2024 Is the Year Gaming's Live Service Bubble Popped
Chasing trends produced some of the industry's biggest flops ever.
2024 has been a fantastic year for games. While not nearly as many crossover blockbuster hits were released compared to last year, titles from smaller developers more than made up the difference. Games like Dungeons of Hinterburg, Lorelei And The Laser Eyes, Balatro, and dozens of others were fierce reminders of the creativity independent creators bring to an industry often obsessed with producing big hits to rake in massive profits.
As the smaller double-A and indie scene chugged on steadily, however, a serious reckoning took hold of the industry’s more affluent entities. Despite clear signs of the trend taking a turn, several publishers doubled down on ill-advised swings in the live service genre all in pursuit of the same lucrative spoils enjoyed by Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto Online, and Call of Duty.
Unfortunately, more than a few of these swings failed spectacularly wreaking irrevocable damage in the process.
Suicide Squad’s final season takes place just short of a year of the game’s one-year anniversary.
The year kicked off with Rocksteady Studios’ Suicide Squad. This co-op live-service shooter was every bit the bummer many predicted it would be. Not only was it based on a franchise that never seems as popular as Warner Media insists it is, but the game was received poorly both before and after its release. Rocksteady never quite convinced players why this was the long-awaited follow-up to the beloved Batman: Arkham Knight. And dwindling player numbers reflected the public’s general disinterest in the concept right from the jump.
Earlier this month, Rocksteady announced that it would pull the plug on Suicide Squad in January, a $200 million fumble that took over seven years to develop. At the very least, Rocksteady was gracious enough to add an offline mode letting players enjoy the game’s content long after its servers are inevitably shut down.
Not all games received that kind of basic, post-launch support. For Sony and Firewalk Studios’ competitive first-person shooter Concord, no such final act existed. From the start, Concord was fighting an uphill battle. Its reveal in May was met with immediate negative reactions. The game didn’t look bad, just reminiscent of a million other things. It recalled Guardians of the Galaxy ten years after it was cool. Its MCU-style humor couldn’t be more out of touch with public sentiment around the film franchise. And when players finally got to see gameplay, it looked like yet another functional but generic FPS.
It was never clear who the audience was for PlayStation’s Concord.
Even Concord’s core hook, weekly CGI cutscenes that furthered the overall story of the universe, was about as tone-deaf as it gets. Not only was producing these cutscenes an expensive undertaking but there was no guarantee players would care in the first place.
Instead of taking note of the many writers and content creators who warned PlayStation studios that this game needed a shake-up (I’m still convinced converting this game to a free-to-play model before launch could have given it a chance), the publisher moved full steam ahead with its release. Within two weeks, PlayStation would take every step to erase the shooter, which cost the company more than $200 million to make, from existence.
Sony, which made its intentions to bully its way into the live service business clear two years ago, never stopped to ask itself whether people wanted Concord in the first place. And that stubbornness resulted not only in a massive blemish in PlayStation’s squeaky clean first-party record but also the closure of an entire studio that never got a fair shot at making something cool.
xDefiant accomplished the goal of replicating the frantic, run-and-shoot gameplay of Call of Duty. But competing against the literal biggest game in town was never going to end well for the struggling publisher.
Unlike what Sony did with Concord, Ubisoft moved forward with its ill-fated live service game xDefiant hoping to capture an underserved audience. After years of complaints from Call of Duty players fed up with skill-based matchmaking leveling the playing field, xDefiant decided to give those fans an alternative. Part of me admires the strategy of spending millions of dollars in hopes of serving fans. But taking a step back and realizing those most vocal about matchmaking issues make up a minuscule part of Call of Duty’s all-encompassing player base.
While xDefiant launched with some big successes, including more than 7 million players in its first week, in a make-or-break year for Call of Duty, xDefiant was overshadowed by the quality of Black Ops 6. Last week, Ubisoft announced the free-to-play Call of Duty competitor was winding down for good. Even worse, all 277 people involved in making this solid shooter are now out of a job.
There are countless stories like these littered throughout 2024. SquareEnix’s Foamstars, a Splatoon-like game with charming leads, ultimately went nowhere. Capcom’s ExoPrimal, an Xbox Game Pass hit, failed to keep players interested despite some genuinely dope crossovers with beloved franchises. Both of those launches and flops happened in this year alone.
ExoPrimal is actually pretty rad, but couldn’t sustain itself in the crowded live service market.
Even established titles like Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, and even Helldivers 2 saw rough patches in the ever-continuous effort to keep up with player expectations. In the case of Helldivers 2, a new update featuring vehicles, new weapons, and a much-awaited new faction was enough to re-spark interest. In the case of Overwatch 2, a star-studded newcomer in Netease’s Marvel Rivals may be just enough to push Blizzard’s influential hero shooter into obscurity.
Both Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals show that there is some hope for the best, original ideas in the live service genre. How Helldivers 2 incorporates real-life social media into its fiction made it one of the year’s early hits. And Marvel Rivals, while cribbing a lot from Overwatch, shows that a competently made (and fun) licensed game can still break through the noise.
Next year already has a few games on the horizon that hopeful publishers and developers want to make a success. Remedy Entertainment, the minds behind the excellent Alan Wake 2, is cooking up its first multiplayer game in FBC: Firebreak. Its developers are already getting ahead of live service expectations, telling players they’re not looking to make it a daily forever game in the same vein as others. Most recently, Warren Spector’s Thick As Thieves wants to bring immersive sim-vibes to the live service world. As much faith as I have in the legendary creator’s vision, I’m skeptical that a live service twist on a genre with a history of not performing well at retail will be the next hit. I hope that I’m wrong.
As fun as it looks, Remedy’s first multiplayer game is up against some unfavorable odds.
The spectacular crash-and-burns of Suicide Squad, Concord, and xDefiant will surely be a cautionary tale for the industry going into the new year. In a year full of these multi-million dollar flops and hundreds of easily avoidable layoffs, we can only hope that publishers finally get the message that there simply isn’t enough room for their version of Fortnite. The sooner they come to grips with that reality, the healthier the industry can be.
