IN the wake of market oversaturation with games using the live service model and the rising disinterest of consumers in these products, game developers are now expressing concern over the sustainability of the model.
This was revealed in a new survey by the Game Developer Collective, where 600 developers were interviewed from February to March over business models and monetisation in video games, particularly for live service titles.
From the 600 that were interviewed, 31% were very concerned, 39% were somewhat concerned and 29% were a combination of unconcerned or unsure. The primary concern from the survey’s findings revolved around the sustainability of the model.
The concept of a live service model is where games receive extra content at regular intervals after it has been released, with the goal being to keep players engaged and routinely spending real money on the new content through microtransactions and subscriptions.
For the developers that were surveyed, they were worried about players losing interest, difficulty in maintaining long-term engagement and losing players to competitor titles in the overstuffed live service market.
Due to the industry seemingly hitting the ceiling in terms of how studios and publishers have resorted to monetising everything from cosmetics to short-term passes that incentivise players with premium digital items, the survey also addressed the future of monetisation. If there is indeed a bubble for this specific business model for games, it is certainly close to popping
