Over the years, there’ve been various red flags in gaming, for me at least. Multi-media. Full-Motion Video. Day-One DLC. Microtransactions. The latest one is Live Service Game. I find the idea repulsive because it immediately tells me this is an online-required affair, even if it doesn’t warrant it. There’s no reason for some games to require an internet connection when the vast majority of activities they provide can be done in a single-player fashion. So I suspect Live Service Game to be less of a commitment to truly providing updated worthwhile content and more about DRM. Instead of imposing Denuvo or some other loathed 3rd party layer on your software, why not just require internet regardless of whether it brings value to customer?
What do you think about Live Service Games? Do you prefer them to traditional games that ship finished, with potential expansions and DLC to follow later?
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In anno 1800 (which is the only game I’ve played with denuvo) it still needs to have a connection to the ubisoft servers to run, so live service isn’t just about dodging 3rd party drm
That’s terrible. :(
I simply don’t buy live service games. I hate them
Live service games/ games a service are an automatic no from me. Too many have little to no content, constant delays on content, a dying community, or ridden with predatory monetization. Not to mention I dont like to pay for games that i cant play when the servers go down.
I don’t have the time to play live service games. The next time I play a game it might be completely different? No appeal to me at all
“Service Games”, gotcha games, games with excessive DLC (looking at you sim games), internet required and Denuvo games are all hard passes.
It’s actually gacha games
Sounds like they got chya, hon.
man don’t no one give a fuck unless they’re already in sunk cost fallacy with that ‘genre’ and its predators
I don’t have a problem with the core concept since it can technically be done well (Fortnite, despite it not appealing to me personally) but since everyone wants the “live service” staying power and money without putting in the “live service” effort it’s become a red flag to me to prepare for an unfinished, buggy, likely money-grubbing “game” with a shaky future - case in point, Halo Infinite’s campaign pretty much going nowhere and being Act 1 of what will be pretty much nothing now since all the campaign staff went bye-bye.
Man, Infinite’s campaign was such a disappointment. Halo to me was always about the big set pieces and new locations. Infinite had 2 locations essentially the whole game, not to mention the non story that happens mostly off screen. It’s too bad because the grapple hook was one of the best additions to Halo since Bungie but you don’t have anything fun to actually play with it.
Honestly 99% of the time “early access” is just a red flag now
its perfect really, they all should put it front and center! cause it tells me right of the bat i i never should touch said product, its a money saver really.
I don’t have the long term attention span demanded of live service games, since once I’m done with a game I move on.
You really missed out not playing Command and Conquer
I played C&C, Red Alert 1, 2 and 3. Tiberian Sun was bad.
Just closed your eyes during the FMVs?
I love Red Alert’s, they’re still funny. :D
Eh, no big deal. The only one I don’t care for on your list is day one DLC. That always seems sketchy. plenty of game I’ve gotten into had day one for me DLC, but that’s cause I joined late, like rimworld. That was a hard DLC package to swallow. If I lived somewhere that I didn’t have good internet I could see caring more, but that’s rare enough to be written off by developers.
At least with Rimworld you can pirate the dlcs and add them to the Steam copy with no issues.
That’s what I ended up doing since I’m poor. I saw a comment from the devs on the torrent thread basically saying they’re just glad you’re playing it and to consider buying it if you’re able to in the future. Seeing that pretty much solidified them as great devs to me, and when I actually have some disposable income I’ll end up buying them just because of that.
Live Service Game, the idea…I find unappealing and just plain skippable. Live Service Game, the phrase…is so much better than “Game as a Service.”
But hey, not every game/genre/delivery method is going to appeal to everybody. The industry is big enough to cater to multiple niches, even if some are much (much, much) bigger than others. I’m happy that people can find whatever game they like, and I can find my favorites as well. That doesn’t make anybody more correct than the other.
Theoretically it’s not a turnoff: for example, I was fine with paying the subscription for World of Warcraft back in 2007. But in practice I know what it means today, and that means being psychologically manipulated and crit in the wallet, so hell freakin no.
I actually am in favour of government legislation against them since they generally appeal to the young, who are essentially psychologically defenceless against most of the trickery. I don’t quite think they’re “spiritual opium” as the PRC would say, but the line was crossed long ago
I’m fine with it, if it’s fun enough. I’m no gaming activist/snob.
I’m grateful for activists, particularly those with a focus on archiving gaming. That’s another area where I think supporting Live Service Games might be shortsighted on the part of the consumer. By accepting it as a practice, ownership is ceded toward the publisher or creator. We’re less owners and more renters when it comes to gaming property.
I remember when I bought Street Fighter 2 for the SNES and realized, I no longer have to go to the arcade to play this game. I no longer have to submit an endless amount of quarters to play what I can play endlessly at home for a one-time fee. It was an amazing feeling. And with LSG it’s like we’re coming back around.
I don’t mind if they need to patch the game after launch to fix issues. you can only find so much with a QA team, the mass market is really helpful for finding issues you’d never be able to find as a team of 20 or 50 if they’re being generous.
I do absolutely despise live-service games with no choice for offline play. Diablo 4 is a more recent, prime example of this. servers went offline for a day or two IIRC, no one could play the game they payed money for, at a premium price at that. the biggest issue is that it puts a life-span on your games and I don’t think any media should have that.
Butnot a problem in free to play games, not in full price games