Despite the risk of funding a flop, the live service model isn’t going anywhere.
, killing access to hundreds of digital-only titles, is just the latest instance of a chunk of gaming history suffering casual annihilation.
Rautalahti stressed the value of digital preservation, although he sees fans and institutions like the Internet Archive as being more probable saviors than developers. “It really would be worthwhile to have some kind of effort to preserve these things. It might not seem that valuable right now, but as someone who works on this, it would be nice to know that games aren’t just lost in the ether.
There’s also the fact that live service games can become second jobs, demanding much of your free time if you want to keep up. If hardcore players don’t get a constant stream of content, then they’ll leave for another game, forcing developers to produce endless updates, which makes it intimidating for new players to get into a sprawling game with esoteric mechanics andThat constant need for content can turn live service development into a pressure cooker.
While all AAA game development is challenging, the strict schedule of live service games is especially demanding. Delay an update, and you could lose players to another title. Rautalahti notes, “You get no slack. You have to keep putting stuff out.