Live service gaming is in a hard, transitional moment. Even as the sector increasingly consumes millions of hours spent by gamers, successful launches are few and far between, and the frequency of downtime has increased. Franchises like Destiny and Overwatch have moved to free-to-play models in an attempt to keep player numbers high, and premium games with a live service – that is, games with full purchase price, with some intention of monetizing players for over the long term – they are an endangered species.
In 2024, there were two dramatic and high-profile failures to deliver premium live services. Rocksteady Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League ended up losing $200 million for WB Games, while Sony was even more steep Agreement Players didn’t like it so much that it was unceremoniously disabled after just a few weeks. (Sony had a hit live service with Helldivers 2but judging by the publisher’s marketing activities for both games, Helldivers clearly wasn’t what Sony’s higher-ups expected — or maybe even wanted — to launch.)
However, Blizzard’s 2023 release Diablo 4 is a certified hit, with mighty sales, mighty expansion in 2024, and an apparently enthusiastic audience. How did he break this trend? For Rod Fergusson — the famed Gears of War producer turned CEO of the Diablo series — it’s because Blizzard had no intention of making a live-action game. The studio simply set out to make a Diablo game, but Diablo’s action RPG genre essentially requires it to be a live-action game.
ARPG is an inherently live service. The question is what you do about it
-Rod Ferguson
Here’s a plain lesson for game publishers: don’t force yourself. When Suicide squad was displayed, players immediately commented that the game seemed oddly suited to a live services environment; it didn’t naturally follow from the game’s plot or genre. Agreement it was in the right genre – it was a hero shooter – but it was clearly designed to meet a publisher’s need for a live-action game, not a player’s need for an alternative to Overwatch. The concept of the game was not the first.
The other way round, Diablo 4 it worked because people wanted a fresh Diablo game and wanted to play it for hundreds of hours. It’s like a reversal of the classic z line Field of Dreams: not “If you build it, they will come”, but “They will come… so you better build it.”
