In the wake of the Jim Ryan era of PlayStation, while he leaves behind a successful PS5 and a string of expectedly good first party releases, attention now turns to Sony’s stated super-investment in live service games. Previously, they revealed it would be 60% of their spending as opposed to 40% going into their trademark single player games, and they have at least a dozen titles in the works.
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier is reporting that insiders are concerned about the company’s vision going forward, where things are spread out between “seemingly misplaced bets on service games” along with PSVR 2 and PlayStation Portal, both relative niche pieces of hardware.
Sony currently has most of its big-budget studios working on multiplayer live service games in one form or another, including Naughty Dog, Insomniac and Guerrilla of The Last of Us, Spider-Man and Horizon fame, respectively. We already know about Naughty Dog’s Last of Us Factions game, one that an additional report said that new hire Bungie believed wasn’t up to par when they surveyed the game’s progress recently. While Bungie has its own upcoming service games like Marathon, that, and current live service behemoth Destiny 2, neither are PlayStation exclusives.
The goal, of course, is to get live service games to print money indefinitely with recurring spending on seasons and microtransactions, as opposed to one-and-done single player games that at best, have a DLC or two. Of course, Sony’s very obvious strength lies in these acclaimed single player games, and these insider reports are questioning this enormous live service pivot, even if single player games will still be produced.
There’s nothing to say that just because a company makes great single player games, that they’ll be able to turn that talent into compelling live service offerings, even with a guru like Bungie on board. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true. We have seen this play out multiple times in the industry. BioWare moved away from Mass Effect to make Anthem, that failed, so now they’re back to Mass Effect. Crystal Dynamics moved away from Tomb Raider to make Marvel’s Avengers, that failed, so now they’re back to Tomb Raiders. Gearbox moved away from Borderlands to make Battleborn, that failed, so now they’re back to Borderlands. Are you sensing a pattern here?
Even if these upcoming offerings stay within the world of these games, ie. The Last of Us, there are zero guarantees of quality or positive reception, despite whatever talented studio is on board. The most popular multiplayer games have either been doing multiplayer forever (Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, DOTA, League of Legends) or sprang out of relative nowhere (Fortnite, PUBG, Tarkov). Even Bungie cultivated Destiny from Halo DNA, a series that always had compelling single player and multiplayer portions.
Taking these largely single player studios and forcing them to do something they have really never done in any significant capacity does not seem like a recipe for success, diverting resources from likely successful single player projects to chase a live service dream that does seem like a bubble that’s about to burst. Or that burst has already happened, based on the failed titles I’ve mentioned.
I do not predict great things for PlayStation’s live service plans, and it appears I’m not alone.
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