According to Game Industry Biz 95% of studios are working on or aim to release a live service game |UP| % debunked by Matt Piscatella.

[Gamernyc78]

Report: 95% of studios are working on or aim to release a live service game

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www.gamesindustry.biz

In the survey of 537 game studios, live ops development teams want faster content releases.

A new report from Griffin Gaming Partners says that 95% of game makers are developing or maintaining a live service game.

The 2023 Game Development Report, made in partnership with Rendered VC, surveyed 537 studios from across the globe.

Among the surveyors, 66% agreed that live services are necessary for long-term title success.

The report notes that traditional game development is two-three years long, while live production is more than five years.

"Multi-year game development forms production processes and pipelines that are intended to deliver a few key milestones in what is essentially a waterfall process. Production in live services, however, is a constant state of planning & adjusting game parameters to enhance player experience while designing and deploying new features to add new player value," said the survey.

Additionally, the report added that live service teams want faster content releases.

"Across the industry, live service teams reported their ideal production schedules as weekly to biweekly for live ops cadences and biweekly to monthly for game content updates. In the context of game development, which typically spans multiple years, live service production schedules are moving at breakneck speed."

Update 2/3/24

Percentage debunked my Matt Piscatella

 

[Wraith Phantom]

Can we then feel sad for layoffs & closures?? When the industry doing goofy moves like this??

Gas games with loot boxes & battlepasses starting to look like hack job , lazy dev work.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Can we then feel sad for layoffs & closures?? When the industry doing goofy moves like this??

Gas games with loot boxes & battlepasses starting to look like hack job , lazy dev work.

Also Increased sub fees and game prices. It's never enough.

 

[flaccidsnake]

First make a good game. Don't set out to make a service game. Something as small as Cult of the Lamb could evolve into a service game by gradually adding network features and regularly adding content. It's when a big AAA team swings for the bleachers that service games can kill a studio.

 

[Plextorage]

But Sony bad, RIGHT?

 

[Nhomnhom]

And acording too Sony 70% of the time spent on PS5 is on single player games.

Damn whales fucking it up for everyone.

 

[Deleted member 223]

There are devs out there hiring psychologists these days to make battle passes more sellable.

 

[Gamernyc78]

There are devs out there hiring psychologists these days to make battle passes more sellable.

You know how it goes it's all a mental Game.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

From the article:

The survey defines live services as any regular update cadence planned for a game.

That would include regular post launch content for games including robust patches budget.

Also from the article:

The 2023 Game Development Report, made in partnership with Rendered VC, surveyed 537 studios from across the globe.

Whos is Rendered VC? Well Matt from Circana was pretty quick on the case:




Totally not shameless survey that is basically self-promotion.

 

[Box]

How many of these were mobile devs?

 

[Gamernyc78]

From the article:



That would include regular post launch content for games including robust patches budget.

Also from the article:



Whos is Rendered VC? Well Matt from Circana was pretty quick on the case:




Totally not shameless survey that is basically self-promotion.

Ahhh interesting, Thnk for the follow up!

 

[Batzy]

From the article:



That would include regular post launch content for games including robust patches budget.

Also from the article:



Whos is Rendered VC? Well Matt from Circana was pretty quick on the case:




Totally not shameless survey that is basically self-promotion.

Paid article, for sure.

 

[Gamernyc78]

OP title reflects debunk. Regardless alot of devs are pushing tht Gass initiative so tht goes without saying.

 

[J_Paganel]

On the one hand, investors and developers want stable profits and minimal risks...

But on the other hand, over the past 20 years, many quality single releases have failed in sales, and have dragged some developers and publishers into the abyss.

There were many factors (poor marketing, bad release date, etc.), but gamers are also to blame...

Because if you don't buy single-player projects on release, waiting for discounts (or stealing the product from a torrent), and at the same time pour money into MMOs, F2P, and premium MP games, it won't end well.

 

[Gamernyc78]

On the one hand, investors and developers want stable profits and minimal risks...

But on the other hand, over the past 20 years, many quality single releases have failed in sales, and have dragged some developers and publishers into the abyss.

There were many factors (poor marketing, bad release date, etc.), but gamers are also to blame...

Because if you don't buy single-player projects on release, waiting for discounts (or stealing the product from a torrent), and at the same time pour money into MMOs, F2P, and premium MP games, it won't end well.

Stable profits and minimal risks for Sony at least are giving us the Single Player bangers like God, Horizon, Tlou, Spiderman, etc that have given them stability and creating expansions or dlc behind them to sell. Profits in perpetuity would be GAAS games but those aren't stable or guaranteed at all and are mostly fails and you have to continually invest.

 

[J_Paganel]

Stable profits and minimal risks for Sony at least are giving us the Single Player bangers like God, Horizon, Tlou, Spiderman, etc that have given them stability and creating expansions or dlc behind them to sell. Profits in perpetuity would be GAAS games but those aren't stable or guaranteed at all and are mostly fails and you have to continually invest.

Yes, Sony recently had a great workflow that gave us cool releases on PS4, with new IPs and relaunches of old series like GoW.

But something happened, instead of continuing the successful strategy, we have the cancellation of sequels to successful IPs like Days Gone and the killing of the super successful Only on Playstation brand...

Against this backdrop, studios are starting to work on service products (because everyone wants their Fortnite), and existing systemsellers are being released on a competing platform.

And if we look back to 2019-2020, the problems were noticeable even when Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima received poor promotion, and this affected launch sales. And if you believe the leaks, Bend Studio was set unrealistic deadlines and was actually forced to release the game with technical problems.

That is, Sony exchanged the OoPS brand and successful game releases for miserable PC sales and stillborn GAAS games...

 

[Gamernyc78]

Yes, Sony recently had a great workflow that gave us cool releases on PS4, with new IPs and relaunches of old series like GoW.

But something happened, instead of continuing the successful strategy, we have the cancellation of sequels to successful IPs like Days Gone and the killing of the super successful Only on Playstation brand...

Against this backdrop, studios are starting to work on service products (because everyone wants their Fortnite), and existing systemsellers are being released on a competing platform.

And if we look back to 2019-2020, the problems were noticeable even when Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima received poor promotion, and this affected launch sales. And if you believe the leaks, Bend Studio was set unrealistic deadlines and was actually forced to release the game with technical problems.

That is, Sony exchanged the OoPS brand and successful game releases for miserable PC sales and stillborn GAAS games...

It was Kaz Hirai leading that initiative, what happened was he left and you know when new ppl come in instead of continuing the same ideas (that made Playstation become literally the number one dept at Sony and it's focus) they decide to deviate and implement their own visions or plans.

 

[J_Paganel]

It was Kaz Hirai leading that initiative, what happened was he left and you know when new ppl come in instead of continuing the same ideas (that made Playstation become literally the number one dept at Sony and it's focus) they decide to deviate and implement their own visions or plans.

Yes, Jim Ryan managed to influence the projects that were in development and is responsible for what we have now...

But unfortunately, there are no signs that there will be a change in policy, the current interim management is leading Sony in a different direction. Not in the direction that ensured the success of the PS4 and saved the PS3 from problems in the second half of the generation.

At the moment, the PS5 is actually selling the library and reputation of the PS4.

This has already happened with the XONE, when the reputation of the XBOX360 saved sales at the very start.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Yes, Jim Ryan managed to influence the projects that were in development and is responsible for what we have now...

But unfortunately, there are no signs that there will be a change in policy, the current interim management is leading Sony in a different direction. Not in the direction that ensured the success of the PS4 and saved the PS3 from problems in the second half of the generation.

Yes but we shall see what the future brings. State of Play was good imo and there are tons of games still in The pipeline.