Fucking hell
Why does everything new coming out have to be a goddamn live service?? Don’t you have a blood dragon 2 to develop Ubisoft??
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I think people largely have stopped buying them, apart from very few exceptions, which is why games like Hyenas get cancelled at the finish line and why we’ve got a graveyard of live services that shut down just this year. Second Extinction didn’t make it out of early access. Rumbleverse didn’t even last one year.
Gaas. Everyone sees other gaas games and decided they want money printing machines too.
Yeah, but this game is in development after HyperScape and that cancelled Ghost Recon multiplayer game.
That’s not really relevant. Different teams. FarCry 7 is going to have multiplayer and single-player like the past few have had. They just now are making it a more developed side. It’s a natural progression to success.
They’re different teams, but it’s relevant because, according to this article, this spun out into another live service project after HyperScape quickly died and the Ghost Recon game wasn’t going to recoup its costs. The entire industry is facing a live service reckoning right now; it can only support so many, and making more expensive games like this isn’t panning out.
EDIT: Man, I forgot XDefiant too. If that game isn’t cancelled before it officially hits 1.0, it’ll likely be shut down within 18 months.
I guess maybe look at it this way, if anything they are still looking to recoup the development costs of those games. So why not use that technology in a multiplayer game that’s surely to sell well? Right?
That said they also stated in the article that this multiplayer game has been changing scope throughout its 7-year development. Sadly, this means they are almost certainly in development hell. Hopefully, they find the path through but we’ll see if and what they release.
if anything they are still looking to recoup the development costs of those games. So why not use that technology in a multiplayer game that’s surely to sell well? Right?
But it’s been spun out separately, according to the article…I think we’re talking past each other. Ubisoft and Sega are not the same company, but Hyenas was Sega’s most expensive project ever, and they still found the best decision to be not releasing the game at all, which makes some amount of sense because live service games have recurring costs. Maybe Ubisoft is staring down that barrel right now, as there’s definitely a world where, like with Ghost Recon, a successful franchise’s name won’t carry your live service endeavor to even recouping any costs as opposed to just killing it in the womb and avoiding the sunk cost fallacy.
It is my hope, and it’s possibly the reality, that Ubisoft has discovered that live service games are not guaranteed money printing machines. Then maybe we can get back to an industry that isn’t so intent on destroying itself rather than the semi-dark-age we’re in right now.
You were originally talking about HyperScape, not Hyenas. Technology in a studio is typically shared between projects. So it’s somewhat likely that Ghost Recon, HyperScape, and this FarCry 7 multiplayer game contain some of the same codebase. Certainly not a guarantee but it’s more likely than not.
That said, Wildlands is still up, the sequel did poorly for a number of reasons, pushing out a sequel to a live service game is always risky, especially within a 10-year period. Live service games are expected to be continuously updated. Overwatch 2 is a great example of how to mismanage your well-received live service game. Overall, Ghost Recon Wildlands is still making enough money to keep it afloat. Breakpoint went too far in monetization and overall too fast in title iteration.
Ubisoft, like many giants, isn’t going to give up on GaaS games any time soon. If anything you’ll see more and more. GaaS isn’t how I want to see the future but I don’t see a games industry future without GaaS being fairly dominate. I don’t think anyone sees them as a guaranteed money-printing machine. There are far better and safer investments than games to get money-printing machines. Real estate is a big one. Ubisoft is still a company of artists but equally, those artists are putting money first because we live in a capitalistic society where rent needs to be paid first and foremost.
Overall, though, I don’t see the industry destroying itself. It’s certainly in a squeeze right now simply due to consolidation. The mass layoffs we are seeing are because a bunch of giants have been buying up companies and expanding. Now the major companies have lots of IPs and brands to work with, they are cutting everyone that doesn’t fit the exact future needs of monetizing those IPs. In the grand scheme of things, it’s actually beneficial to the growth of small indie studios. Now that talent is likely to start and contribute to small indie studios. Hopefully with the business knowledge that corporate structures are only good for those on top. Maybe we’ll see the growth of cooperative studios.
Why can’t we just have cool multiplayer modes in games instead of a separate game?
Honestly, I prefer this, as long as the single player option is unaffected by the multiplayer component’s performance, and the resources allotted to the SP game don’t suffer because of the MP.
Historically, some of the best multiplayer components attached to single player games were done with very few resources in a matter of weeks, like Halo and Goldeneye.
True, but that was before mtx became the name of the game. Nowadays when a game has a multiplayer component with no bells and whistles and just works, it’s an outlier.
And now those games just get shut down with no recourse. Eventually, those companies will realize that they’re better off making a multiplayer game that doesn’t get 5 years worth of updates to chase after bazillions of dollars that never materialize.
Tack Call of Duty Zombies into that list too, but Moonguide has a point. CoD: BlOps 3 was the last really good zombies experience and that was just as they were starting to turn it into an MTx nightmare.
multiplayer networking is something that absolutely takes longer then just a few weeks
Sure, and game development in general takes longer than it did 20 years ago, but allocating a proportional amount of resources is all you need. If it’s a hit, it’s a hit. If you want to patch it up a bit to fix some glaring flaws, go ahead. Expecting it to maintain tens of thousands of simultaneous players is going to end up with the dev putting lots of resources into something unlikely to be the next big thing.
I liked how FEAR did it back in the day. The multiplayer was a separate game you could download for free and play. Then, if you liked the game, you could pay for the single player.
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This sounds awesome, extraction shooters are a genre I’m glad is taking off
Same, but I’m still eagerly waiting for someone to do the genre better then Tarkov. But so far, nothing has scratched the itch like Tarkov.
Fair! The place I’ve played it most is a VR mod called Escape from Pavlov, so it was a bit basic feature-wise but still a ton of fun
escape from Pavlov
Rings bell
You might escape from Pavlov, but you can never escape your own responses.
I’ve been a long time Marathon fan and I think the new game has the potential for greatness. The art style is out of this world
Marathon was a bit before my time, but I definitely agree, the art style on the trailer for the new marathon looks really cool. But between cod dmz, marauders, the cycle frontier; I’m just a bit skeptical that anyone can properly replicate what makes Tarkov such an interesting and addicting game style.
That being said, definitely hoping for some proper competition to Tarkov as it has some serious issues that I don’t see getting fixed anytime soon.
Not the biggest fan of extraction shooters, but the permadeath mechanic sounds interesting. Although I’m not sure how common that is in this kind of game.
I know Hunt: Showdown has a similar mechanic, and might be the most popular one outside of Tarkov
