Live-service Games: The Need For A Drastic Shift In Development Mindset
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Games have changed. Our world has changed. The internet and portable devices have disrupted the way we discover and consume entertainment. Convenient, connected, personalised and on-demand. The customer journey has shifted and the video-game industry is still trying to adapt, from a pure product mindset to a live-service mindset.
For a Few Dollars More
Consumer expectations have also changed. Businesses no longer only compete with competitors. They compete for attention-span, brand awareness, value via experiences and fulfilment of expectations. Businesses compete with the last best experience a consumer had. Period.
With the current leaps in technology, the video-game industry is poised to change dramatically over the next decade. New business models have appeared over time in the industry, others have been re-invented. Single-player games, while still valid in an increasingly competitive market, face extreme demands in quality and user engagement.
Live-service games on the other hand have a strong foothold in the free-to-play market segment and are rapidly becoming the dominant expectation of the mobile gaming audience and beyond. However, developing live-service games requires a drastic shift in mindset from product to service development in order to succeed.
The Good and the Bad
Live-service games are games that provide game content on a continuing revenue model, with the purpose of engaging and retaining players. A possible result of live-services is a deeper understanding of player behaviour which in turn can lead to the development of long-term player communities. Due to significantly extending a game’s lifespan and paying heed to the Player Experience, developers can take advantage of increased monetisation and player Lifetime Value (LTV).
Only recently EA reported an increase in profit of nearly 200%, mainly attributed to the company’s efforts in live services. Then there’s Grammy-nominated rapper Travis Scott’s Virtual Concert that gathered 12.3 million concurrent users into Fortnite, while the mobile version of the game has made $1 Billion from microtransactions. But we’ve all read that; in fact, you could not have missed it if you read any game news media worth its salt.
It doesn’t always work out as planned either. Even some of the well-established studios out there sometimes struggle with the implementation of live-services. While things are currently looking better for Bethesda/Zenimax’s Fallout 76, it wasn’t too long ago players were left wanting for content and had to resort to role-playing activities.
Bioware’s Anthem fell short of all expectations and continues on its uncertain path.
The Ugly (or why it doesn’t always work)
So why is it that live-service games seem so tricky to get right? There’s a variety of reasons that can be cited, depending on who you ask. Ben Cousins outlined a few months ago the most common pitfalls for developers tackling this alternate structure and business model. The six most common mistakes he lists are as follows:
A lack of customer focus and understanding; not enough service thinking.
Underestimating budget and resource allocation needed.
Too high production values with a wrong focus.
Ignoring the importance of pipelines and practices for post-launch.
Cosmetic-only monetisation and lack of value proposition.
Post-launch panic and failure to invest in a service-approach.
All of the above pitfalls have either direct or indirect consequences on the Player Experience, which leads to player churn and ultimately lost revenue. Live-service games not only require long-term scalable and flexible solutions, but need to be designed with the intent and purpose to serve content and provide experiences. And that does not happen by slapping an additional layer on top.
It starts by changing the mindset on how we build games; from product to service.
There’s a lot more to be said on possible pitfalls in live-service games that affect the Player Experience negatively. In a next blog I will dive deeper into the topics of live-service games and service thinking. So stay tuned!
