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m76

6 reasons why live service games are terrible

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  1. They are never finished
    There is no final, complete version of a live service game. As they are ever changing. Content and features are added, removed and changed on short notice.
    Yeah, changes are generally seen as an improvement, but there are always people who enjoy a game more before a change. So why take that away from them? 
  2. They try to organize your time for you
    Live service games demand the player to log in at specific intervals, to get access to some benefits. They also force them to play certain content within a specified time frame.
    I think if we consider gaming addiction a problem, then this is a big driving force for that, as you are encouraged to play even when you normally wouldn't want to. "Oh, I'll loose my XP boost if I don't login every day"
  3. They are not a fair transparent transaction
    When you buy a regular game you see exactly what you get for your money. With live service games it is not clear. Whether you get your money's worth out of that season's pass is anyone's guess. Which basically makes it a gamble. You gamble on getting content that's worth your while.
  4. The sunken cost fallacy
    After paying for games as a service, you feel obliged to play them even if you don't enjoy it that much. I experienced this first hand when subscribing to either a live service game, or even just a service like games pass or EA Play. I played more than I'd normally, in the hopes of getting more out of the deal. This might also be bad for those prone to addiction.
  5. The eventual abandonment
    It is only a question of when, not if a life service game gets abandoned by its developer. So games preservation is impossible. They sometimes operate on live support for a while, but the servers are always shut down eventually. This might even be illegal for games that you purchased as retail, and not just free to play. But that never stops them, it's not like anyone is going to sue a company worth billions for loosing access to a $60 game.
  6. Trickle fed content
    This might only be my gripe with live service content, but after I play a game I forget all it's quirks and controls within a few weeks. Then when new content is released I have to spend time re-familiarizing myself with the game, only to play a mission that often takes no more than 15-20 minutes to complete. It's like if a restaurant only gives you a sample of the food, and says, oh, the next bite will be 2 months from now, cheers. But you already paid for the full course.
     
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Idk I'd argue that some live service games worn fine. Fortnite is pretty much a live service game and continues to throw out updates, changes and more, all for free. You can of course get battle pass to get more stuff, but you don't need it. 

But I agree that a lot of games don't keep with it for too long. But you also have to consider userbase.  Some don't even take off because they can't find an audience. 

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The developers abandoning the game is the biggest problem really. You're just not sure when the game will be finished because there is no guarantees that the developers will stay on and continue developing it. Look at what happened to Anthem!

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9 hours ago, m76 said:
  1. They are never finished
    There is no final, complete version of a live service game. As they are ever changing. Content and features are added, removed and changed on short notice.
    Yeah, changes are generally seen as an improvement, but there are always people who enjoy a game more before a change. So why take that away from them? 
  2. They try to organize your time for you
    Live service games demand the player to log in at specific intervals, to get access to some benefits. They also force them to play certain content within a specified time frame.
    I think if we consider gaming addiction a problem, then this is a big driving force for that, as you are encouraged to play even when you normally wouldn't want to. "Oh, I'll loose my XP boost if I don't login every day"
  3. They are not a fair transparent transaction
    When you buy a regular game you see exactly what you get for your money. With live service games it is not clear. Whether you get your money's worth out of that season's pass is anyone's guess. Which basically makes it a gamble. You gamble on getting content that's worth your while.
  4. The sunken cost fallacy
    After paying for games as a service, you feel obliged to play them even if you don't enjoy it that much. I experienced this first hand when subscribing to either a live service game, or even just a service like games pass or EA Play. I played more than I'd normally, in the hopes of getting more out of the deal. This might also be bad for those prone to addiction.
  5. The eventual abandonment
    It is only a question of when, not if a life service game gets abandoned by its developer. So games preservation is impossible. They sometimes operate on live support for a while, but the servers are always shut down eventually. This might even be illegal for games that you purchased as retail, and not just free to play. But that never stops them, it's not like anyone is going to sue a company worth billions for loosing access to a $60 game.
  6. Trickle fed content
    This might only be my gripe with live service content, but after I play a game I forget all it's quirks and controls within a few weeks. Then when new content is released I have to spend time re-familiarizing myself with the game, only to play a mission that often takes no more than 15-20 minutes to complete. It's like if a restaurant only gives you a sample of the food, and says, oh, the next bite will be 2 months from now, cheers. But you already paid for the full course.
     

When the games can't be preserved simply because the developers have gone AWOL, what's the essence of still playing such games? 

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On 2/4/2022 at 6:31 PM, Kane99 said:

Idk I'd argue that some live service games worn fine. Fortnite is pretty much a live service game and continues to throw out updates, changes and more, all for free. You can of course get battle pass to get more stuff, but you don't need it. 

But I agree that a lot of games don't keep with it for too long. But you also have to consider userbase.  Some don't even take off because they can't find an audience. 

Multiplayer games are fundamentally different, they don't have a start and end point. My observations are based on single player games, but some do apply to multiplayer games as well.

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On 2/4/2022 at 7:57 PM, Darth said:

The developers abandoning the game is the biggest problem really. You're just not sure when the game will be finished because there is no guarantees that the developers will stay on and continue developing it. Look at what happened to Anthem!

This is one of the most frustrating things about some developers. They get in on a project but never really see it out, leaving a lot of gamers hanging. 

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When I got into crypto newly, I was playing  block-chain games called 'Bitcoin Block, Bitcoin Blast, Solitaire, and Rush etc. They're simply four Satoshi rewarding games, even if you fail you'll be rewarded with some Satoshi. I played the game alot, their was lots of fun, and I got paid legitimately for it, even though the earnings are minimal. The earnings are simply a way to encourage the gamers to keep on playing with their mobile data, to be frank, it was full of fun, I wasn't playing because of the reward, but the satisfaction got me playing more. 

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19 hours ago, m76 said:

Multiplayer games are fundamentally different, they don't have a start and end point. My observations are based on single player games, but some do apply to multiplayer games as well.

I take time for me to get into playing multiplayer games recently because I'm more happy when I play single player games. 

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On 2/6/2022 at 8:27 AM, m76 said:

Multiplayer games are fundamentally different, they don't have a start and end point. My observations are based on single player games, but some do apply to multiplayer games as well.

True. Single player games with multiplayer tacked on don't usually stick around too long it seems. 

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14 hours ago, Kane99 said:

True. Single player games with multiplayer tacked on don't usually stick around too long it seems. 

Seriously, let single player be single player and multi player the same. It offers all what they really want and not stress it out. 

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On 2/7/2022 at 2:31 AM, Head_Hunter said:

It's wonderful to earn from the video games, I never heard about the options you made mentioned here, I know of metaverse NFT games. I never tried it, because I don't know how it works. 

If you do videogames for a living it stops being fun. As soon as monetary incentives get in the mix the whole thing is ruined. NFTs and the metaverse are the worst things ever for gaming. Not lootbox / microtransactoins bad, try million times worse.

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9 minutes ago, m76 said:

If you do videogames for a living it stops being fun. As soon as monetary incentives get in the mix the whole thing is ruined. NFTs and the metaverse are the worst things ever for gaming. Not lootbox / microtransactoins bad, try million times worse.

There is no justification for NTFs in video games. It's going to make everything worse only for the benefit of the gaming company behind it. Even the microtransactions serves them very well. 

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