Okay, last thing before I dip out of this hostile, hyperbolic, and incessantly pessimistic and jaded community:
The idea that Bungie is slinking through PS Studios, scythe in hand, ready to kill projects at the slightest infraction is absurd.
Bungie was acquired because they know how to not only run a live service game, but how to make money running a live service game. It’s not like they have a ton of IP (though they are working on at least 2 additional titles, one of which was revealed Wednesday). Their value is in their knowledge and experience, as well as their talent as a developer.
Let me tell you a story. Many, many years ago, I worked for a publisher that also made live service games. One of our titles was a hit, but it was reaching the point where that style of game wasn’t making the money it used to, and we needed to expand our offerings.
We released a handful of games after that players enjoyed. One of them, a game from a beloved IP, had an average player score of 4.5, which was great, because players really enjoyed the game. I’m not a big fan of live service games, personally, but even I really enjoyed playing the game myself. It was fun (and I was also a fan of the IP).
The problem was, it wasn’t making any money. Knowing what I know now about live service games, I understand why it wasn’t.
Anyway, the lead game designer, against the advice of the producers and management that it was a bad idea, drastically altered the monetization model, and it was a disaster. The new model was unreasonable, greedy, and completely screwed over our player base that had been playing the game for months, including ones that
had been spending money. His argument was that we’d just bring in new players. On an IP that, while popular, still had a narrow, but passionate fanbase. Bringing new fans into the fold would have been very, very difficult.
Our player score dropped from that 4.5 to 2, players left the game, we didn’t get new players to offset it, and eventually we lost the license, shuddered the project. Not that long after that, the whole publisher had to close its doors and I was out of a job (which definitely made things hard for me and my wife at the time, as I struggled to find work; thank god for my severance package and unemployment that helped keep us above water until I landed a new gig…).
The point is, no matter how fun a live service game is, it also has to have a rock solid monetization model if it, and the studio, is to thrive and be able to continue, and the team able to continue to make the games they’re passionate about.
We all know that TLOU is satisfying to play. An enjoyable and entertaining game loop isn’t the problem. ND is great at level design and game feel (from Crash Bandicoot to Jak & Daxter, to Uncharted, to The Last of Us, they know how to make a game that’s fun to play), along with their great characters and story, so I highly doubt that TLOU Online isn’t fun to play.
The issue is with monetization/game economy, long term player engagement, and content generation, the struggle all live service games wrestle with.
Sure, you can study from the outside what successful live service games are doing, but that can only take you so far. How production pipelines are managed and run, as well as analytics and data from player behavior and patterns is where the real value lies, and what studios making successful GAAS games understandably keep close to the chest.
Bungie was brought on to assist ND with
that part of the development, because they’re fucking
good at it.
They have seen and played and evaluated TLOU Online, whereas we’ve gotten two pieces of concept art and a statement from ND about it being a much more ambitious project than they originally planned. So I think it’s safe to say that Bungie knows a little bit more about the state of the project than we do.
And their assessment isn’t that the concept isn’t viable or fun and should be scrapped, but that there isn’t a solid foundation of long term player engagement, and should be reassessed. They didn’t push for the project to be cancelled, but for the live service aspect of it to be improved and ideally a stronger content roadmap established for their goals of making this project a long term service.
Spitefully rooting for these games to crash and burn and cheerleading people potentially losing their jobs because you didn’t get your way because of a fucking gaming showcase (where the vast majority of games shown were single player
), is fucking disgusting.
Ok, I’m outta here. Peace out.