November 8th 2024.
It's no secret that the video game industry has been chasing the success of live service games like Fortnite for quite some time now. But it seems that this trend may be coming to an end, as Warner Bros. has recently admitted to losing a whopping $300 million in their attempt to replicate Fortnite's success.
For publishers, creating successful games is a high-risk, high-reward business. With the rising costs of game development, many have turned to sequels or licensed titles as a safer bet. And when a new trend or genre emerges, they often try to jump on the bandwagon in hopes of a shortcut to success. We saw this in the early 2000s with the rise of MMOs, and now, 20 years later, we're seeing it with live service games.
However, it seems that the failure of games like Suicide Squad, Concord, and MultiVersus has finally led big publishers to give up on this trend. Warner Bros. has already admitted to losing $200 million on Suicide Squad and another $100 million on MultiVersus. And despite the success of single-player game Hogwarts Legacy, the company's CEO, David Zaslav, has been pushing for more live service titles.
But in a recent financial call, Zaslav announced that Warner Bros. will now be focusing on just four franchises - Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, and DC, particularly Batman. He also mentioned that the company will be working with proven studios to increase their chances of success.
This announcement came as no surprise, as it's been almost a decade since a big-budget, non-VR Batman game has been released. And while there was no mention of shutting down MultiVersus, it was heavily implied. The emphasis on Batman over the rest of the DC universe was also a nod to the failure of Suicide Squad and Gotham Knights.
It's unclear what Warner Bros. has in store for Game of Thrones, as there has never been a big-budget console adaptation of the popular series. Some speculate that it could be a project for Shadow of Mordor developer, Monolith Productions. But it's also worth noting that they're currently working on a single-player Wonder Woman game, which was announced in 2021 but has yet to be shown to the public.
On the other hand, Sony seems to be taking a more sensible approach to their game development. While there's still uncertainty about who was responsible for the focus on live service games - former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan or current co-CEO Hermen Hulst - the company has not shied away from admitting their mistakes.
Sony had initially planned to release 12 internally developed live service games by 2026, but so far, they've only managed to launch one - Concord, which turned out to be the biggest flop in the company's history. And while they haven't publicly addressed their plans, a quote from their latest earnings report suggests that they're shifting their focus back to single-player games.
According to senior vice president for finance and IR, Sadahiko Hayakawa, Sony intends to have a balanced portfolio of single-player and live service games. They recognize that single-player games have a higher predictability of success, while live service games can be more unpredictable, regardless of their quality.
Hayakawa also mentioned that they've learned valuable lessons from both the success of Helldivers 2 and the failure of Concord. And with Bungie's Marathon possibly being their next live service game, they plan to conduct more pre-release testing and betas to ensure its success.
As for single-player games, Sony has released very few new titles in the last few years, with no major releases in the current financial year. While they recently announced Ghost of Yōtei for a 2025 release, it's unclear when we'll see another major first-party game from them.
It's clear that the industry's obsession with live service games is waning, and publishers are starting to realize that a balanced portfolio of single-player and live service games is a more sensible approach. And as gamers, we can only hope that this will lead to more quality titles in the future.
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