hopefully we will see the live service trend calm down significantly in the next few years. not every game needs to last forever. just release a good game
The thing is, offline games can survive longer and even thrive, comapred to live service games, that can shut down and have no way of being kept up by the community.
what you're saying is part of it. It's also the fact lots of those are live service games, and people aren't going to play 4 different live services, so it ends up a winner takes all market. You either get big and get all the money, or you're pissing it away needlessly.
i think that's mostly the reason of it. There's many games with same genre that fighting for players, but players cant play every game, so they choose best one.
@@vvonslaughtvv9705 games where you have a seasonal content model, typically tied in with a battlepass type system. they are typically online only multiplayer or drop in drop out co-op events, stuff like Destiny, Fortnite, Apex are the biggest ones. ubisoft has also brought live service elements to games that are typically singleplayer, far cry 5 had a live service like update model, with community events and new weapons routinely coming out (the starting weapon roster was weak in fc5, especially for smgs and shotguns) so it's more of a continual drip feed of content to keep players invested in a game. the problem is that people don't have enough time to justify going in on them. maybe one or two at most. the co-op and competitive mp nature of them feeds back into it, where if a live service game isn't hitting big destiny 2/Fortnite/apex user counts on launch it's likely to never improve. people will play what most of their friends are playing instead.
I feel like the one thing you’re missing is that it barely feels like the publishers even market their games past the launch point. It’s absurd that so many people go “oh I didn’t know this released yet” or “I forgot this game existed” I agree with the notion of over saturation of the market, but at the same time some of these devs don’t even try. [Edit] Cannot believe I have to say this. Yes obviously it’s not the devs fault the majority of the time a game fails, but to say devs can’t put out a bad product as well is just a terrible mindset to have. I’m best friends with a game developer as well and he can tell you straight up that’s there’s both skilled people who care about their work. And others who will just throw anything together to get a quick buck. Just like any other business field. Let me reiterate for the people who will read this and automatically disagree. Like i said it’s not always the devs faults, but sometimes devs can just put out a terrible product and sometimes they need to be called out. Good example if 343 and what they’re doing with halo. Yes there are talented individuals on that team, but for like a decade no matter what level it is there’s signs of major incompetence. Not everything is the fault of incompetence from the leaders now and some times it’s okay to hold people accountable respectfully of course.
Over saturation won't be an issue if someone makes good games. Many of the reasons why many mainstream games failing is very basic, like Dev's not looking after bugs, repetitive content, hackers, not listening to community etc. Name one aaa/mainstream game which has been released polished or is polished right now. There are barely few.
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372 Not true,It is always a issue, live service games need alot of players, Fortnite is one of most played battle royales right?, now we have PUBG, apex and so on, most of these games requires 100 people per match, if you are making a battle royale right now, you have to compete with those, and some others, most people would play some matches and moves on, because they already playing fortnite for years, no point in learning a new game of the same genre. We had oversaturation in hero shooters, battle royales, mobas and so on, beign good and listening to the players feedback, would do nothing if there are other Big games hoarding all the players.
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372 oversaturation IS an issue, because if the market is oversaturated less people will be buying x games, which means the dev company gets less money, which means they will say "hey, this isnt making us enough money, dont do it as much" which means there will be an overcorrection, leading to a game drought that will then go away in a few years as devs see the gap in the market created by the drought and ramp up production again.
I wouldnt put blame on the devs, but publishers. Devs just do as they are told by managers and marketing. If they're told to put the bare minimum, that's what they'll do. The marketing team is to blame, and that can be said of a lot of companies. They look at data that's scraped from certain metrics, and at times, they analyze without context. So you get publishers who go "yeah, let's release this because it's the trend, despite not knowing why it's good. People will buy it." That's how you get the same genre, from different companies, with minimal effort and support past launch. Money talks, but the business suits can misinterpret that talk.
This, relying on your own skill and experience is a lot better than relying on sh!tty team mates, or toxic players and sweats. Not to mention you don't need to pay for online or deal with hackers.
I absolutely hate modern console single player games. Like, is there any need at all to put crafting and progression systems into a game that takes 3 evenings to complete and cost £70? God of Bore amiright?! Anyone? Nobody? I'll get my coat.
I think most of them which are cancelled recently are mostly live-service games. As you said now things are back to normal and we're all back to work and have less free time in our hands. By all this shutdowns, I do hope companies finally realised not every single game needs to be live-service for a quick cash-grab. But actually thanks to them, now there is way more audience than before who are down for some single players or indie games. SPECIALLY INDIE GAMES😂
I have to disagree about apex competitor part. I think they NEVER expected PC and console players to switch to mobile. Instead they were trying to bring in new players to their game via mobile. In many developing countries like India, most people especially in recent years, have become avid Gamers... Mobile Gamers. This is cause Gaming pcs are expensive and consoles arent general use computers, wired internet isnt spot on, but cellular net is decently good and growing. Pubg mobile, freefire, are Extremely popular here. Kids pour good microtransaction money for mobile games.
True, here in Mexico it's the same, but it still pisses me off that out of all games Free Fire is one of the popular ones simply because while it's accessible, it's incredibly pay to win
I'm inclined to agree. Unfortunately, shortsighted execs who only live in the now will greenlight projects that are based on a temporarily inflated industry. I want to see the gaming industry thrive and continue to expand, but the rate of expansion fueled by the pandemic wasn't permanent. On a side note, cool to see some footage of Stalker! Hope you're enjoying the experience.
I recently moved from a third world country to a first world country and I realised that execs here are still stupid, but with more money. I wish I was rich for no reason.
it did gain a decent following.. but the game is graphics intensive so most new gamers(who just bought a decent phone) cant play it, and giants like pubg,codm,freefire have a giant online following already
I must agree that high-end mobile games might be on the chopping block as China's Tencent acquires more studios. There's tons of crappy low-end mobile games with micro transactions and they're all made by Tencent
@@luislongoria6621 I would love for Big Companies to be forced to stop focusing so much on the Mobile Market, by Tencent blocking them for example. I want them to get back to PC games. We don't need any more Diablo immortals. But I also want the Battlepass system to either disappear or change overall to the way Ghostship games do it in Deep Rock Galactic so I can probably wait to the end of Time.
After he recent mass layoffs, I spoke to someone in the industry and they said a similar thing about a pandemic-based bubble. He wasn't too worried about it though, as apparently this rise and fall is common.
@@Echelon111999 serious answer: there’s people in the industry who are, how to put it: “not homo/transphobic but not exactly understanding or supportive of the community” so they release some cheap, annoying woke token gay/trans just to pacify the crowd without putting in the dedication or the effort to make a serious character.
Personally, I think that has to do with a large number of factors, including everything you've said here. On top of that however, you may have noticed a number of large titles have also been bringing fan requested updates. I know you are aware of Apex Legends for example, in about 3 hours from this comment being posted, they will be making the single most influential update since the release of the game. and many of these changes are things fans have been begging for. Look at all the quality of life updates GTA Online has had over the last 6 months, the fan requested updates MW2 is getting. I feel like pre-pandemic had a pretty "obedient" fanbase. People complained just as much as they do now, but they stayed playing the games anyways. But now, over the last little bit and the next while, a lot of those same players are having their newer friends leave because they are less likely to stick around when better things come their way. Having your friends quit is far more impactful to a user quitting, than any update. So by refocussing on QoL updates, these games are finally giving those players who have been asking for QoL updates for years, what they've been asking. Only NOW is it more profitable to focus on loss prevention, than it is to focus on MTX, and new projects.
All the QoL updated are definitely nice but I still think that games like the new MW2 and other such games just can't handle themselves that well because the lack of content. Sure there is quite a bit to do but it doesn't even have party game modes of any sort. I just hate that newer games these days (especially triple A games) tend to cut most of the content out of the initial release only to release it at a later date. I'm fine with live service it just shouldn't come at the cost of having to wait a year or two just to finally get a beloved party gamemode that came with previous releases from the get go. I also dislike that every game these days apparently needs to have skill based matchmatking (not just cod) but that's a different story. In the past like 3-4 years Indie games seem to have done so much better. Two personal good examples I can think of are Phasmophobia and Road 96. They aren't overly huge but really well made for the lack of recources compared to big companies.
A game I was very fond of called Durango: Wild Lands, a online survival game that had to shut down its servers in 2019. It had a lot of diversity in playstyle and a nice story. You could tame dinosaurs and other animals, or sell them in the player's market. It encouraged players to cover each other's weaknesses since the skill tree greatly changed what you could and couldn't do, so you could rely on your friends and guild members. You could "hire" other players to help you with a quest or crafting, and reward them with items. You could rescue downed players around the map and help them reach safety. But even then, the game still let you go solo I you wanted. It was heartbreaking for me to see such a fun and promising game have an early end just like that.
Right. It was declared a pandemic a bit under 3 years ago (March 2020), and the effects of quarantine and self-isolation on gaming trends came later on.
We saw it in GPU’s. They are playing the market like it’s pandemic time still. It’s insane. Execs live in coocoo land and don’t think past next week. For better or worse.
I think its not the number of titles but rather that they were almost all live service games. If they had all been singleplayer titles I don't think this would happen because you wouldn't expect people to play for more than 40 hours after purchase.
@@harpernicholson1 play through the actual original games first. stalker anomaly is a standalone mod pack that is vastly different from the originals. if you dont want to play the originals due to how old and jank they are just understand that anomaly isnt that similar to stalker outside of a few aspects
I really think that summer of 2020 was a renaissance for online multiplayer games. I never had more fun. I don't think I ever will. I don't think that many regular people (non-gamers/new gamers) will come together like that again. It was a cultural phenomenon. Now it's back to mostly kids and pros. It's... less and less my scene these days. After a day of surviving it was truly healing to come back to Verdansk and connect with my brother. It's just not the same anymore.
In 2020 me and my friends were all jobless more or less, we were doing two things, drinking in our vineyards or playing Hunt Showdown/ Tarkov/Sea of Thieves/Destiny 2/ Project Zomboid/ Valheim / Shitty horror games on a weekly basis etc The lockdown was some of the best times we've had simply because we did not work at the time.
Another reason is not having a solid community. Apex mobile cant compete to the online communities Codmobile, pubgmobile have made. There are many yt channels and subreddits dedicated to these games. Genshin impact releases an update, and within hours there are millions of views on the youtubers covering it
it was new though. genshin has been out for 2 years, so is cod and pubg has to be like 4 plus years.If EA thought they could achieve that in a year they were delusional.
Not only that apex doesn’t have collabs also it’s graphic heavy so for phones that are from atleast 2015 wouldn’t even run it n thats bad considering its advanced movement
My dad is a computer programmer and he is having trouble getting a job with all of these companies laying off workers they don’t need. Even with 20 years experience in the industry
I think you're right here, especially considering that Battlefield Mobile has also been discontinued, and precisely because of your reasoning. They wanted to build more on Battlefield 2042 and the mobile spin-off didn't fit into the Battlefield vision EA has now. On the other hand, Call of Duty Mobile works very well.
Not really relevant to the topic, but just a fun fact: An Xbox controller can connect to your phone via Bluetooth and be used for COD Mobile. Do with that what you will.
I think that this is a really good explanation for what's happening and can see your logic. I've never thought about it before but I wouldn't be surprised if you're right about it
As an insider from the industry, recently investment in risky businesses like entertainment has declined due to the (maybe) incoming recession. Truth is, things were looking bad before covid and we still don't know if the global economy will resist. The Ukraine war has also had an impact. Personally, I'm not too worried, the videogames business grows and shrinks but in the end it tends to go up. We will have to wait and see, if it turns out being really bad, videogames will be the least of our problems.
Okay, so I'm definitely seeing your point here, and I have a question that is kinda related but also not: There are online games older than a decade which I'm pretty sure aren't really played any more(example Order & Chaos Online(2011 by Gameloft)) but the servers are still running even though I can't imagine those games still give revenue(electricity costs+servers that could be redidedicated vs in-game purchases which are prob near 0). So why ARE they still running? They're usually not even downloadble any more without use of APKs or similar.
@@fordealisbad8569 Would that still make it possible to see other players in the world, and also: Wouldn't the whole world(big, big open world) need to be downloaded to the phone for that?
@@conwarlock3537 I don't know much about the game, never played it but it really depends on the structure of the game, were the servers from the peak owned by the company? (like Apex or PUBG or something similar) or are the servers private (like Minecraft or Unturned) if it's the first option idk why they're still up, but if it's a private server, you could technically host it on a phone, and I believe a modern phone could easily have enough enough storage and RAM to host a small server of a game made in 2011
@@conwarlock3537 nope only instructions on how to sync the clients together, the world would only be needed for the client as it needs to render it while the server doesn’t, that’s how it work for most games and I don’t see this game being an exception
It’s because interest rates are skyhigh, game publishers are businesses and they have a lot of debt on their books they need to pay interest on, so they’re tightening up with layoffs and consolidation. Sometimes people get a little too narrow with their theories about the gaming market
I'm a indie game dev, when the pandemic began I tought "This is my time", well I realise that I cannot simply print games, I'm just one person and if I want a fair chance I should do something perfectly calculated or I'll just pass as an simple indie game dev. Turns out the crisis just helped (in a big meaningfull way) big companies who can print games that sell even if only by hype.
Not just that apex mobile was competing with pc/xbox apex, but EA also wasn't profiting as much from apex mobile. From what I've read up on, EA was spending around 6 to 10 million a month developing and running apex mobile, and they were profiting around 2 million a month, those two things were probably the main reasons for apex mobiles closure.
honestly i hate most of the live service games. but knockout city was different, the mechanics were soooo good for a live service game. its a shame that they are shutting down the servers.
I guess devs have been very busy the past few years. An upped graphical standard, new game development software and harder market competition. They needed to be creative, experimental and take risks, resulting in some good stuff but also a lot of learning.
whole thing sucks like ideally any game shutting down would just release the server code and let fans host their own games, but this creates vulnerabilities in still running games if theres a shared exploit. maybe if anti-cheat and user privacy stuff was modular and could be replaced with an open source standard or something...
The reason they don't release server code probably has more to do with that they don't want people playing games they're not making money from. They want people to play their new releases instead.
I think it has more to do with the upcoming recession. There less opportunities for risky ventures and many game companies are getting employees and cancelling projects. But this theory could also be apart of it.
Bro I saw the title and recognized Anomaly in the thumbnail, and you had me super worried that someone starting protecting the IP of the original STALKER games and the mods were getting shut down. 😂
After working in production for a few years (broadcast, not games) I've developed a new perspective on things like this. Knowing that the two products are not linked (Mobile and the core game) it makes a lot more sense that it's a backend resource allocation issue and a lot less of a market manuever. I doubt EA cares about the long term health of their economy, or that they are worried that dollars customers put into Apex Mobile strikes against the core game... because a dollar is a dollar. However, it makes a lot more sense that companies are realizing that they are spreading themselves too thin and are consolidating their resources: Why pay for hundreds of employees, maintenance, and oversight on a side project that - while a net positive - isn't bringing home the big bucks? Big corporations don't give much thought to things like market saturation or customer appreciation - but they care a lot about things like shareholder meetings and major releases; shareholders like to see low overhead and concentrated spending on potent products, and major releases are demanding. Instead of EA looking at Apex mobile and striking it to make room for Apex to get bigger, it is highly likely that they either liquidated studio assets or consolidated them into other development efforts. Apex Mobile is probably making money, but how much manpower and creative effort is EA willing to sink into it? Probably not a lot. With the recession and people returning to work with desperation - the market has deflated. Everyone has been playing catchup with Fortnite, using the same tired Free-To-Play-Battlepass-Fear-Of-Missing-Out plan. What we're also seeing is a lot of these games (FTP BP FOMO) repeating what happened to MMOs back in the 2000's. WoW ate up the market and nobody could compete, because buy-in for this model is mutually exclusive - you simply can't have customers pay dividends to engage with your live service model. I don't disagree with what is being said in this video outright - but I do think that it's less about giant corporations looking for a healthier market due to deflation than it is that their money-trees are dying up and they have to refocus their efforts on more legitimate productions in the eyes of shareholders.
the steam deck has about roughly the same power as a gtx970, and it's comparatively quite cost effective. Thankfully this should mean that we're going to see some genuine competition between the PC and smartphone markets
Actually the main reason was call of duty mobile had more content than apex mobile, and the battle pass price and content were good in codm than apexm. Besides all that cod mobile devs always listened to the community requests and did their best to achieve those requests while apex ignored them and caused their game to die (everyone stopped playing apex mobile because it was just badly optimized and devs weren’t listening at all they wanted money) to wrap it up no one was able to get a refund on the items they purchased (even on purchased items in the past 30 days were not refunded). And they recommended to spend all the premium currency before the shut down instead of giving refund. And many other EA mobile games went to shutdown because of dead servers (ex: battlefield mobile, real racing 4 project, nfs mobile…etc) in other words EA saw their bad quality games can’t fit in the mobile market if some indie developer can do it 10 times better than them, so they gave up.
I got too immersed in your S.t.a.l.k.e.r gameplay that I forgot that you're making video announcement. What faction are you on? I see you're friendly with Duty
People really underestimate mobile gaming. Here in India, a low end gaming PC is using Integrated graphics and high end is using something like 3050. So most people have no option but to play on mobiles because it's very difficult for them to get a good gaming PC or console from their parents.
So, I work in AAA, and the last few years have been really brutal for mass layoffs and acquisitions. Especially with mobile games because you need a specific talent pool for that. Unlike PC/Console titles, the developers/sysadmins/etc who work on mobile don't get moved to another project if it fails because mobile was the reason they were hired in the first place.
I think your on to something plus the looming recession and collapse of the nft/crypto space that a lot of companies were looking to get a slice of probably is contributing to many projects getting canned, probably for the best really.
You're partly right. 1: tech over hired during COVID. 2: there's a recession coming and the publishers are scared, 3: the mobile market specifically has dipped in the last 2 quarters. 4: the fiscal year ends in March, so they often do mass layoffs to make the numbers look good, and then they hire many of these people back come April and March and then spend 3x as much doing it. I was part of the mass layoffs at EA 2 weeks ago :)
Honestly it's definitely because of how many games have battlepasses now. It's gotten to the point where personally, I just don't play anything but one or two games if they have a battlepass each, and even then I'll just play the one I enjoy more because of it.
I didn't think about it like that but it is a really good point i think also because of the energy price increases the cost of running servers would have doubled and if they are not selling enough micro transactions/battle passes etc, ppl aren't playing because they don't have the time so the game doesn't make a profit so they shut down the one that makes the least. I don't play Apex but isn't it also free to download? if so they don't even break even or make a profit on initial release either.
This gives me flashbacks to the whole zombie shooter craze in the 2010s Kinda worse now since so many live services are designed to suck up all your time so very few actually want to play, in alternative to games you can play whenever you want at your own pace like co-op/Singleplayer games
Plausible but id say its maybe to do with interest rates. New games need bankroll and with it being basically zero % interest rates over the last 14 years cheap money to bank roll anything for big companies was easy. Good credit rating, meant cheap loans of 0 or nearly 0%. Now the fed has pushed interest rates up to nearly 5% cheap money is no more. Id say its probably a combination of the 2 honestly. Huge tech sector layoffs have happened so its an industry that feels these raises the most.
Quite simple. It simply doesnt compete in terms of gameplay and optimisation as compared to their competitors. Money and a lot of money is required for ample running of servers and staff responsible for the smooth curation of various features and regular updates for the games. When the game simply doesnt have enough runtime or revenue generation, companies tend to shut them down way before the trend, so as to avoid any decrease in the company total asset. The game is shut down to prevent it from being a liability to the company. Apex Mobile lacks far behind as compared to other competitors such as COD Mobile.
well also adding at the major lay-offs at most triple A studios there are multiple reasons for this but the less overall people gaming since the pandemic is def one of the main contributors to this
Yes I believe one off the reason is what you said on the video, however I believe that is more than 1 reasons like for example not many players Or need servers for other projects The are multiple factor's that may happen it's very hard to know the true reason this happens
Funny that a lot of games that would probably suit battle passes dont really get them like for a new elder scrolls months after you get new quests and items or maybe counter strike
Background footage is from Stalker Anomaly btw
Gotta love the stalker series
I’m a frequent player of Stalker GAMMA, you should check it out!
I thought it looked like stalker
I thought that was will to live online
@@Ghost_Grandy hes actually playing "Balls 2"
hopefully we will see the live service trend calm down significantly in the next few years. not every game needs to last forever. just release a good game
A bunch of games being canned would suggest the opposite.
@@plebisMaximus how would a bunch of live service games failing suggest that the live service trend will continue at the same or a even faster rate?
The thing is, offline games can survive longer and even thrive, comapred to live service games, that can shut down and have no way of being kept up by the community.
Probably with mod support
Nope. Live service is here to stay
what you're saying is part of it. It's also the fact lots of those are live service games, and people aren't going to play 4 different live services, so it ends up a winner takes all market. You either get big and get all the money, or you're pissing it away needlessly.
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i think that's mostly the reason of it. There's many games with same genre that fighting for players, but players cant play every game, so they choose best one.
@@chaomatic5328 Got that "leak classified information on a pink blog with kitties" energy.
What is live service?
@@vvonslaughtvv9705 games where you have a seasonal content model, typically tied in with a battlepass type system. they are typically online only multiplayer or drop in drop out co-op events, stuff like Destiny, Fortnite, Apex are the biggest ones.
ubisoft has also brought live service elements to games that are typically singleplayer, far cry 5 had a live service like update model, with community events and new weapons routinely coming out (the starting weapon roster was weak in fc5, especially for smgs and shotguns) so it's more of a continual drip feed of content to keep players invested in a game. the problem is that people don't have enough time to justify going in on them. maybe one or two at most.
the co-op and competitive mp nature of them feeds back into it, where if a live service game isn't hitting big destiny 2/Fortnite/apex user counts on launch it's likely to never improve. people will play what most of their friends are playing instead.
I feel like the one thing you’re missing is that it barely feels like the publishers even market their games past the launch point.
It’s absurd that so many people go “oh I didn’t know this released yet” or “I forgot this game existed”
I agree with the notion of over saturation of the market, but at the same time some of these devs don’t even try.
[Edit]
Cannot believe I have to say this. Yes obviously it’s not the devs fault the majority of the time a game fails, but to say devs can’t put out a bad product as well is just a terrible mindset to have. I’m best friends with a game developer as well and he can tell you straight up that’s there’s both skilled people who care about their work. And others who will just throw anything together to get a quick buck. Just like any other business field. Let me reiterate for the people who will read this and automatically disagree. Like i said it’s not always the devs faults, but sometimes devs can just put out a terrible product and sometimes they need to be called out. Good example if 343 and what they’re doing with halo. Yes there are talented individuals on that team, but for like a decade no matter what level it is there’s signs of major incompetence. Not everything is the fault of incompetence from the leaders now and some times it’s okay to hold people accountable respectfully of course.
Over saturation won't be an issue if someone makes good games. Many of the reasons why many mainstream games failing is very basic, like Dev's not looking after bugs, repetitive content, hackers, not listening to community etc. Name one aaa/mainstream game which has been released polished or is polished right now. There are barely few.
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372 Not true,It is always a issue, live service games need alot of players, Fortnite is one of most played battle royales right?, now we have PUBG, apex and so on, most of these games requires 100 people per match, if you are making a battle royale right now, you have to compete with those, and some others, most people would play some matches and moves on, because they already playing fortnite for years, no point in learning a new game of the same genre. We had oversaturation in hero shooters, battle royales, mobas and so on, beign good and listening to the players feedback, would do nothing if there are other Big games hoarding all the players.
@@sigmachadtrillioniare6372 oversaturation IS an issue, because if the market is oversaturated less people will be buying x games, which means the dev company gets less money, which means they will say "hey, this isnt making us enough money, dont do it as much" which means there will be an overcorrection, leading to a game drought that will then go away in a few years as devs see the gap in the market created by the drought and ramp up production again.
I wouldnt put blame on the devs, but publishers. Devs just do as they are told by managers and marketing. If they're told to put the bare minimum, that's what they'll do. The marketing team is to blame, and that can be said of a lot of companies. They look at data that's scraped from certain metrics, and at times, they analyze without context. So you get publishers who go "yeah, let's release this because it's the trend, despite not knowing why it's good. People will buy it." That's how you get the same genre, from different companies, with minimal effort and support past launch. Money talks, but the business suits can misinterpret that talk.
Live service is just an mmo with no longevity planning.
I'm hoping singleplayer games start getting more popular
This, relying on your own skill and experience is a lot better than relying on sh!tty team mates, or toxic players and sweats.
Not to mention you don't need to pay for online or deal with hackers.
Or less battleroyal types or more grounded and fun games
@@FutaCattohate to say it but multiplayer games are way better long term
I absolutely hate modern console single player games.
Like, is there any need at all to put crafting and progression systems into a game that takes 3 evenings to complete and cost £70?
God of Bore amiright?! Anyone? Nobody? I'll get my coat.
I really need something new to scratch my new vegas itch
I think most of them which are cancelled recently are mostly live-service games. As you said now things are back to normal and we're all back to work and have less free time in our hands. By all this shutdowns, I do hope companies finally realised not every single game needs to be live-service for a quick cash-grab. But actually thanks to them, now there is way more audience than before who are down for some single players or indie games. SPECIALLY INDIE GAMES😂
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So happy to see you also a fan of Stalker
I have to disagree about apex competitor part. I think they NEVER expected PC and console players to switch to mobile. Instead they were trying to bring in new players to their game via mobile. In many developing countries like India, most people especially in recent years, have become avid Gamers... Mobile Gamers. This is cause Gaming pcs are expensive and consoles arent general use computers, wired internet isnt spot on, but cellular net is decently good and growing. Pubg mobile, freefire, are Extremely popular here. Kids pour good microtransaction money for mobile games.
Man wait until Indians figure out the secondhand market and Linux and the goddamned dorito could end up somewhere
Excellent point. It makes a whole lot more sense when you think of these things on a global scale rather than just from a Western perspective.
True, here in Mexico it's the same, but it still pisses me off that out of all games Free Fire is one of the popular ones simply because while it's accessible, it's incredibly pay to win
Mobile gaming is very popular in the developing country, China, as well.
No money for a good PC but money for microtransactions lmao
literally a gaming bubble
I'm inclined to agree. Unfortunately, shortsighted execs who only live in the now will greenlight projects that are based on a temporarily inflated industry. I want to see the gaming industry thrive and continue to expand, but the rate of expansion fueled by the pandemic wasn't permanent. On a side note, cool to see some footage of Stalker! Hope you're enjoying the experience.
I recently moved from a third world country to a first world country and I realised that execs here are still stupid, but with more money. I wish I was rich for no reason.
I'm surprised that a mobile game is shutting down since the mobile market is larger. Maybe it didn't get popular enough in Asia?
it did gain a decent following.. but the game is graphics intensive so most new gamers(who just bought a decent phone) cant play it, and giants like pubg,codm,freefire have a giant online following already
I must agree that high-end mobile games might be on the chopping block as China's Tencent acquires more studios. There's tons of crappy low-end mobile games with micro transactions and they're all made by Tencent
@@luislongoria6621 I would love for Big Companies to be forced to stop focusing so much on the Mobile Market, by Tencent blocking them for example. I want them to get back to PC games. We don't need any more Diablo immortals. But I also want the Battlepass system to either disappear or change overall to the way Ghostship games do it in Deep Rock Galactic so I can probably wait to the end of Time.
The looming Financial Crash...
After he recent mass layoffs, I spoke to someone in the industry and they said a similar thing about a pandemic-based bubble. He wasn't too worried about it though, as apparently this rise and fall is common.
More expected than common. Pandemics are not common, but it was a catalyst.
layoffs in the industry are also in preparation of a recession I believe
ask them why the f every game nowadays gotta include annoying gay or trans character in it?
@@Echelon111999 jews
@@Echelon111999 serious answer: there’s people in the industry who are, how to put it: “not homo/transphobic but not exactly understanding or supportive of the community” so they release some cheap, annoying woke token gay/trans just to pacify the crowd without putting in the dedication or the effort to make a serious character.
Personally, I think that has to do with a large number of factors, including everything you've said here. On top of that however, you may have noticed a number of large titles have also been bringing fan requested updates. I know you are aware of Apex Legends for example, in about 3 hours from this comment being posted, they will be making the single most influential update since the release of the game. and many of these changes are things fans have been begging for. Look at all the quality of life updates GTA Online has had over the last 6 months, the fan requested updates MW2 is getting. I feel like pre-pandemic had a pretty "obedient" fanbase. People complained just as much as they do now, but they stayed playing the games anyways. But now, over the last little bit and the next while, a lot of those same players are having their newer friends leave because they are less likely to stick around when better things come their way. Having your friends quit is far more impactful to a user quitting, than any update. So by refocussing on QoL updates, these games are finally giving those players who have been asking for QoL updates for years, what they've been asking. Only NOW is it more profitable to focus on loss prevention, than it is to focus on MTX, and new projects.
All the QoL updated are definitely nice but I still think that games like the new MW2 and other such games just can't handle themselves that well because the lack of content. Sure there is quite a bit to do but it doesn't even have party game modes of any sort.
I just hate that newer games these days (especially triple A games) tend to cut most of the content out of the initial release only to release it at a later date. I'm fine with live service it just shouldn't come at the cost of having to wait a year or two just to finally get a beloved party gamemode that came with previous releases from the get go.
I also dislike that every game these days apparently needs to have skill based matchmatking (not just cod) but that's a different story.
In the past like 3-4 years Indie games seem to have done so much better. Two personal good examples I can think of are Phasmophobia and Road 96. They aren't overly huge but really well made for the lack of recources compared to big companies.
A game I was very fond of called Durango: Wild Lands, a online survival game that had to shut down its servers in 2019. It had a lot of diversity in playstyle and a nice story. You could tame dinosaurs and other animals, or sell them in the player's market. It encouraged players to cover each other's weaknesses since the skill tree greatly changed what you could and couldn't do, so you could rely on your friends and guild members. You could "hire" other players to help you with a quest or crafting, and reward them with items. You could rescue downed players around the map and help them reach safety. But even then, the game still let you go solo I you wanted. It was heartbreaking for me to see such a fun and promising game have an early end just like that.
It hasn't been 3-4 years. It's been 2 years
Right. It was declared a pandemic a bit under 3 years ago (March 2020), and the effects of quarantine and self-isolation on gaming trends came later on.
Don't scare me like that Garbaj. I thought stalker 2 was getting shut down.
It will be shut down someday if it requires an internet connection.
@@paulaccuardi9071 lmao, yeah basically impossible to shut down stalker
We saw it in GPU’s. They are playing the market like it’s pandemic time still. It’s insane. Execs live in coocoo land and don’t think past next week. For better or worse.
I mean there was a chip shortage but that has mostly ended and the prices are still outrageous.
That is precisely what Jelly said
games are cool.
Hot take
Are they 🤔
Love the anomaly gameplay in the background!!!!
I think its not the number of titles but rather that they were almost all live service games. If they had all been singleplayer titles I don't think this would happen because you wouldn't expect people to play for more than 40 hours after purchase.
What game is you playing in the background?
Stalker Anomaly
looks like stalker most likely
Stalker Anomaly, what pains me the most is he is playing the vanilla game with no mods, but i guess the vanilla game is okay too
@@flameuptheherbwoofdownthebeer anomaly isnt a game its a mod itself
@@harpernicholson1 play through the actual original games first. stalker anomaly is a standalone mod pack that is vastly different from the originals. if you dont want to play the originals due to how old and jank they are just understand that anomaly isnt that similar to stalker outside of a few aspects
Love the Stalker gameplay in the background! Anomaly?
The thumbnail scared the shit out of me because i thought that dayz is gone
Does that look like Day Z lol
I really think that summer of 2020 was a renaissance for online multiplayer games. I never had more fun. I don't think I ever will. I don't think that many regular people (non-gamers/new gamers) will come together like that again. It was a cultural phenomenon. Now it's back to mostly kids and pros. It's... less and less my scene these days. After a day of surviving it was truly healing to come back to Verdansk and connect with my brother. It's just not the same anymore.
Renaissance? Renaissance where? It's all dark ages from 2015 to 2023. Now is the renaissance, hopefully.
@@freevbucks8019 hahaha, valid point. I took a break from games from about 2005 to about 2019
@@freevbucks8019 yes in terms of player numbers and variety of gamer he is correct.
"After a day of surviving"
lol, amazing
In 2020 me and my friends were all jobless more or less, we were doing two things, drinking in our vineyards or playing Hunt Showdown/ Tarkov/Sea of Thieves/Destiny 2/ Project Zomboid/ Valheim / Shitty horror games on a weekly basis etc
The lockdown was some of the best times we've had simply because we did not work at the time.
good analysis presented succinctly thank you garbaj :)
What's that game you're playing in the background
looks like stalker
Probably S.T.A.L.K.E.R
Another reason is not having a solid community. Apex mobile cant compete to the online communities Codmobile, pubgmobile have made. There are many yt channels and subreddits dedicated to these games. Genshin impact releases an update, and within hours there are millions of views on the youtubers covering it
it was new though. genshin has been out for 2 years, so is cod and pubg has to be like 4 plus years.If EA thought they could achieve that in a year they were delusional.
Not only that apex doesn’t have collabs also it’s graphic heavy so for phones that are from atleast 2015 wouldn’t even run it n thats bad considering its advanced movement
My dad is a computer programmer and he is having trouble getting a job with all of these companies laying off workers they don’t need. Even with 20 years experience in the industry
I think you're right here, especially considering that Battlefield Mobile has also been discontinued, and precisely because of your reasoning. They wanted to build more on Battlefield 2042 and the mobile spin-off didn't fit into the Battlefield vision EA has now.
On the other hand, Call of Duty Mobile works very well.
Not really relevant to the topic, but just a fun fact: An Xbox controller can connect to your phone via Bluetooth and be used for COD Mobile. Do with that what you will.
love your videos man keep it up
rest in piece, Echo VR.
I think that this is a really good explanation for what's happening and can see your logic. I've never thought about it before but I wouldn't be surprised if you're right about it
Another reason is that they are probably to scared to be busted by a new indie game called Booty Blastin'
the backround footage is so nice
You surely love that tree my guy, also interesting update on the industry.
This is the first time seeing a youtuber play stalker in the background. Welcome to the zone STALKER...
As an insider from the industry, recently investment in risky businesses like entertainment has declined due to the (maybe) incoming recession. Truth is, things were looking bad before covid and we still don't know if the global economy will resist. The Ukraine war has also had an impact. Personally, I'm not too worried, the videogames business grows and shrinks but in the end it tends to go up. We will have to wait and see, if it turns out being really bad, videogames will be the least of our problems.
Okay, so I'm definitely seeing your point here, and I have a question that is kinda related but also not: There are online games older than a decade which I'm pretty sure aren't really played any more(example Order & Chaos Online(2011 by Gameloft)) but the servers are still running even though I can't imagine those games still give revenue(electricity costs+servers that could be redidedicated vs in-game purchases which are prob near 0). So why ARE they still running? They're usually not even downloadble any more without use of APKs or similar.
The servers could be hosted on a player’s phone
@@fordealisbad8569 Would that still make it possible to see other players in the world, and also: Wouldn't the whole world(big, big open world) need to be downloaded to the phone for that?
@@conwarlock3537 I don't know much about the game, never played it but it really depends on the structure of the game, were the servers from the peak owned by the company? (like Apex or PUBG or something similar) or are the servers private (like Minecraft or Unturned) if it's the first option idk why they're still up, but if it's a private server, you could technically host it on a phone, and I believe a modern phone could easily have enough enough storage and RAM to host a small server of a game made in 2011
@@conwarlock3537 nope only instructions on how to sync the clients together, the world would only be needed for the client as it needs to render it while the server doesn’t, that’s how it work for most games and I don’t see this game being an exception
@@fordealisbad8569 They probably forgot it exists lol
Welp. I don't keep up with news
Thanks
"A bunch" cites 1.
Battlefiled mobile is also one of them
@@simplepointstudio6210 every company thought they can make the same money as free fire and pubg mobile while giving 1/10th of the effort
The Stalker Anomaly footage made me panic that this was about Stalker 2
This is kind of similar to the video game crash of 1983: many low quality, low effort games and not enough players to play or even want them.
Good analysis!
It’s because interest rates are skyhigh, game publishers are businesses and they have a lot of debt on their books they need to pay interest on, so they’re tightening up with layoffs and consolidation. Sometimes people get a little too narrow with their theories about the gaming market
I'm a indie game dev, when the pandemic began I tought "This is my time", well I realise that I cannot simply print games, I'm just one person and if I want a fair chance I should do something perfectly calculated or I'll just pass as an simple indie game dev. Turns out the crisis just helped (in a big meaningfull way) big companies who can print games that sell even if only by hype.
What game do you make? Can i check it out?
Same
Not just that apex mobile was competing with pc/xbox apex, but EA also wasn't profiting as much from apex mobile. From what I've read up on, EA was spending around 6 to 10 million a month developing and running apex mobile, and they were profiting around 2 million a month, those two things were probably the main reasons for apex mobiles closure.
Love that you used stalker for background
Even in vr space, echo vr (one of the best vr e-sports game) was announced to shut down in that period of time
honestly i hate most of the live service games. but knockout city was different, the mechanics were soooo good for a live service game. its a shame that they are shutting down the servers.
I guess devs have been very busy the past few years. An upped graphical standard, new game development software and harder market competition. They needed to be creative, experimental and take risks, resulting in some good stuff but also a lot of learning.
Devs have no fault, at the end of the day the ones making desicions is the management team.
Yup that’s probably what’s happening.
whole thing sucks
like ideally any game shutting down would just release the server code and let fans host their own games, but this creates vulnerabilities in still running games if theres a shared exploit.
maybe if anti-cheat and user privacy stuff was modular and could be replaced with an open source standard or something...
The reason they don't release server code probably has more to do with that they don't want people playing games they're not making money from. They want people to play their new releases instead.
Could also do with massive layoffs-essentially canceling projects or stopping living ones to save money.
I love your take on this
I think it has more to do with the upcoming recession. There less opportunities for risky ventures and many game companies are getting employees and cancelling projects. But this theory could also be apart of it.
Damn almost like we're in a recession
Bro I saw the title and recognized Anomaly in the thumbnail, and you had me super worried that someone starting protecting the IP of the original STALKER games and the mods were getting shut down. 😂
After working in production for a few years (broadcast, not games) I've developed a new perspective on things like this.
Knowing that the two products are not linked (Mobile and the core game) it makes a lot more sense that it's a backend resource allocation issue and a lot less of a market manuever.
I doubt EA cares about the long term health of their economy, or that they are worried that dollars customers put into Apex Mobile strikes against the core game... because a dollar is a dollar.
However, it makes a lot more sense that companies are realizing that they are spreading themselves too thin and are consolidating their resources:
Why pay for hundreds of employees, maintenance, and oversight on a side project that - while a net positive - isn't bringing home the big bucks?
Big corporations don't give much thought to things like market saturation or customer appreciation - but they care a lot about things like shareholder meetings and major releases; shareholders like to see low overhead and concentrated spending on potent products, and major releases are demanding.
Instead of EA looking at Apex mobile and striking it to make room for Apex to get bigger, it is highly likely that they either liquidated studio assets or consolidated them into other development efforts. Apex Mobile is probably making money, but how much manpower and creative effort is EA willing to sink into it? Probably not a lot.
With the recession and people returning to work with desperation - the market has deflated.
Everyone has been playing catchup with Fortnite, using the same tired Free-To-Play-Battlepass-Fear-Of-Missing-Out plan.
What we're also seeing is a lot of these games (FTP BP FOMO) repeating what happened to MMOs back in the 2000's.
WoW ate up the market and nobody could compete, because buy-in for this model is mutually exclusive - you simply can't have customers pay dividends to engage with your live service model.
I don't disagree with what is being said in this video outright - but I do think that it's less about giant corporations looking for a healthier market due to deflation than it is that their money-trees are dying up and they have to refocus their efforts on more legitimate productions in the eyes of shareholders.
I think the rise of the steam deck would also be relating to mobile gaming finally having some issues
the steam deck has about roughly the same power as a gtx970, and it's comparatively quite cost effective. Thankfully this should mean that we're going to see some genuine competition between the PC and smartphone markets
Ah, the wonders of Anomaly. Might be up there in the "Top 10 Time Sinks" alongside F:NV.
hey nice info. i subscribed
Echo VR was shut down, for no reason. High player count, a sprawling community, and at the drop of a hat, gone.
REALLY??? NOOOO
The fog is coming
Actually the main reason was call of duty mobile had more content than apex mobile, and the battle pass price and content were good in codm than apexm. Besides all that cod mobile devs always listened to the community requests and did their best to achieve those requests while apex ignored them and caused their game to die (everyone stopped playing apex mobile because it was just badly optimized and devs weren’t listening at all they wanted money) to wrap it up no one was able to get a refund on the items they purchased (even on purchased items in the past 30 days were not refunded). And they recommended to spend all the premium currency before the shut down instead of giving refund.
And many other EA mobile games went to shutdown because of dead servers (ex: battlefield mobile, real racing 4 project, nfs mobile…etc) in other words EA saw their bad quality games can’t fit in the mobile market if some indie developer can do it 10 times better than them, so they gave up.
I got too immersed in your S.t.a.l.k.e.r gameplay that I forgot that you're making video announcement. What faction are you on? I see you're friendly with Duty
It literally says hes loner lol
People really underestimate mobile gaming. Here in India, a low end gaming PC is using Integrated graphics and high end is using something like 3050. So most people have no option but to play on mobiles because it's very difficult for them to get a good gaming PC or console from their parents.
Sounds about right.
@Garbaj which STALKER mods are you using? Is this a modpack or something?
It's such a shame that at least 20 years' worth of games as a service will be likely impossible for most people to try given enough time.
I forgor to mention they shut down development of Battle field mobile as well
dat recession
i remember the whole Gamespy bit for PC gaming
So, I work in AAA, and the last few years have been really brutal for mass layoffs and acquisitions. Especially with mobile games because you need a specific talent pool for that. Unlike PC/Console titles, the developers/sysadmins/etc who work on mobile don't get moved to another project if it fails because mobile was the reason they were hired in the first place.
what is the game you are playing on the background?
And people wonder why I like single player and indie games more than total multiplayer ones.
I think your on to something plus the looming recession and collapse of the nft/crypto space that a lot of companies were looking to get a slice of probably is contributing to many projects getting canned, probably for the best really.
I came for the development updates and I stayed for the game news
You're partly right. 1: tech over hired during COVID. 2: there's a recession coming and the publishers are scared, 3: the mobile market specifically has dipped in the last 2 quarters. 4: the fiscal year ends in March, so they often do mass layoffs to make the numbers look good, and then they hire many of these people back come April and March and then spend 3x as much doing it.
I was part of the mass layoffs at EA 2 weeks ago :)
Short answer: greedy mr krabs companies shutting down unprofitable projects...
I really want a narrative driven Predator single player game!
dang bro the video scared me i thought anomaly got shut down or something
Honestly it's definitely because of how many games have battlepasses now.
It's gotten to the point where personally, I just don't play anything but one or two games if they have a battlepass each, and even then I'll just play the one I enjoy more because of it.
I didn't think about it like that but it is a really good point i think also because of the energy price increases the cost of running servers would have doubled and if they are not selling enough micro transactions/battle passes etc, ppl aren't playing because they don't have the time so the game doesn't make a profit so they shut down the one that makes the least. I don't play Apex but isn't it also free to download? if so they don't even break even or make a profit on initial release either.
This gives me flashbacks to the whole zombie shooter craze in the 2010s
Kinda worse now since so many live services are designed to suck up all your time so very few actually want to play, in alternative to games you can play whenever you want at your own pace like co-op/Singleplayer games
probably has something to do with silicon valley bank
Plausible but id say its maybe to do with interest rates. New games need bankroll and with it being basically zero % interest rates over the last 14 years cheap money to bank roll anything for big companies was easy. Good credit rating, meant cheap loans of 0 or nearly 0%.
Now the fed has pushed interest rates up to nearly 5% cheap money is no more.
Id say its probably a combination of the 2 honestly. Huge tech sector layoffs have happened so its an industry that feels these raises the most.
"Bunch of games" is apparently just Apex Legends Mobile
what game is garbaj playing in the video?
This all sounds like "the consequences of your actions" in regards to companies and short term profit
Quite simple. It simply doesnt compete in terms of gameplay and optimisation as compared to their competitors. Money and a lot of money is required for ample running of servers and staff responsible for the smooth curation of various features and regular updates for the games. When the game simply doesnt have enough runtime or revenue generation, companies tend to shut them down way before the trend, so as to avoid any decrease in the company total asset. The game is shut down to prevent it from being a liability to the company. Apex Mobile lacks far behind as compared to other competitors such as COD Mobile.
well also adding at the major lay-offs at most triple A studios there are multiple reasons for this but the less overall people gaming since the pandemic is def one of the main contributors to this
Yes I believe one off the reason is what you said on the video,
however I believe that is more than 1 reasons like for example not many players
Or need servers for other projects
The are multiple factor's that may happen it's very hard to know the true reason this happens
What is the game in the background? Looks a bit like stalker but also not
its Stalker Anomaly
@@Rontsu thx
Assuming that’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R anomaly in the background, what’s your mod list?
Probably none because he has vanilla icons, hud and doesn't have food drugs and drink animations
@@Mamie-_-Traillette the scopes seemed 3d
Funny that a lot of games that would probably suit battle passes dont really get them like for a new elder scrolls months after you get new quests and items or maybe counter strike
bro had a whole ass aug in his inventory
Peace and love shall by over all
Good hunting stalker
Yo stalker anomaly you’ve got great taste in games