Lately we have been witnessing important acquisitions by the major players in the videogame market. It is certainly known to everyone how Microsoft recently announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, taking home historic titles such as Starcraft and World of Warcraft. In all of this, however, Sony has not been watching by incorporating other studios such as EVO, Bungie, and Haven Studios. In the case of Sony, a precise strategy could be outlined, oriented to online games with so-called live services.
What are live service games
A live service game is an online game to which content is continuously added, in such a way as to never tire the user. A live service game is therefore designed to keep players interested for years. The company that produces games of this type, instead of publishing one title and then moving on to the next, aims to put a service online and then continue to update it for years by adding new levels, characters and missions. Famous examples of live service games are EVE Online, Destiny, World of Warcraft, Sea of Thieves, and Fortnite.
Sony’s vision for online gaming
In a recent interview for GamesIndustry.biz, Hermen Hulst at the head of PlayStation Studios, speaking of the acquisition of Haven Studios, commented:
… we [Sony n.d.r.] we invest in live service games because they stimulate us a lot. They allow us to build larger molds, with more meaningful social connections between users.
As proof of this, even Hiroki Tokoki, financial management of the corporate said during the last quarterly report on the profits of the Japanese giant, that thanks to the collaboration between Bungie and Playstation Studios, 10 live service games are planned to be launched by 2026.
Despite this, however, Hermen was not at all negative about continuing to produce titles to be played individually and in which the story being told plays a leading role. So, we can also rest assured that titles like Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us and Horizon Forbidden West have a good chance of having a sequel.
Why is “online” so important?
In reality, if we think of a game as a possible service to be enjoyed through the Internet, the point is not to play online but to exist (!) online.
Today, when we talk about online, we don’t just play: we also need to let everyone know that we have done it, what rank we have reached, how many enemies we have killed, what our best time is, etc. In fact, ours playing online contributes to a kind of social status within the gamer community. And that’s why we have social integrations, regional or global rankings, and websites dedicated to analyzing the performance of esports players.
With live service games, this perspective can scale further: the player builds a real reputation in a virtual world where he knows that other players see him and where he is sure he will have this reputation for a long time. Just think of the companies labeled “server first at…” or “world first at…” that can be obtained in World of Warcraft.
Sony, like many others, have understood this feature of online games very well; and that’s why they invest in live service games.
Sony and online games: a downhill road, but to be paved
The road that Sony and the other multinationals are following is, honestly, downhill; in the sense that the importance of the online component in games has already been clear for years. Moreover, there are already a good amount of communities that have developed around games or within game servers. What is needed is to find the right formula to channel these realities.
If you want to take it one step further rather, the part to be smoothed is the more technical component. Today there are a lot of online games, even live services, that matter millions of users; but how many manage to put them all in the same battle? At best we can expect groups in the order of dozens of participants; maybe a hundred. The other big problem is that of the digital divide; that is, a non-uniform availability of resources (the network, but also a console or a PC) across the territory. This unavailability depends on a very complex set of factors, which we cannot allow ourselves to analyze here, beyond the control of the provider of an online game. In fact, today, videogame companies find themselves having to make compromises between the number of players they can reach (ie profit) and how innovative they can be in the games they produce.