CEO of Digital Extremes Steve Sinclair, the studio behind Warframe, believes big publishers dump live service games way too early. Sinclair made the observation during an interview with VGC. He noted that big publishers abandon live service titles after launch if they fail to meet their expectations.
CEO of Digital Extremes Steve Sinclair
“They think the release is make or break, and it’s not,” Sinclair said. “They have a financial way to be persistent, and they never do it. It comes out, doesn’t work and they throw it away.”
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The Digital Extremes CEO is calling on publishers to have more faith in live service projects, even if the title struggles at launch. This has been the case for many live service titles released in recent years.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League remains one of the biggest live service launch hitches this year. Server issues forced Rocksteady Studios and Warner Bros. Games to offer players who purchased the more expensive Deluxe Edition in-game coins after a server glitch robbed players of the promised 72 hours of Early Access.
“Isn’t that a shame when you put so many years of your life into iterating on those systems or building technology or building the start of a community, and because the operating costs are high, you get terrified when you see the numbers drop and you leave,” Sinclair added. “We’ve seen this with amazing releases that I think have massive potential, and I think they eject too soon.”
The life span of live service games appears to be getting shorter. The reason can be traced back to several factors including the presence of too many games and the reluctance of players to move to new titles. Several promising live service games have been shut down after just a few years.
Knockout City
For example, EA shut down Knockout City and Anthem after just two years. Crossfire X was shut down by Smilegate in less than two years while Babylon’s Fall suffered the same fate in the hands of PlatinumGames after just 11 months.
