Poll Shows Majority Of Game Devs Worry About Live-Service Sustainability

A new survey of working game developers has revealed that a large number of devs have concerns about the sustainability of the live-service game model, even as some major publishers continue to redouble efforts in that area.

The survey was undertaken by the Game Developer Collective, a panel of over 600 developers created in a collaboration between Game Developer, analyst firm Omdia, and GDC. Of those surveyed, 39% indicated they were “somewhat concerned” about live-service business models, while 31% were “very concerned.” Only 29% answered that they either had no concern or weren’t sure.

When the developers who indicated mild or moderate concern were questioned further about their specific worries about the business model, 63% said they were worried about players losing interest in the game, while 62% were concerned about competition from other games. Other major concerns included rising user-acquisition costs and rising development costs.

Notably, only 35% of those surveyed indicated that they considered their most-recent game to be a live-service title, though 10% of developers not already working on live-service games said that they expected their studio would shift in that direction.

Live-service titles have been a point of contention in the industry for some time now, with many studios and publishers chasing a mythical “forever game.” While the live-service model can be very lucrative for some games, there are many cases where-live service titles shut down without achieving any real success, sometimes even within months of launch.

Market data from 2023 shows that live-service games dominated in terms of playtime, but also shows that many of the most successful games are over six years old, proving how difficult it is for new live-service titles to capture players’ attention.

While some publishers, like Warner Bros. Games, are doubling down on the live-service model, others such as Sony are cutting back on the number of live-service games they plan to release. Naughty Dog recently canceled a planned Last of Us live-service game, instead choosing to focus on single-player titles.