Over the years, there’ve been various red flags in gaming, for me at least. Multi-media. Full-Motion Video. Day-One DLC. Microtransactions. The latest one is Live Service Game. I find the idea repulsive because it immediately tells me this is an online-required affair, even if it doesn’t warrant it. There’s no reason for some games to require an internet connection when the vast majority of activities they provide can be done in a single-player fashion. So I suspect Live Service Game to be less of a commitment to truly providing updated worthwhile content and more about DRM. Instead of imposing Denuvo or some other loathed 3rd party layer on your software, why not just require internet regardless of whether it brings value to customer?
What do you think about Live Service Games? Do you prefer them to traditional games that ship finished, with potential expansions and DLC to follow later?
I don’t mind if they need to patch the game after launch to fix issues. you can only find so much with a QA team, the mass market is really helpful for finding issues you’d never be able to find as a team of 20 or 50 if they’re being generous.
I do absolutely despise live-service games with no choice for offline play. Diablo 4 is a more recent, prime example of this. servers went offline for a day or two IIRC, no one could play the game they payed money for, at a premium price at that. the biggest issue is that it puts a life-span on your games and I don’t think any media should have that.