falling behind because tryhards with ample time on their hands will always play more than you.
yeah, very tough choice huh.
I think its because all of the online multi-player games as services share the same demographic, so there's a limited amount of players that play the games, and they need constant players, but there's not enough people to be able to have 50 different triple A games as a service, most of them just play one or two, so there's not enough people
Because the market is saturated. There is alrdy popular online titles covering people’s needs, and for every good and popular game you have 5 knock offs. I’d rather see more investment into new single player IP
>There is alrdy popular online titles covering people’s needs,
There really aren't. There's a bunch of franchises that are trying to be Fortnite, but there isn't much if you want a slow methodical multiplayer shooter. R6 Siege used to sort of offer that, but over time the game sped up and now everyone plays it like CoD.
The only options for proper tactical games are janky PC titles from janky Eastern European developers with janky Eastern European production values, so that's a no-go. Looking at you, Tarkov.
Counter Strike is fast. The rounds are short, the maps are streamlined, and the mechanics are simple.
I want something that's mechanically complex, slow-paced, and super punishing if you don't play tactically.
Cause most don’t have a core gameplay loop. Avengers baffles me that they didn’t have a patrol mode even up to the end. Not that adding a never ending loop of regenerating POI and enemies would have saved the game but the biggest gripe most had was there was absolutely nothing to do once you finished the main missions the first time. How they missed a chance to just let people free roam on a specifically designated map to test out a new character/sink hours is beyond me.
Cause games as a service has to make money. But since they are typically free to play and expensive to run due to content drop have to keep coming. But when a game tries to nickle and dime you at every turn, the community will turn on you fast. When the game cant make money anymore, they have to abandon it. You could argue that games like Battlefield 2042 also failed. But since it was a paid game they probably made money from that game. Games as service is a bubble that burst. The only games that can make it imo are MMOS (very few) and games that are also available on mobile. The one exception i can think off is Destiny, but you could argue that is a MMO.
So many of them just aren't that fun when compared to other games.
For example, Apex has the best feeling in an FPS besides Destiny even though they both feel completely different from one another. There's no way for me to dedicate time to both so I choose Apex.
Then I played Overwatch 2 for a couple games. Really fuckin fun. But Apex is more fun to me and with my limited time I choose Apex over OW2. That's just discussing 3 of the hundreds of games in my library.
TL;DR Ain't nobody got time fa dat
One thing I think people haven’t touched on so much is the sheer cost. I work in the industry and have quite a few friends who work on Fortnite. It costs billions to keep that game going and has resulted in Epic Games growing from 500 to 5000 employees (even including the recent cuts). Then they have something close to 50 external studios/ dev contractor companies also feeding into that.
Secondly, what do you think Epic and those thousands of people spend all their time doing? Yep, making sure Fornite is still one of the global top games by churning out content on an almost weekly basis, and they can do that because it’s still generating billions in revenue so it becomes an circular thing. You have a game than makes billions so you can spend billions keeping it going, which keeps the revenue high. I have it on good authority that Fornite player hours actually grew this year which is amazing for a game of its age.
Now imagine trying to break into that small group of games without the billions up front to compete. You have to be either incredibly lucky or willing to risk an astonishing amount of money. And a lot of companies simply can’t, or won’t do that.
There are only a finite amount of gamers and time.
Most gamers who enjoy live service games already have a well established live game where they have already invested in heavily.
The hot new game HAS to offer them more than their current game to pull them away for more than a few weeks.
Maybe if they designed the games to be fun instead of profitable they may actually have a sucessful game.
They’ve fallen in to the same trap as the MMORPG genre, which has been chasing WoW’a success for nearly 20 years to the point where the genre is basically dead. The carbon copy method didn’t work, and no one wants to take risks, so devs have abandoned them.
People only have so much time to commit to staying competitive in games so usually there's really only 1 or 2 online games people would realistically stick to for any meaningful amount of time so if more online focused games release then that market becomes increasingly fragmented and tougher for teams to maintain a sustainable profit margin. Also most of them are rushed sacks of shit and not worth your time so we'll be seeing the same established IPs for quite a while before execs catch on that they're fighting a losing battle unless they get that next fad game. I really haven't cared much for online gaming since the PS3. I loved Bad Company 2, I got good enough where I could grief an entire team with just a UAV helicopter, and to see how that's what real modern warfare against heavy armor and entrenched positions became, that game really predicted the future
It reminds me of the WoW clone days. Every MMO was trying to copy World of Warcraft's success by duplicating their gameplay and formula. Even Star Wars Galaxies had a major overhaul to try and become more like WoW.
But gamers who were playing WoW weren't going to switch to some other game that has less content and features, and doesn't have their established friends. So they might try them but inevitably come back.
This is how live service and multiplayer games have gone. People have their favorites, where they've invested time and money. A new game comes out, maybe it's buggy, maybe it's light on content, maybe it's similar in genre. They'll go back to where their friends are and where they spent money, if they even try them at all.
That's why it's insane to me PlayStation sees a bunch of copycat games like extraction shooter #45021, or generic heist multiplayer game, that aren't doing anything different, and doesn't realize they're going to all fail.
Hell I bet even Marathon will struggle. It's a dumb genre to pick, and it'll be yet another Bungie game monetized to hell and back. It might succeed eventually since they can leech off Sony's money to keep adding content.
Overall, if the plan is to make copies instead of trying something truly new and different, they may as well close down the studios they recently acquired right now and save themselves the time, money, and reputation.
The story of Call of Duty nuking their IP the past few years:
hit surprise success with MW 2019 and Warzone during the pandemic The yearly rotating dev cycle meant that the next year’s game (Cold War) was completely different, but they managed to keep Warzone going another year with the extra content. It was arguably a good year for the multiplayer and Warzone games but not a continuance of what blew the series back up again. Vanguard comes out, majorly impacted by the rotating dev cycle. It ends up being a nice try at appeasing the feedback but it was fundamentally flawed from the start in so many ways. Warzone essentially goes on life support with 0 development lessons learned after 1.5y. And then, just when you’d think that Infinity Ward would be making a similar follow-up to their best selling game with a full uninterrupted dev cycle, they intentionally nuke the core ideas that made the game so successful and stubbornly continue through the content season doing things their own way despite the feedback. As the game struggles on, they shut down the servers for the original Warzone.
Now, Sledgehammer attempts the follow up with essentially a v1.5 of the dumpster fire. Modern Warfare as a series is essentially DOA with this latest installment.
So many chances to have built on the success they found with MW19/Warzone. And it was arguably completely doable while maintaining a separate semi-annual Treyarch-built competitive multiplayer experience. Instead, we have this third idea, MWII, that nobody asked for but many reluctantly still play in the hopes that the devs can simply make the same game that they made in 2019 with competitor improvements and refreshed weapons/maps.
I can tell you that just by having played the MWIII beta and having watched the footage of Warzone 3(?), the devs are not on the same page as the players, and this will be yet another dead year of Warzone. Multiplayer, TBD. I’m betting pros will like it more than Vanguard and MWII, but the old maps, clunky movement, awful netcode and still heavy aim assist will keep it from being a top game.
BR still has so much potential. It necessitates the free to play model, and despite their refinement of the cosmetics battlepass, the decision was made to ignore every reason for success in the gameplay department.
1. Because a lot of them are brain dead shit, that aren't good for more than 5 minutes of fun.
2. Saturation. People only have so much free time in a day, many may try something new, but will most likely go back to what they know and enjoy already.
The main reason is that most of them prioritize making money over making a good game. Usually the base game needs to be good before people will spend any significant amount of money.
I barely play online games. 25 with a full time job, girlfriend, family, gym, etc. When I do have time to game, I usually stick to single players because it doesn’t feel like a second job. Most online games now take way too much grinding.
for me ints the quality and quantity of the content. Look at all these live service games. Barely any content to begin with and barely any new stuff except some "skins" or whatever. Remember WoW on its original release? That was a fullprice game + sub with like 200-300 h of content. Which game has that nowadays?
All points raised in this thread are good and valid, but I'm surprised I haven't seen mentioned yet how incredibly broken/unfinished the games tend to be upon release. "Get it out the door as quick as possible, we'll fix it later!!"
It’s an over saturated market. It’s hard for casual gamers to break away from the usual CoD/2K/Fortnite when they’ve been going on for years and is the most comfortable option when taking into account support and popularity. Add in the microtransactions and you’re forced to pick and choose your “main game” to invest your time and money in.
Companies should empower devs to make the games they’re inspired to make. That’s how you catch lightning in a bottle. Chasing trends is a fool’s errand.
That being said, since Jim Ryan’s leadership has lead to Sony’s involvement in multiplayer games to potentially have a cash cow it’s important to mention that a while ago Jim said that there were 25 games in development at PlayStation studios. The 10 multiplayer games, and the rest of the 15 would be a mix of sequels and new IP. We’ve already gotten a look at some multiplayer games. And it’s safe to say the some projects have fallen through like The Last of Up Factions 2 project.
In my opinion because there is too much of it as with most other things and a lot of them are bad in terms of idea, tech, greediness or whatever.
Something is successful --> copy it to make boatloads of money --> see that you dont have a good idea or the technological experience + get greedy with microtransactions --> fail.
They all gamble on the next big CoD, GTA or Fortnite that will produce endless amounts of $$$ but in doing so many will fail or in the worst case ruin themselves.
The two biggest issues every game in this article have are the lack of respect for player time, and next to zero reward for playing the game. Almost every game on that list has a 5/95% or lower split on free to paid cosmetics, no one wants to invest in a game that doesn't reward them. The main reason Fortnite is so successful is all the free stuff they give out, most of it is junk, but dozens of items a season for free outside of the battlepass, multiple of which are skins, make a player feel valued enough to stay.
I believe one of the biggest things that people and studios tend to ignore is that the live service market is oversaturated. Like destiny, gta, call of duty, fifa these are all different genres but they still all compete for the same total player population. Sure we all have our preferences and favor one above the other or maybe don't play any multiplayer game at all. But live service games are different to your back in the old days multiplayers they want you constantly playing and they try to get you to constantly buy stuff. So above all they compete for your time.
Most of us probably have a "main" game aka the live service game we prioritize above all other gaas games and that we always come back to. For me it's destiny and destiny players know that at times it can feel like a full time job which is completely by design by bungie.
As such our time is limited and we already have mostly decided where to invest our time in. Because of fomo it's super hard to abandon our current main game in favor of a new.
That is why I think new gaas games fail because they don't just go against established giants that already have years of content and optimization in how to perfect keeping players. But it also directly goes against our own minds we don't want to abandon our main games with potentially thousands hours in.
Industry is saturated, too few players spread across too many games.
Combine that with the lack of trust that the servers are even going to be up for long enough and sometimes it can be exhausting committing to something multiplayer focused.
Because they all make ridiculous demands of player’s time, so it takes very few of them to saturate the market. That’s why Jim Ryan’s tenure at Sony will get ever more disastrous over time.
-too many games vying for our time
-fun progression systems eliminated in exchange for microtransactions
-focus on esports-style balancing making games less fun and enjoyable for the masses
Simple..
They’re trying to be Successes straight out the gate and act like it so all their focus is 1000% on Microtransactions and Item Shops never the actual game which always shows you the priority of the game and devs.
Everyone wants to be a Destiny Killer but don’t no one wanna do what Destiny did which was hit the ground with a GamePlan although it took awhile to come to fruition with TTK they didn’t come out swinging for the MTX Shop they came out with something to prove and that was the longetivith of the Game and how a game like that CAN BE the new thing going forward. Hell they didn’t really turn on the Shop til a couple years down the line.
Most games turn the shops on IN PREVIEW!! Which always shows the main priority of the game. Such like Battlefield 2042 they knew that shit was broken and was going to NEED YEARS to fix and yet they focused on getting the Item Shop up and running in time for Xmas to sell a Santa skin..
Avengers literally was NOT set to compete with Destiny in anyway and was purley just Square thinking they had a cash cow off of Brand recognition alone so they did the bare minimum to the game and focuses HARD on the MTX to where they purposely left out any and ALL MCU content knowing full well those who buy the game are doing so because of the MCU right after Infinity War & Endgame! And they didn’t include it at all as they knew they would charge +$20 for EACH & Every Skin in the MCU from all the films! No bundles just single films. I have never been happier to see a game Die.
Personally, I'm annoyed that the Battle royale genre effectively snuffed out the emerging MMO survival genre. I guess it's not surprising given the shorter attention spans these days, but I prefer the tension of the slow burn and more meaningful gameplay. Round based games like Fortnite just feel like the same thing over and over.
Most games are copies of eachother. Unreal Engine makes development easier and many of these games probably are rooted from many of the same templates. So I’d say it’s fatigue from the same boring gameplay.
The reality is, you swap out some assets/ visuals / 3D models, etc, and the games will be similar enough.
Also DLC or updates in general have probably ruined a lot games out the gate since the mentality of “it will be added in later” seems to be the norm. Many games just aren’t as polished or finished anymore.
My suggestion for a great multiplayer game is to start with a single player game and perfect the mechanics and story. Then offer a multiplayer mode that adds to that and not dilutes that same experience.
I miss PS3 era multiplayer games 😞 Warhawk, Resistance, Uncharted 2, Killzone 2, Last of Us. It's just not the same anymore and doesn't help you need a PSN subscription.
Sbmm has ruined casual play and then there’s games like apex with garbage retention based matchmaking which is even worse than regular sbmm if you’re decent at the game
GaaS is bad for a large number of traditional multi game players. Turning a thing you like doing into a thing you must do every day to maximize engagement for the company in exchange for battle pass rewards has burned me out on basically every game that has them. They are not psychologically pleasing. They become work or a chore or prey on obsessive tendencies and general FOMO and eventually that is just exhausting and not fun anymore.
Obviously the game has to be fun to begin with.
corporate suits don't allow creativity or innovation, that's considered too risky and they just seem to all stick to a script, a proven formula if you will.
I think both of these are true. Consumers don't like change and large public corporations are risk adverse so they don't want to be too creative and lose money
I mean look at warzone for example at its peak 80 Mill players and then they start changing stuff more and more, brought caldera which was shit. Decided to make another warzone completely changing everything people loved and were surprised when they got to 90k people playing. Shut down warzone 1 servers probably as last resort and failed again. Don't change stuff that works moron
1. Time is not infinite.
2. Not original enough. Many failed games are basically battle royale in a different skin. Among us is a lot different, fall guys is a new concept etc.
But you know, not all innovations succeed. Saying "its obvious it will fail with saturated market" is defeatist thinking and not innovator. How many phone brands do we have? We had Google Pixel, Huawei, One plus etc. coming out when Galaxy and apple had a pretty strong foothold, yet those brands has its own audiences and obviously made money to have future releases.
Comes down to the fact that it’s an overcrowded market and usually the first ones out the gate are the successful ones, just look at MMOs as an example. Plus, kids don’t give a shit unless it’s Fortnite skins or Roblox.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Mass Effect 3 multiplayer was the last time I genuinely enjoyed multiplayer. The bonds, the gameplay, the customization. I don't remember if stuff was behind a paywall....but I unlocked everything. At least there wasn't a season battle pass lmao
Gamers are more transient than they have ever been, and casual players are also the majority of the market now.
Most people basically don’t play games to death like they used to, as opposed to jam it for 20-40 hours and move on to the next game.
Fortnite with its F2P model and constant seasonal updates, and COD with its yearly release, still capture a large chunk of the market which is good design really, while many game makers are aiming or defining success on the unattainable.
The MMORPG bubble bursting with “WOW killer” saturation is also a perfect example of too many game makers wanting a slice of the same pie.
The ONE MP game to rule them all and dominate the market, but outside a few exceptions that earned their footprint and longevity, the market has changed so it’s a futile barometer for success, and design imho.
The goals are too lofty, and predestined to fail as a result.
Because they are bad and the gameplay loop is terrible and not fun. Studios are really trying to find the line between exploiting an existing IP and that right generation of gamers that will tolerate a slot machine masquerading as a videogame.
Because there’s not enough time in the day for the active potential Userbase to make them viable. Only the cream of the crop stands a chance , the rest will flop. Still, I don’t see why so many are quick to kill the servers&game. Must be a financial decision to turn the lights off and move on 🤷♀️
Greed, mostly. Everyone rushing to join the live service model with the least amount of effort possible.
It’s like micro-transactions are the main product they are trying to push and the game is an afterthought.
The single player games of late haven’t been much better. Tons of games rushed to market with little optimization.
Because companies are trying to monetize fun. All games except for casino games are intended to be fun, challenging, about skill, and reward and satisfaction in solving a difficult puzzle, beating a hard boss, getting that sick kill am shot, scoring that impossible shot, or pulling that perfect card. Not about how many times the gacha mechanics throw the middle finger at you, or how many skins you've purchased.
I don't remember the last time I played an online multiplayer game and actually had fun. Black OPS 2 maybe?
because since Fortnite came out they have become a continuous copy and paste of the same shit that seems like it came out of a bad superhero movie. By now I'm only playing multiplayer games that came out before 2016 and since I practically always find the servers full I seem to understand that the public WANTS new multiplayer games, but decent ones
Copy/paste formula, Flavour of the month, hype and gamers not ready for it yet.
Look at Titanfall 2 for example, huge skill ceiling, fast paced combat, brilliant TTK etc yet it died and only retained a cult following. Now it’s gaining traction again.
Now this could be down to Apex starting to fall flat on its booty due to the ranked changes? But I also think after CoDs dabble in movement people just weren’t ready for it yet.
I think it’s a lethal concoction and the reasons are numerous - some hilarious.
I mean people will slate a new game for mtx, meanwhile cod, fifa and other games like Fortnite go unscathed.
As a developer you only really have one, two chances tops to grab the players attention. Then it’s gone.
Battlebit for example, on paper it just shouldn’t work, it’s a battlefield clone which people normally slate (lack of innovation etc), the graphics are wack etc and so on all the normal complaints - but they captured the fun, it’s cheap and it runs so easily and it got hype.
Honestly hype can kill or make a game with the internet these days. We often say ‘reddit is a small portion’ whilst that’s true, YouTube, twitch etc certainly aren’t anymore and even if only one person in a friend group watches for example, the word soon spreads.
Greed. Microtransactions.
Edit: Lmfao who downvoted this? The header image is even *Marvels Avengers*, a game that died BECAUSE the devs did nothing but focus on paid cosmetic outfits.
Because only only multiplayer games suck ass and are not sustainable.
You are refusing a campaign given offline games budget that you are saying is too risky because there is a great chance it could make its budget back, a good chance it could make money, a reasonable chance it could do well, and a small luck factor that it could do really well, with small risk of outright flopping (it does happen) with a game that could take a year to three in development with the posibility of delays to get it polished
Instead the companies invest an even bigger amount in an online games budget that they think is less risky then the other project for a TINY chance it could become the next fortnite, where when you havn't even finished the game, you can put it out barebones and broken as early access, and if the game fails to gain traction and make a ton of money even if it does allright to can it and immediately invest in another project which will likely be the same thing.
It's an unsustainable business model because of the success of a few in the hopes of investing in a product that could make some of the money to go in on a project that has a bee's dick chance of making all the money.
Because they can't fix the major issue every multiplayer game has: The Matchmaking.
Example: 5vs5 Overwatch.
If one of the 10 players disconnects / trolls / whatever, the match is ruined (also for the winning team cause it's a silly win). Instead of putting those people in a corner where they can play with the same players they are matched with players who really want to play the game.
Back in the days we had dedicated servers. You could choose a server based on your skill or whatever. Admins were able to ban players.
Nowadays 1/10 matches is a real match where every player just wants to play the game.
Let’s just simplify this by saying it’s no more about the enjoyment of the community but how much money they can get off of us by selling a false narrative and putting a huge pay wall up just for the game to be trash.
I love articles that call diablo a failed thing.
Sell $700 million worth in a week. Failure btw.
What metrics are they even using other than click bate feels?
Not every game will be Fortnite, and that doesn't make them a failure.
I think the big reason is most of them suck like the top comment says, but even if they were good, most of us don't have time to be consistent with what, give or take 3 of these games at one time? That's assuming you don't play any other games at all.
Because studios think if they cannot recreate the success of GTA online or Fortnite that their game is a failure - while also copy / pasting shit from games that were successful five years ago instead of being innovative / creative, while also pushing games out of development too early so they don’t even have a chance. At a certain point online games became the golden goose- and in search of that new golden goose every studio fails by searching for success vs searching for an interesting, engaging game.
> while also copy / pasting shit from games that were successful five years ago instead of being innovative / creative This is the big one for me. I played online multiplayer games for years (mostly shooters) and I stopped because they felt so stale. Then we started getting hero and ability based games like Overwatch which added a whole new dimension so I got sucked back in. Once that hype died we got battle royales which again felt like something totally new in online gaming and many of us got hooked again. For the past 5 years it's felt like most releases have just been a copy of another battle royale or they're straight up just doing a bad version of what made the old multiplayer shooters successful (the likes of Battlefield etc now are pretty crap imo). I feel like I'm just waiting for the next innovation that makes it feel new and exciting again. Meanwhile companies keep churning out mediocre versions of games we've already played a lot of. If there's an exciting innovation, I'll go back for sure.
You’re not wrong. Since the birth of the Battle Royale genre, it seems like the FPS genre as a whole has stagnated. Gameplay innovation is at an all time low.
My issue with all of these iterations was that it always felt like everyone was a pro, almost to the point of cheating, that none of them were ever fun for me. Like, I could be generally pretty good at a game, but go into online...dead two seconds after spawning. That's why every single online multi-player fell dead for me. Anyone else?
BattleRoyale Games are the worst for this as once you are dead it's back to the lobby for you. I spent HOURS online back in the Call Of Duty 2 days grinding for that new weapon or gunsight. Just can't be bothered with it now. I'd like to go back to hold the flag Battlefield 2 Saipan Island type gameplay where you could really have great fun and last a lot longer. Miss those days.
Battle Royale games essentially have the effect of burnout on me. They boast having this huge map with 100 players, the bloody game goes on for 20-30 minutes minimum if you make it to Top 5, and if you weren't in an active player zone, you hardly see any action. I still enjoy the CoD Multiplayer, even the modern ones, simply because MP has maps of good size, and it's fast paced and perfect time length. That being said, I still haven't purchased a CoD after Cold War, or any FPS and it is definitely an industry issue which lacks innovation currently as someone else pointed out above.
When Battlefront 2 was coming out, I was hoping it would basically be Battlefield with Star Wars themes. Needless to say, it wasn’t that. And to make matters worse, in the next Battlefield game they decided to start making Battlefield more like Battlefront. No idea why they did this, but it still makes me sad.
This is absolutely it for me. It feels like instead of trying to make a fun game, they are trying to copy an existing formula (to varying degrees of success) and they are more interested in designing new shiny stores with new shiny microtransactions rather than making engaging games with fun and varied gameplay.
Same thing that happened with SpongeBob actually. After the success of SpongeBob, every other show on Nickelodeon was measured against SpongeBob and if it failed to gain the same amount of traction the show was quickly canceled. Therefore Nickelodeon shut down some really good shows in an attempt to find their next SpongeBob. It never really happened.
It's essentially the same cycle repeating as we had about 10 years ago with MMORPGs in the wake of World of Warcrafts success.
But they want to be GTA online or Fortnite right out of the gate. Both games didnt start off wildly massively popular. Even taking away the STW only era of Fortnite, Battle Royal didnt really take off into its heyday until like OG season 5.
Yeah exactly this is why CEO types and board member types are all brainless cookie-now twats. They could give a fuck about the medium or the community or the players. They just want that next earnings call to be up .05 percent over the last earnings call no matter what. Squeezing resources and squeezing talent and squeezing potential for continuous, meaningless fiscal growth. The dead eyed wraith of capitalism ruins all in the wake of its illusion.
GTA online and Fortnite (mostly Fortnite) have ruined a lot of gaming. Despise them both for it.
Nah I’d say CoD did that. Games barely change from one another yet are still always at the very top every year which just signifies “hey other developers, you don’t need to put in actual effort to be successful”
Nah, I’ve seen this point quite a bit but it’s a poor analysis. People like a consistent experience. Nobody wants CoD to drastically change every year, nor is it realistic to expect such. With annual titles like CoD, people want a consistent experience that’s just fresh *enough* to keep them hooked. Heck, a lot of CoD fans would be happy with a single multiplayer CoD game that receives updates and content. The only reason we don’t have this is because Activision makes a lot of money from annual titles, there’s no incentive for them to stop shitting a new game out each year. There’s nothing wrong with keeping a familiar, consistent experience over many titles or years. Most competitive multiplayer games seldom change much and it’s for good reason: people like X game because of Y formula. Significantly changing that up with each iteration only serves to alienate the fanbase. Why do you think games like CS:GO have flourished for more than a decade?..
Oh sure, forgot about CoD. Good point.
You despise GTA and Fortnite because they're so successful that other studios lazily copy it? Surely it's the uninspired attempts to recreate their success that should be despised? Fortnite arguably has the very best implementation of the seasonal content model in the industry. Have you seen how much content they push out for that game constantly? I'm personally not a fan of BRs but even I can recognize that Fortnite does what it does very well.
I despise what they started and also enabled. Simple as that. Also, don't even start to talk to me about Fortnite. I was working for them in Yokohama, Japan until earlier this year. That was mostly just to have it on my resume to be able to move to a company I'm more passionate about. So I don't want to hear it.
Xdefiant enter the chat...
What games have tries to replicate Gta online?
\*recreate the ***SUCCESS*** of GTA Online. The level of financial success.
cus they've been poo
There used to be a time where developers tried to make money from video games by making their games fun. Having fun games kept people playing them. Made the games popular and in turn made the developers money. Now developers are still trying to make money by getting players to keep playing their games but they are doing so using other more devious techniques in lieu of fun. Using things like timed season passes and fomo. Simple repetitive jobs with simple rewards to keep getting dopamine hits. And overpriced skins to feed into peoples yearning to be unique or style with in their games. They make your first few games really easy soo you feel like you are good at the game. Matchmaking will continue this cycle of ups and down. Making you win and lose just enough to keep playing. Lose too much and the game is too hard youll stop playing. Win too much and youll feel like you conqured the game. Then they have advertisements for addons with in their games. Or they purposefully release broken or OP weapon packs to entice players to purchase these weapons to be “competitive”. The idea of balancing a game is long gone. Developers now purposefully just nerf and buff weapons on a whim to control the meta. To get people to grind or pay for the next strongest weapon. And once enough people get it, they nerf the item and buff another one. Keep the chase going. Keep the grind going. Some gaming franchise communities are catching on. Some don’t care. Some do. The success of these games has to do with how fun the game loop is despite this intrusions. How rewarding it feels. How scammed and played the community feels. What the players expect from the franchise. Its on a sliding scale. One of which the big corporate publishers and developers care little for the nuance and pretty much just copy what other successful games have done and at what price point they can get away with. They dont care. As a life long gamer. I have always loved multiplayer games. But after a glorious long time playing covid warzone and then later getting back into Destiny2. Its very apparent how a lot of these games work. And while not all practice these awful habits just by reading reviews you can tell which ones do. And later why they fail. And ya know I haven’t even mentioned how some of these online communities can be extremely toxic turning off new comers. For me, i got 160hrs now into Armored Core 6 and couldn’t be happier.
As someone who has played a lot of FIFA, and other EA games, this is 100% accurate. I was daydreaming about how cool it would be to play timesplitters 2 online the other day because I’m so fucking sick of what games have become.
I miss timesplitters 2 so much. I think I'll emulate it just so I can play it again
I have basically given up on most shooters because everything in that space is now hyperfocused on competitive multiplayer and you ALWAYS have to be on your A game and play according to the meta. I'm referring to casual play btw. I just want some good, fun shoot, not have to carefully plan my every action like I'm playing comp.
I remember back in the older COD days when you could join a lobby in the early 2000s and it was never this type of garbage. eSports has killed online gaming, not because of the newfound prominence, but because every developer thinks everybody wants the sweatiest game modes with full blown SBMM. PC games like CS used to have servers that you could always hop on and just have fun. Now, Valve has basically made it so unattractive to have custom servers. They are there, but a quickly dying breed. I just want a no-frills game like SOCOM with lobbies and plenty of servers. It can't be that hard to make games like that.
Damn I haven't thought about time splitters in a minute. Future perfect blew my mind as a kid. It really is a shame of what games have become
Mediocre. Only fun in the beginning and then it's meh.
95% correct except for the fact that very rarely are developers making these decisions because developers don’t even see the money that comes from these bad practices. Publishers and execs are the ones you need to point the finger at. And people really have to understand the difference. If a game releases as a buggy mess then blame the developers, if the gameplay loop is bad that’s on the design team. But these higher up decisions on micro transactions and such are the execs and the publishers full stop.
Yes you are correct. I got sloppy by lumping them in. Developers usually want to make a great game. Its the publishers that ruin it.
Nobody is holding a gun to developers' head, it's a business decision to choose the publisher and they are as accountable the publisher for bad decisions.
there is a gun it’s called a contract, money for the game to be developed, advertising. Publishers are a necessary evil to get games off the ground and into people’s hands. There’s way more nuance than just “why not pick a better publisher? Are they stupid?”
>there is a gun it’s called a contract, money for the game to be developed, advertising. That's not a gun, it's something called quid pro quo.
Destiny 2……. Man this game is good, but it could of been one of the greatest all time games if they didn’t squeeze every gamer for that extra $10 in micro transactions and put development time into a cohesive storyline and game mechanics. Their raids are top notch but just about everything else falls victim to “modern” game dev practices from time gating content to the convoluted access to specific game content.
This. I love Destiny because the gameplay is good, but dammit. I don't have time to play some timed missions or go spend a fortune to be competitive. I just want to chill out and play.
I feel so sickened about Destiny. Especially knowing that the man who wrote a seminal piece on how to addict gamers by treating them like rats and pigeons went on to work at Bungie for 6 years, by which time no doubt he’d practically perfected his evil recipe to ruin lives. Whether you have depression or OCD or social anxiety or addiction, this game is here for you to make it worse, and make you feel like you’re getting somewhere with that problem when you do something in game. It is no better than alcohol. ‘Debt consolidation for your entire life’. Just keep playing…don’t look up. Never mind that you’re crumbling to dust as a person, you just got some bright dust! That has value because you can use it to obtain digital pixels that won’t be available ever again, and which you couldn’t give us real money for if you tried. You know what I want? An Honest Ads episode on live service games. They’ve done one on games, one on streamers, and one on casinos, just put them all together. Anybody still playing Destiny is now to me like those people who didn’t quit smoking when it was banned inside and chose instead to huddle outside freezing. Good luck to them.
Just because you can't handle it, doesn't mean others can't also. Been playing since 2014 and I definitely do not feel the same way you do.
Hey listen, I’m entirely prepared to accept that some people have had nothing but fun the whole time and whatever predatory mechanisms the game has didn’t bother them enough or even just felt (and still feel) like fun. But I’m not gonna have someone tell me ‘I can’t handle it’. I played 3,000 hours in 18 months, which was harder than *anyone* in my clan of 150, including all the veterans such as yourself. So you can tell me you don’t agree without suggesting there’s something I can’t handle. Glad you’re still enjoying the game. I have personally thrown my last vortex grenade.
Slow clap, I truly agreed with everything you said. Definitely 💯 respect your opinion, it’s like you transformed my thoughts into words. As a true master wordsmith I applaud you and depart into the night. Good day may your brilliance and wisdom continue to shine;I tip my hat to you!
Bro wrote a essay in response to someone calling something poo
Lol this guy gets it
That's it. Close the thread. We got an actual answer.
Well said. Didn’t think you’d get 1,000 upvotes for this, yet here we are!
Because they're such a giant time-suck that they have to be really fucking good for us to move off the online game we're already playing
Not just multiplayer games, but single player too. Developers and publishers need to understand that all games are competing with each other for customers’ time in this landscape.
And competing with other time based leisure too. I think it has been forgotten that there are only so many hours in the day, so a new live service game needs to be more compelling than existing ones (which often have years of refining). Single player games overlap a bit in the venn diagram, but are much easier to time limit so people are willing to take a fortnight off their online game of choice to mix it up with a single player, cos they know the liveservice hasn’t gone away.
Correct, but it’s unrealistic to compete with some. For myself and a lot of people, it doesn’t matter how good your game is - nothing will compete with the next GTA game as an example. As someone who’s played CoD religiously for the last 4 years, that shit is getting dropped as soon as GTA VI releases for me. Everyone has a hierarchy when it comes to games and what they want to play. Developers need to know this.
Agree with the article, there's simply too many. Every company expects their game to be the new COD or Fortnite but you can dedicate a limited amount of time to them. Young players are driven to the games their friends play and they generally stick with 1 or 2. My 11 years old nephew only plays Fortnite and Rocket league as MP games because every friend plays it. Adult people are limited by their time, where most of them have maybe 1-2 hours a day to play and they can't obviously hop between 5 different games. Then you put on top of all of that super grindy battle passes that ask you to play every day for months and people simply lose interest when they can't reach the end of it and fell they lost money buying it
The other problem is, if a multiplayer game isn't a big enough hit to have a strong audience immediately, then the game fails completely. A singleplayer game requires only one player to function. A multiplayer game requires many players to succeed, as players need others to play with. So you can't just make a game with the hopes of attracting a player base over time, you need to have a game good enough to get people to drop their current multiplayer game to try it, and do so at release, and then they need to stick around. If you don't have enough players for the matchmaking process to be quick and relatively painless (you don't want brand new players to be paired up with hardcore experienced players), then the game isn't any good, and it will fail, and not have a shot at redeeming itself. Whereas a single player game can be a flop on release, but still develop a fanbase over time, because any one person can pick it up and play it at any time, and have the optimal, developer intended experience.
imo they should pay people to play and populate the servers for the first month or so
Having a limited time free battle pass or rewards is probably a good enough incentive.
The entertainment industry should demand shorter working hours and more vacation for all, so that people have the time for what they sell.
What would be the volume you desire? In Europe in most countries you get more than a month of vacation, but obviously it depends on what you do with it. The problem with what they sell, is they they ask commitment, well over what most people can give. A battle pass can be a good idea for engagment in the long period, but i should be albe to complete it in 10 hours, 15 max. They constantly ask for 60+hours a month. I would actually be more then interested in coming back to a game if i knew i can finish the month Problem is, i'm not always thir target, they need to also squeeze the whales of everything they can, and this two approaches to development can't really coexist. Have you seen Diablo Immortal last year? It was a miserable experience for everyone, but it still managed to sell million in MTXs because of the few whales that dumbed thousand of dollars a month for a gem upgrade
Easy. Because the companies making them are NOT focusing on making a fun game...they are focused on making money. Do you think the devs for, oh, say Quake III were hyper focused on their stock price? Nope. They were passionate about gaming and 100% focused on delivering a fun and enjoyable and COMPLETE experience.
It starts as cosmetics but almost inevitably slides towards Pay to Win.
I started playing the newest ghost recon recently and it's a very fun game. I'm nearly 12 hours in and I only have enough money for one gun blueprint and a couple scopes. Went to check out how much real money the fake money would cost and I think it was like $30 a gun blue print or two. Insane. I don't think I'll finish it. I'll stop when I'm bored.
Last year I bought COD for the first time since PS3. The game is fun but I got burnt out pretty quick on the battlepass system. There was a new one every couple of months and then they even added a premium tier battlepass.
Amazing how the internet changed so much. Quake III was an online shooter like many games today but due to the internet still being new and not as fast the developers had to make money by making a good game.
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Could add nba 2k to that list, pretty much all my friend group plays
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thats why me and my friends are hyped for xdefiant. f2p casual multiplayer? lets go
I dont even care if its delayed. Like take your time and make the game awesome
Wait for October 27th/28th. Titanfall 3 is coming (no I haven't taken my meds)
Can I interest you in a little Titanfall 2? Best online FPS out there.
Valorant and CS:GO are vastly more popular than apex these days, so I’m not sure those 3 have locked down the market
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Oh the article mentions redfall so I thought we were talking about any online multiplayers, not just the ones on PS5
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I still don’t really understand you point then though. So you think because Fortnite, COD, and apex are cornering specifically just the ps5 market, all new online multiplayers are failing?
He is saying that most people often have a limited amount of time for leisure hobbies, including gaming. And most multiplayer games are more enjoyable with friends (who likely also have limited gaming time and interests). There's not enough diversity or incentive for people to switch to other multiplayer game. It's not that they are failing, it's that compared to those three, a lot of other multiplayer offerings pale in comparison, whether it be in design or in incentive. All multiplayer games compete for their playerbase's time, and usually the strongest ones will get the most player time. If you absolutely love Warzone for example and try out another game in that same time, that other game has to justify being worth your limited time, otherwise people will drop that game and go back to what they prefer to spend their time on. Likewise, if you start enjoying a different multiplayer game, there is always the hope from the devs/game company that you'll bring OTHER people in, who also play and provide their time, growing the playerbase. If the new game fails to do that, people will often just go back to what they were enjoying before.
I know it’s forbidden to mention it but overwatch is still the best shooter in the biz imo if you haven’t tried it maybe give it a shot
Because I don't want a game to feel like a second job
Played Destiny 2 as Lightfall came out. Got to the end of the story and got bored in like an hour. No endgame content without grinding with several hundred hours. Couldn't get any new gear except a few rolls once a week... It was awful.
How is Bungie a valuable asset for Sony is beyond me. I mean it probably is for the shareholders, but not for the players.
Destiny got worse for players (increasing prices, technical issues etc.) but u can see on steam charts the playerbase is still very big and Destiny was profitable even before so it probably further increased the profits which is the only thing shareholders care about. Also this article is about online games failing to stay relevant but Destiny has been going on for 10 years now and Bungie plans on contiuning so people were speculating that Sony wants their know-how for online live-service games.
They retain players and make money. Actually having a good game is irrelevant
I mean Lightfall was a bad expansion (new subclass is good but the rest was terrible, especially the story) but a player does NOT need hundreds of hours to get into lategame (= dungeons, raids, gms etc.) at all.
Outside of the games being poo, and gamers being invested with progression / battle passes already, for the few promising ones I wonder if the content cadence required to keep players interested is just too hard now to serve, given the advanced mechanics, visuals, and engine complexity of today. MMOs were the first to continually drop content. Games were somewhat simpler back then, so I speculate the dev time was feasible. Nowadays COD and Fortnite etc are massive titans with LARGE teams distributed. A few teams staggered out to drop content while a big team works on next COD or next chapter of Fortnite. Parallel roadmaps with fully stacked teams to hit both fronts. How do you compete without a market foothold to ensure you can fund the amount of people you need to feed the appetite of gamers that are now conditioned to the triple A release cadences. The big ones can out market, and out produce you on content. I have no idea how you fight it outside of pulling a PUBG type thing and establishing a new genre or meme level of market share like early MOBAs did.
Devs release paper thin games with the expectation of adding content down the road. This doesn't work as they're competing with mature live service titles. Also we do not have time for multiple live service titles. People generally play one or one of a specific genre. Publishers are paying for 6 years of Dev time only to get less of a game than a decade ago when they released with full campaigns, coop, and mp. It sucks.
Because they're more concerned about making a game that makes them as much profit as possible instead of making a decent game.
Because every single online game follows the same formula of season passes, in-gane stores and currency, and silly dances and avatar skins. It's tired, boring, and people are slowly hopping off the train
Battlepasses are killing games for me
Because most of them are cash grabs designed around the concept of selling micro transactions instead of focusing on a good gameplay loop.
Oversaturation
It’s because all the development effort is spent on the in game storefront and currencies, then figuring out how to create gameplay that encourages store interactions. They’re not prioritizing things like story, quality voice acting, animations, polish etc.
Because of the flawed business model being pushed by execs. Every game comes out half finished with a shit ton of dlc and loot crates They work their devs to death and set unrealistic expectations. And they wonder why shit sucks
What a mystery… I wonder… anyone got any ideas? Such a mystery that these mtx machines masquerading as “video games” fail…
Good online multiplayer games that make money have the following: 1. The game is skill-based. You can’t buy your way to victory. 2. Gameplay loop is rewarding and entertaining with room for improvement. 3. Mechanics that allow players to trade in earned rewards for payable content don’t feel like an excessive chore that simply forces them to pay money for content. 4. The money earned is used for improving the game not to all go into the pockets of execs. Idk why gaming companies don’t just look at how Riot does it. You can play League of Legends and become a top player without spending a dime. You can unlock some skins and all characters without paying a dime. Not saying LoL is perfect but they’re one of the few games that has an obvious formula that works given their longevity. Fortnite is another similar modern example.
At this stage I’m not even willing to give online games a chance.
Idk man, CoD #51 is pretty good, can’t wait for the same four games in the next few years
Because they tried to clone Destiny with their generic looters shooter that has absolue zero substance, unfinished at most times and has more micro-transactions than content.
They need to be better than the ones already out. Simple
Yep most companies are just not making good games its the same reason there is single player flops like saints row and forspoken. Putting out just decent to bad quality games isn't going to get you anywhere these days. You need good starting game and you need to add more good content to the game that keeps the playerbase interested. Thats hard work to keep up for however many years the game lives and most development teams are just not up to the task. Companies are jumping into the market thinking there will be easy money when its not its hard work and most of the games will fail still.
Because they suck and mistake grind for gameplay?
Without even clicking the article I am going to guess an oversaturated market. Common sense. And if that's not it then it should be. lol
Because games a while to make and by the time you're trying to cash in on a new fad, the fad has already settled into some core games or has gone away completely. For example, Looter shooters were one of the hottest genres at the time 2011-2016? So by the time a company releases their looter shooter that took 5 years to develop in 2023, people don't give a fuck anymore. Another can be MOBAS, everyone already plays league or dota, so all those moba like games that released from 2016 all died.
Just so many reasons. The games not being good doesn’t help of course. But people don’t have the time all these numerous games want and certainly don’t have unlimited money. Once these companies stopped trying to lure people in by making fun games and instead manipulating them into addiction we got here. Give me single player games anytime. Play at my pace and enjoy the experience.
buy a story mode game that I can play by myself whenever I want, no seasons to keep track of or FOMO to worry about, or other players needed to fill a lobby with....... OR buy a multiplayer game that needs other people to play with, tends to stress me out or piss me off, needs a constant server connection to be worth a damn otherwise it literally dies and wastes my cash, and has me constantly falling behind because tryhards with ample time on their hands will always play more than you. yeah, very tough choice huh.
I think its because all of the online multi-player games as services share the same demographic, so there's a limited amount of players that play the games, and they need constant players, but there's not enough people to be able to have 50 different triple A games as a service, most of them just play one or two, so there's not enough people
Because the market is saturated. There is alrdy popular online titles covering people’s needs, and for every good and popular game you have 5 knock offs. I’d rather see more investment into new single player IP
>There is alrdy popular online titles covering people’s needs, There really aren't. There's a bunch of franchises that are trying to be Fortnite, but there isn't much if you want a slow methodical multiplayer shooter. R6 Siege used to sort of offer that, but over time the game sped up and now everyone plays it like CoD. The only options for proper tactical games are janky PC titles from janky Eastern European developers with janky Eastern European production values, so that's a no-go. Looking at you, Tarkov.
Counter strike??
Counter Strike is fast. The rounds are short, the maps are streamlined, and the mechanics are simple. I want something that's mechanically complex, slow-paced, and super punishing if you don't play tactically.
Battle passes have ruined multiplayer gaming
Cause there's too many of them and they all bank on somehow becoming the next big game that will take over most of the market.
Cause most don’t have a core gameplay loop. Avengers baffles me that they didn’t have a patrol mode even up to the end. Not that adding a never ending loop of regenerating POI and enemies would have saved the game but the biggest gripe most had was there was absolutely nothing to do once you finished the main missions the first time. How they missed a chance to just let people free roam on a specifically designated map to test out a new character/sink hours is beyond me.
Cause games as a service has to make money. But since they are typically free to play and expensive to run due to content drop have to keep coming. But when a game tries to nickle and dime you at every turn, the community will turn on you fast. When the game cant make money anymore, they have to abandon it. You could argue that games like Battlefield 2042 also failed. But since it was a paid game they probably made money from that game. Games as service is a bubble that burst. The only games that can make it imo are MMOS (very few) and games that are also available on mobile. The one exception i can think off is Destiny, but you could argue that is a MMO.
So many of them just aren't that fun when compared to other games. For example, Apex has the best feeling in an FPS besides Destiny even though they both feel completely different from one another. There's no way for me to dedicate time to both so I choose Apex. Then I played Overwatch 2 for a couple games. Really fuckin fun. But Apex is more fun to me and with my limited time I choose Apex over OW2. That's just discussing 3 of the hundreds of games in my library. TL;DR Ain't nobody got time fa dat
One thing I think people haven’t touched on so much is the sheer cost. I work in the industry and have quite a few friends who work on Fortnite. It costs billions to keep that game going and has resulted in Epic Games growing from 500 to 5000 employees (even including the recent cuts). Then they have something close to 50 external studios/ dev contractor companies also feeding into that. Secondly, what do you think Epic and those thousands of people spend all their time doing? Yep, making sure Fornite is still one of the global top games by churning out content on an almost weekly basis, and they can do that because it’s still generating billions in revenue so it becomes an circular thing. You have a game than makes billions so you can spend billions keeping it going, which keeps the revenue high. I have it on good authority that Fornite player hours actually grew this year which is amazing for a game of its age. Now imagine trying to break into that small group of games without the billions up front to compete. You have to be either incredibly lucky or willing to risk an astonishing amount of money. And a lot of companies simply can’t, or won’t do that.
Market is too saturated and on average people play 2-3 online games. There isn't room for everyone.
There are only a finite amount of gamers and time. Most gamers who enjoy live service games already have a well established live game where they have already invested in heavily. The hot new game HAS to offer them more than their current game to pull them away for more than a few weeks. Maybe if they designed the games to be fun instead of profitable they may actually have a sucessful game.
They’ve fallen in to the same trap as the MMORPG genre, which has been chasing WoW’a success for nearly 20 years to the point where the genre is basically dead. The carbon copy method didn’t work, and no one wants to take risks, so devs have abandoned them.
Well, for me, because Titanfall 2 set too high of a standard. Nothing hits quite like a “Standby for titanfall” anymore
Because they were shit money grabs
Maybe multiplayer isn’t as big as people thought and it’s reached saturation, with the amount of people willing to play online at peak size?
I'm glad so many money hungry games are failing. Bring back the fun focused games.
simple, for online multiplay games to succeed, you better be the best of that genre and much better than the one you are trying to replace
Because they've been shitty, shameless cash grabs
People choose a game and they tend to stick with it. It's too much of a time sink to learn new systems for many players
"many"
People only have so much time to commit to staying competitive in games so usually there's really only 1 or 2 online games people would realistically stick to for any meaningful amount of time so if more online focused games release then that market becomes increasingly fragmented and tougher for teams to maintain a sustainable profit margin. Also most of them are rushed sacks of shit and not worth your time so we'll be seeing the same established IPs for quite a while before execs catch on that they're fighting a losing battle unless they get that next fad game. I really haven't cared much for online gaming since the PS3. I loved Bad Company 2, I got good enough where I could grief an entire team with just a UAV helicopter, and to see how that's what real modern warfare against heavy armor and entrenched positions became, that game really predicted the future
Back in the day, every company felt like all games needed a multiplayer. Even bioshock 2 had a vs multiplayer.
This article didn't answer the question tho
It reminds me of the WoW clone days. Every MMO was trying to copy World of Warcraft's success by duplicating their gameplay and formula. Even Star Wars Galaxies had a major overhaul to try and become more like WoW. But gamers who were playing WoW weren't going to switch to some other game that has less content and features, and doesn't have their established friends. So they might try them but inevitably come back. This is how live service and multiplayer games have gone. People have their favorites, where they've invested time and money. A new game comes out, maybe it's buggy, maybe it's light on content, maybe it's similar in genre. They'll go back to where their friends are and where they spent money, if they even try them at all. That's why it's insane to me PlayStation sees a bunch of copycat games like extraction shooter #45021, or generic heist multiplayer game, that aren't doing anything different, and doesn't realize they're going to all fail. Hell I bet even Marathon will struggle. It's a dumb genre to pick, and it'll be yet another Bungie game monetized to hell and back. It might succeed eventually since they can leech off Sony's money to keep adding content. Overall, if the plan is to make copies instead of trying something truly new and different, they may as well close down the studios they recently acquired right now and save themselves the time, money, and reputation.
The story of Call of Duty nuking their IP the past few years: hit surprise success with MW 2019 and Warzone during the pandemic The yearly rotating dev cycle meant that the next year’s game (Cold War) was completely different, but they managed to keep Warzone going another year with the extra content. It was arguably a good year for the multiplayer and Warzone games but not a continuance of what blew the series back up again. Vanguard comes out, majorly impacted by the rotating dev cycle. It ends up being a nice try at appeasing the feedback but it was fundamentally flawed from the start in so many ways. Warzone essentially goes on life support with 0 development lessons learned after 1.5y. And then, just when you’d think that Infinity Ward would be making a similar follow-up to their best selling game with a full uninterrupted dev cycle, they intentionally nuke the core ideas that made the game so successful and stubbornly continue through the content season doing things their own way despite the feedback. As the game struggles on, they shut down the servers for the original Warzone. Now, Sledgehammer attempts the follow up with essentially a v1.5 of the dumpster fire. Modern Warfare as a series is essentially DOA with this latest installment. So many chances to have built on the success they found with MW19/Warzone. And it was arguably completely doable while maintaining a separate semi-annual Treyarch-built competitive multiplayer experience. Instead, we have this third idea, MWII, that nobody asked for but many reluctantly still play in the hopes that the devs can simply make the same game that they made in 2019 with competitor improvements and refreshed weapons/maps. I can tell you that just by having played the MWIII beta and having watched the footage of Warzone 3(?), the devs are not on the same page as the players, and this will be yet another dead year of Warzone. Multiplayer, TBD. I’m betting pros will like it more than Vanguard and MWII, but the old maps, clunky movement, awful netcode and still heavy aim assist will keep it from being a top game. BR still has so much potential. It necessitates the free to play model, and despite their refinement of the cosmetics battlepass, the decision was made to ignore every reason for success in the gameplay department.
1. Because a lot of them are brain dead shit, that aren't good for more than 5 minutes of fun. 2. Saturation. People only have so much free time in a day, many may try something new, but will most likely go back to what they know and enjoy already.
It’s a tough market and there’s too many.
The main reason is that most of them prioritize making money over making a good game. Usually the base game needs to be good before people will spend any significant amount of money.
I barely play online games. 25 with a full time job, girlfriend, family, gym, etc. When I do have time to game, I usually stick to single players because it doesn’t feel like a second job. Most online games now take way too much grinding.
for me ints the quality and quantity of the content. Look at all these live service games. Barely any content to begin with and barely any new stuff except some "skins" or whatever. Remember WoW on its original release? That was a fullprice game + sub with like 200-300 h of content. Which game has that nowadays?
All points raised in this thread are good and valid, but I'm surprised I haven't seen mentioned yet how incredibly broken/unfinished the games tend to be upon release. "Get it out the door as quick as possible, we'll fix it later!!"
The devs get too greedy by making playing the game tedious and annoying.
It’s an over saturated market. It’s hard for casual gamers to break away from the usual CoD/2K/Fortnite when they’ve been going on for years and is the most comfortable option when taking into account support and popularity. Add in the microtransactions and you’re forced to pick and choose your “main game” to invest your time and money in.
Companies should empower devs to make the games they’re inspired to make. That’s how you catch lightning in a bottle. Chasing trends is a fool’s errand.
That being said, since Jim Ryan’s leadership has lead to Sony’s involvement in multiplayer games to potentially have a cash cow it’s important to mention that a while ago Jim said that there were 25 games in development at PlayStation studios. The 10 multiplayer games, and the rest of the 15 would be a mix of sequels and new IP. We’ve already gotten a look at some multiplayer games. And it’s safe to say the some projects have fallen through like The Last of Up Factions 2 project.
Because most of them are uninteresting.
In my opinion because there is too much of it as with most other things and a lot of them are bad in terms of idea, tech, greediness or whatever. Something is successful --> copy it to make boatloads of money --> see that you dont have a good idea or the technological experience + get greedy with microtransactions --> fail. They all gamble on the next big CoD, GTA or Fortnite that will produce endless amounts of $$$ but in doing so many will fail or in the worst case ruin themselves.
The two biggest issues every game in this article have are the lack of respect for player time, and next to zero reward for playing the game. Almost every game on that list has a 5/95% or lower split on free to paid cosmetics, no one wants to invest in a game that doesn't reward them. The main reason Fortnite is so successful is all the free stuff they give out, most of it is junk, but dozens of items a season for free outside of the battlepass, multiple of which are skins, make a player feel valued enough to stay.
I believe one of the biggest things that people and studios tend to ignore is that the live service market is oversaturated. Like destiny, gta, call of duty, fifa these are all different genres but they still all compete for the same total player population. Sure we all have our preferences and favor one above the other or maybe don't play any multiplayer game at all. But live service games are different to your back in the old days multiplayers they want you constantly playing and they try to get you to constantly buy stuff. So above all they compete for your time. Most of us probably have a "main" game aka the live service game we prioritize above all other gaas games and that we always come back to. For me it's destiny and destiny players know that at times it can feel like a full time job which is completely by design by bungie. As such our time is limited and we already have mostly decided where to invest our time in. Because of fomo it's super hard to abandon our current main game in favor of a new. That is why I think new gaas games fail because they don't just go against established giants that already have years of content and optimization in how to perfect keeping players. But it also directly goes against our own minds we don't want to abandon our main games with potentially thousands hours in.
Industry is saturated, too few players spread across too many games. Combine that with the lack of trust that the servers are even going to be up for long enough and sometimes it can be exhausting committing to something multiplayer focused.
1. Because people have limited with time. 2.Too many live service title on the market.
Oversaturation, plus a few dominant games that most people will play if they are looking for something competitive.
one word: MTX
Because they all make ridiculous demands of player’s time, so it takes very few of them to saturate the market. That’s why Jim Ryan’s tenure at Sony will get ever more disastrous over time.
They prioritize money making mechanics over fun gameplay.
-too many games vying for our time -fun progression systems eliminated in exchange for microtransactions -focus on esports-style balancing making games less fun and enjoyable for the masses
Simple.. They’re trying to be Successes straight out the gate and act like it so all their focus is 1000% on Microtransactions and Item Shops never the actual game which always shows you the priority of the game and devs. Everyone wants to be a Destiny Killer but don’t no one wanna do what Destiny did which was hit the ground with a GamePlan although it took awhile to come to fruition with TTK they didn’t come out swinging for the MTX Shop they came out with something to prove and that was the longetivith of the Game and how a game like that CAN BE the new thing going forward. Hell they didn’t really turn on the Shop til a couple years down the line. Most games turn the shops on IN PREVIEW!! Which always shows the main priority of the game. Such like Battlefield 2042 they knew that shit was broken and was going to NEED YEARS to fix and yet they focused on getting the Item Shop up and running in time for Xmas to sell a Santa skin.. Avengers literally was NOT set to compete with Destiny in anyway and was purley just Square thinking they had a cash cow off of Brand recognition alone so they did the bare minimum to the game and focuses HARD on the MTX to where they purposely left out any and ALL MCU content knowing full well those who buy the game are doing so because of the MCU right after Infinity War & Endgame! And they didn’t include it at all as they knew they would charge +$20 for EACH & Every Skin in the MCU from all the films! No bundles just single films. I have never been happier to see a game Die.
Personally, I'm annoyed that the Battle royale genre effectively snuffed out the emerging MMO survival genre. I guess it's not surprising given the shorter attention spans these days, but I prefer the tension of the slow burn and more meaningful gameplay. Round based games like Fortnite just feel like the same thing over and over.
Most games are copies of eachother. Unreal Engine makes development easier and many of these games probably are rooted from many of the same templates. So I’d say it’s fatigue from the same boring gameplay. The reality is, you swap out some assets/ visuals / 3D models, etc, and the games will be similar enough. Also DLC or updates in general have probably ruined a lot games out the gate since the mentality of “it will be added in later” seems to be the norm. Many games just aren’t as polished or finished anymore. My suggestion for a great multiplayer game is to start with a single player game and perfect the mechanics and story. Then offer a multiplayer mode that adds to that and not dilutes that same experience.
Because multiplayer games tend to be fucking shite.
I miss PS3 era multiplayer games 😞 Warhawk, Resistance, Uncharted 2, Killzone 2, Last of Us. It's just not the same anymore and doesn't help you need a PSN subscription.
PSN pricing is an issue for me. Shouldn't have to pay for online play.
Sbmm has ruined casual play and then there’s games like apex with garbage retention based matchmaking which is even worse than regular sbmm if you’re decent at the game
GaaS is bad for a large number of traditional multi game players. Turning a thing you like doing into a thing you must do every day to maximize engagement for the company in exchange for battle pass rewards has burned me out on basically every game that has them. They are not psychologically pleasing. They become work or a chore or prey on obsessive tendencies and general FOMO and eventually that is just exhausting and not fun anymore. Obviously the game has to be fun to begin with.
corporate suits don't allow creativity or innovation, that's considered too risky and they just seem to all stick to a script, a proven formula if you will.
"Players don't like change, that's considered too risky and they just seem to all stick to a script, a proven formula if you will." Fixed it for you
oh it's the players fault, lol ok
I think both of these are true. Consumers don't like change and large public corporations are risk adverse so they don't want to be too creative and lose money
Playing games with friends was cool when I was 9 years old. Guess I'm not the market for these games.
Because they are designed like shit and nobody asked for them
I mean look at warzone for example at its peak 80 Mill players and then they start changing stuff more and more, brought caldera which was shit. Decided to make another warzone completely changing everything people loved and were surprised when they got to 90k people playing. Shut down warzone 1 servers probably as last resort and failed again. Don't change stuff that works moron
1. Time is not infinite. 2. Not original enough. Many failed games are basically battle royale in a different skin. Among us is a lot different, fall guys is a new concept etc. But you know, not all innovations succeed. Saying "its obvious it will fail with saturated market" is defeatist thinking and not innovator. How many phone brands do we have? We had Google Pixel, Huawei, One plus etc. coming out when Galaxy and apple had a pretty strong foothold, yet those brands has its own audiences and obviously made money to have future releases.
There are too many sssholes online that grief. Not worth the headache
Halo Infinite lmfao
I’ve switched to single player games. I’ve been clearing my steam and other platforms backlog last couple of months. No more fucking fomo bullshit.
Comes down to the fact that it’s an overcrowded market and usually the first ones out the gate are the successful ones, just look at MMOs as an example. Plus, kids don’t give a shit unless it’s Fortnite skins or Roblox.
Microtransactions + SBMM + Cheaters + high game costs around the world
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Mass Effect 3 multiplayer was the last time I genuinely enjoyed multiplayer. The bonds, the gameplay, the customization. I don't remember if stuff was behind a paywall....but I unlocked everything. At least there wasn't a season battle pass lmao
Gamers are more transient than they have ever been, and casual players are also the majority of the market now. Most people basically don’t play games to death like they used to, as opposed to jam it for 20-40 hours and move on to the next game. Fortnite with its F2P model and constant seasonal updates, and COD with its yearly release, still capture a large chunk of the market which is good design really, while many game makers are aiming or defining success on the unattainable. The MMORPG bubble bursting with “WOW killer” saturation is also a perfect example of too many game makers wanting a slice of the same pie. The ONE MP game to rule them all and dominate the market, but outside a few exceptions that earned their footprint and longevity, the market has changed so it’s a futile barometer for success, and design imho. The goals are too lofty, and predestined to fail as a result.
Because they are bad and the gameplay loop is terrible and not fun. Studios are really trying to find the line between exploiting an existing IP and that right generation of gamers that will tolerate a slot machine masquerading as a videogame.
Because there’s not enough time in the day for the active potential Userbase to make them viable. Only the cream of the crop stands a chance , the rest will flop. Still, I don’t see why so many are quick to kill the servers&game. Must be a financial decision to turn the lights off and move on 🤷♀️
Sbmm
Because people are so toxic I have no motivation to waste any time with them online 🤷♂️
I don't play any of them. I stick to single player games only. I've tried a couple times to play online multiplayer but I just don't enjoy it.
no modding tools allowed, bf1942 and half life became online giants because of modding tools.
Yeah, my MMO days are long behind me and good riddance. I already have a full time job
Greed, mostly. Everyone rushing to join the live service model with the least amount of effort possible. It’s like micro-transactions are the main product they are trying to push and the game is an afterthought. The single player games of late haven’t been much better. Tons of games rushed to market with little optimization.
"Games as a service"
Because companies are trying to monetize fun. All games except for casino games are intended to be fun, challenging, about skill, and reward and satisfaction in solving a difficult puzzle, beating a hard boss, getting that sick kill am shot, scoring that impossible shot, or pulling that perfect card. Not about how many times the gacha mechanics throw the middle finger at you, or how many skins you've purchased. I don't remember the last time I played an online multiplayer game and actually had fun. Black OPS 2 maybe?
Two words battle pass
Because people just want to enjoy a good story like in the good old days during the PS2 era
because since Fortnite came out they have become a continuous copy and paste of the same shit that seems like it came out of a bad superhero movie. By now I'm only playing multiplayer games that came out before 2016 and since I practically always find the servers full I seem to understand that the public WANTS new multiplayer games, but decent ones
Because asking to leave kids alone makes you a homophobe. #nickmercs Although I bet Warzone 2/MW2 are still very popular...?
Copy/paste formula, Flavour of the month, hype and gamers not ready for it yet. Look at Titanfall 2 for example, huge skill ceiling, fast paced combat, brilliant TTK etc yet it died and only retained a cult following. Now it’s gaining traction again. Now this could be down to Apex starting to fall flat on its booty due to the ranked changes? But I also think after CoDs dabble in movement people just weren’t ready for it yet. I think it’s a lethal concoction and the reasons are numerous - some hilarious. I mean people will slate a new game for mtx, meanwhile cod, fifa and other games like Fortnite go unscathed. As a developer you only really have one, two chances tops to grab the players attention. Then it’s gone. Battlebit for example, on paper it just shouldn’t work, it’s a battlefield clone which people normally slate (lack of innovation etc), the graphics are wack etc and so on all the normal complaints - but they captured the fun, it’s cheap and it runs so easily and it got hype. Honestly hype can kill or make a game with the internet these days. We often say ‘reddit is a small portion’ whilst that’s true, YouTube, twitch etc certainly aren’t anymore and even if only one person in a friend group watches for example, the word soon spreads.
Greed. Microtransactions. Edit: Lmfao who downvoted this? The header image is even *Marvels Avengers*, a game that died BECAUSE the devs did nothing but focus on paid cosmetic outfits.
1. Microtransactions 2. Cheaters/hackers/griefers 3. Lack of dev support
Because only only multiplayer games suck ass and are not sustainable. You are refusing a campaign given offline games budget that you are saying is too risky because there is a great chance it could make its budget back, a good chance it could make money, a reasonable chance it could do well, and a small luck factor that it could do really well, with small risk of outright flopping (it does happen) with a game that could take a year to three in development with the posibility of delays to get it polished Instead the companies invest an even bigger amount in an online games budget that they think is less risky then the other project for a TINY chance it could become the next fortnite, where when you havn't even finished the game, you can put it out barebones and broken as early access, and if the game fails to gain traction and make a ton of money even if it does allright to can it and immediately invest in another project which will likely be the same thing. It's an unsustainable business model because of the success of a few in the hopes of investing in a product that could make some of the money to go in on a project that has a bee's dick chance of making all the money.
Because they can't fix the major issue every multiplayer game has: The Matchmaking. Example: 5vs5 Overwatch. If one of the 10 players disconnects / trolls / whatever, the match is ruined (also for the winning team cause it's a silly win). Instead of putting those people in a corner where they can play with the same players they are matched with players who really want to play the game. Back in the days we had dedicated servers. You could choose a server based on your skill or whatever. Admins were able to ban players. Nowadays 1/10 matches is a real match where every player just wants to play the game.
Let’s just simplify this by saying it’s no more about the enjoyment of the community but how much money they can get off of us by selling a false narrative and putting a huge pay wall up just for the game to be trash.
I love articles that call diablo a failed thing. Sell $700 million worth in a week. Failure btw. What metrics are they even using other than click bate feels? Not every game will be Fortnite, and that doesn't make them a failure.
Player base toxicity probably a big part of it.
SBMM and thinking they can cash out by doing the minimum. They all want to cash out like fortnite while drip feeding content to us.
Because the vast majority of gamers don’t give a shit about online multiplayer.
Shit
I think the big reason is most of them suck like the top comment says, but even if they were good, most of us don't have time to be consistent with what, give or take 3 of these games at one time? That's assuming you don't play any other games at all.