Live Service Games News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

We all have a pretty intuitive understanding of the anatomy of a trend in game design. A very successful title is followed by a wave of games which copy key aspects of its design – some taking inspiration while innovating successfully on the formula, others rather more shamelessly seeking to cash in by copying anything that's not nailed down (or protected by intellectual copyright law).

Scott Hartsman has some thoughts on the prevalence of live-service games in a new blog that asks the question — “Should Everything be a Live Game?”.

Raph Koster participated in a recent discussion with Edge Magazine on the use of AI in gaming, and a look towards the future. Among the major issues discussed are soaring budgets, live-service and narrative titles, innovation, and the ways all of these might impact what we’ll see in the years ahead.

Sony, who announced plans to create twelve new live service games by the end of its FY 2025, has now delayed half of them, according to the company's latest earnings call.

CEO David Zaslav revealed the company’s plans to release live service games based on more of its popular franchises. The executive indicated that Game of Thrones, Superman, Harry Potter, and Mortal Kombat are franchises with great live-service potential.

Today Sony revealed that it’s shifting its strategy with live service games. The company is scaling back the number of live service games it plans by fiscal year 2025 to launch by half.

Sony announced it was acquiring Destiny 2 maker Bungie for $3.6 billion in January of 2022. A week later, in a quarterly financial results briefing, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki revealed that PlayStation planned to launch more than 10 live service games by March 2026, with Bungie helping the company in the space. In an earnings call held today, Totoki stated that of its 12 live service games, it will only release six by Fiscal Year 2025, which ends March 2026, as reported by VideoGamesChronicle. 

Sony is reconsidering the live service plans it made earlier this year, while Gotham Knights' publisher says it wants to go all in. 

During today's Q2 2023 conference call with investors, Sony Vice President, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki (who's currently the interim CEO of SIE and looking for a permanent replacement for Jim Ryan) revealed that half of the twelve live service PlayStation games planned to launch by March 2026 have been delayed.

Sony has made no secret of the fact that intends to significantly expand its presence in the live service space, even having confirmed earlier this year that it plans on releasing 12 live service games before April 2026. Intriguingly, however, it seems the company is pivoting where those plans are concerned.

Warner Bros. will be heavily veering into a live service model for its future games. During its latest Q3 earnings call, CEO David Zaslav confirmed that the company plans to transform its biggest video game franchises into long-term products, bolstered by regular content drops and heavy monetisation. In recent years, gamers have developed a distaste for such money-hungry practices, which often lock out content behind some form of paywall or a battle pass, instead of providing a complete game at launch. The idea is for players to keep playing WB-published games for months, instead of having AAA developers put out a new game every three to four years — which is the general cycle.

Sony president Hiroki Totoki has said the company is reviewing PlayStation's live service game push amid development trouble that has already seen Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer game hit with setbacks.

PlayStation has a lot of live-service games in development. Part of buying Bungie was even to utilise its expertise, which led to the less-than-favourable internal evaluation of The Last of Us' standalone Factions game. But it's not the only upcoming Sony multiplayer release to be pushed back, as half of its 12 titles have now been delayed.

Sony has halved the number of live service games it plans to release by March 2026 from 12 to six.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has halved the number of live service games it plans to release in the coming years, it’s confirmed.

As part of its latest earnings call, Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav has outlined the company's plans to transform its biggest gaming franchises from traditional console and PC releases into «always on» live service games.

There’s a new rumor going around about what is going on behind the scenes at Sony.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox