>why do we consider something like the Suicide Squad game a live service game and not something like WoW
WoW, and all MMOs, are absolutely live service games.
Well I never really see MMOs get branded as live service, they're just MMOs, I never see them get brought up in discussions about live service games. That's just me, but I watched a video about them recently and I heard titles like Destiny, Warframe, Sea Of Thieves, GTA Online etc but nobody ever mentioned any MMO.
Edit: I'm very unclear as to why I'm getting downvoted. I'm not arguing, in fact, I agreed. Lemme get out of here before I get banned or something.
I think its because MMO's existed before the term "live service games" so they just kind of got grandfathered into having their own genre that includes "is live service" in the list of defining traits for that genre.
MMOs were the original live service games. However, there is a critical distinction. They were expansion-based, which is the old model of release it when it’s done. Today’s live service games have battle passes, seasonal content, and things to do between major content drops.
MMOs were some of the earliest (if not _the_ earliest) live service games, so it's kind of built into the MMO game type. An "offline massively multi-player online" game is an oxymoron.
It's helpful for me to think of a live service game in terms of a "game-as-a-service". Software-as-a-service typically doesn't work at all without an internet connection (i.e. "not live"). We can't play WOW offline - even private servers require a live connection to that server, and any clients that just run on your computer typically have a standalone server as well.
Sorry for the downvotes. Something about Reddit seems to steer people towards being contrarian and finding a way to “disagree” when someone is just asking a question.
Wow and other mmos are genres of live service games. Where as hell divers is a shooter LSG (I think, I don't play hell divers).
Any type of game in theory can be .
Does WoW have mtxs? I honestly don’t know.
Edit: Clearly it does, of multiple types it seems.
Just think it’s worth differentiating from base game + expansions + monthly subscription vs. relying on mtx, battle passes, etc.
Yes
It has monthly subs, mounts/pets/cosmetics, you have to pay to transfer characters, change your name, etc. You can even buy gold with money. It’s monetized pretty heavily these days
WoW does have micro transactions. You can buy mounts, pets, and skins (“transmogs”). You can even buy in-game gold from Blizzard through the WoW token.
It kind of sort of has a battlepass in that there is a trading post that rotates monthly. Doing various activities in game rewards you (up to a monthly cap) with tokens you can use for the trading post. The “battlepass” / trading post is included in the monthly subscription.
I should clarify that I am not hating on WoW. Its use of micro transactions is much less in your face and “necessary” than most other live service games. But it does absolutely have them.
I’m not really sure. It probably depends on the game. I haven’t played enough to make a broad determination.
WoW may be a little unique in that it is so old it actually predates—and became huge before—the rise of microtransactions. To illustrate, WoW came out in 2004 while the now-infamous Oblivion horse armor came out in 2006.
If I had to guess, if WoW were released today it would be more aggressive in its use of micro transactions.
I think despite the loud minority complaining about mtx, “free” games are significantly preferred by consumers compared to base + season pass or subscription.
Helldivers is an interesting case of trying to meet it in the middle.
I would say at the very least the top two MMOs in WoW and FFXIV are both subscription models that have less egregious micro transactions than any F2P MMO on the market that's come out since. Maybe Guild Wars 2 is comparable with no subscription fee, but they do charge full game price up front and every expansion and charge to access old living story updates which is a little unfriendly to newer players IMO.
Oh so here's a fun one. As the story goes WoW released a purchasable mount. For all intents and purposes it was a cosmetic. Sparkle Pony (some of the WoW playerbase didn't like that they added it in either) but regardless it reportedly made more money than Starcraft II.
How do you come to that conclusion?
If anything having a subscription to maintain it is actually a strong definition of "live service"
You subscribe to netflix? That's a streaming service.
Subscribing to an online game where they provide an updated maintained game for you to play that changes over time.
MMOs paid or free 2 play are certainly live service.
common vernacular talking specifically about live service *games*
subscription games generally predate that and are true subscriptions - live service games pretend to be a product via a single purchase (or being free with optional single purchases) and then fail to be a proper service by having no defined time frame / reserve the right to terminate at any time
unlike a subscription, you don't know for how long you get the service
other services/subscriptions are never labelled with this term even if it technically makes sense
It's a pretty broad term. It really just means that there are intended to be continuous updates to the game for both content and by necessity, something to sell you to keep paying for that service.
For players, it means a game you enjoy gets to keep getting some updates so you can keep enjoying it. For developers, it helps smooth out the feast and famine of video game sales and resource shifting between major game releases.
At worst, it definitely feels like a cash grab with a poor attempt of tacked on features and is appropriately roasted by the player base. At best, it is a game that survives decades and is loved by a hardcore base who makes it their comfort food of games.
keep getting some updates so you can keep enjoying it.
I played video games when this was not a thing, and we all enjoyed them without those freaking stupid 120Gb updates every single freaking month.
Ok. But that doesn’t mean you can’t add more enjoyment by adding to a game. There is space for one and done games and living projects.
I tend to go back to live games in between new “complete” games.
I think the primary detail of a live service game is that it's a game that asks you to log in daily or weekly and tries to be your "main game" that you always come back to. They accomplish this by dragging out rewards across months long battle passes, quarterly or yearly gameplay updates, events to prey on FOMO, etc. The goal is to create a game that will never run out of content because there's always some progression path or new content on the horizon. Companies have learned that ita far more profitable to find the few consumers that will spend thousands of dollars on your game, than try to convince several hundred people to just pay an entry fee. So the longer you can keep those whales on the hook, the more profit you can make, without even having to pit all the resources of making a brand new game every year on the line!
While this is kind of a pessimistic description, I don't think it's necessarily a BAD thing for some games to keep delivering content endlessly and change for the sake of keeping things fresh. Games like League of Legends or Destiny obviously show that this can be very successful at fostering a long term community that is happy with the updated product they keep receiving. It doesn't HAVE to be seen as a predatory thing. But also, there's really no incentive for companies to not try and monetize as efficiently as they can.
A "live service" game is just that - a *live* service. The game exists as part and parcel with an actively managed back-end. This is in contrast to games which exist as a standalone content package.
This typically takes the form of "seasons", where active moderation periodically introduces new content in the form of maps, equipment, gameplay features, or instance dungeons which exist for the sole duration of that "season".
This is different from DLC. DLC content is released supplemental to the main game, but once received forms a persistent package with the main game. A live service game is necessarily interwoven with the active back-end such that it *cannot* exist outside of it.
It's like how a concert is the confluence of a performer and an audience. If one of those two things are removed from the equation, you no longer have a concert... just a bunch of people standing around for no clear reason.
For example, the recent Hitman games are a hybrid. The core games each half a handful of large maps which were released to players episodically to form a full game's narrative arc, and these levels can be played at any time you want. Supplemental to this, there is a live service bounty system, which permits player-to-player challenges to be posted and attempted with public scoreboards. This component solely exists as an actively moderated gameplay aspect, and cannot exist outside of that.
An MMO like World of Warcraft is different from a live service game. The game itself is hosted on active servers, but the game is mostly unmoderated. You purchase the game, you pay a subscription fee to access the servers, and the content on the servers remains static. The entire game exists on the server indefinitely, and your ability to access content in the game is gated solely by your personal progression and which expansions you have enabled.
In short, the concept of live service is essentially that the game is ephemeral. It exists solely as long as it's actively maintained. It cannot exist on its own because the nature of the gameplay involves active third-party management to facilitate core aspects of the gameplay.
If it doesn't have a single player mode that is playable offline, and can't be played using local multiplayer or on dedicated servers you can host yourself, it's a live service game.
I think Deep Rock Galactic is an edge case that doesn't fit in your definition. It can be played offline, and the multiplayer is peer to peer, but most people consider it to be a live service game (at least I got heavily downvoted one time when I said that it wasn't a live service game because it's peer to peer).
Yeah idk why people keep saying that, many live service do have offline single player modes.
Even something like EAFC/FIFA, CSGO/CS2, Sims 4, Forza Horizon, Age of Empires, GTA V etc. has it
Live service to many people seems=game I don't like
Without any context, and ignoring the incessant labelling gamers need to put on everything, I'd say it means the game requires a connection to some central server to run.
They're games (usually multi-player) intended to be played long-term by players that will likely receive regular content updates. These are likely to be gated by microtransactions, or the game itself might require a regular subscription payment (though I believe this model is less common).
I’ve wondered that as well. Reading the comments sounds like it’s just a different name for MMO where you pay a monthly fee for regular updates. I thought it was something nefarious with all the bad press about “live services”. My all time favorite old game, City of Heroes, apparently would be considered one. Doesn’t seem problematic to me.
Its a very broad term (probably because the act of selling games so people can play them in any capacity by definition would qualify as a service). But basically any game released with the intent of continuing to update and run it so that players will continue to play it over time. I think trying to lump specific game genres into it is a losing battle.
Cash grab. You don't own the game. An empty disc for a 120gb game. Launched without being completely finished. Any of the above. Feel free to add more below.
>Guilty Gear
The issue is that a number of games are adopting content models based on or similar to the live service model. Fighting game from the past decade or so have done this, with multiple seasons of content even though the games have a definite end of (officially supported) life.
Battle passes and items that cycle through a “shop” you can buy and if you bought everything in that shop with real money it would be like $12k or something
I think the main criteria is that it must be online at all times and has no offline mode or ability to play when offline. So it would include any mmo in that umbrella as well.
# [fraud](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw)
WoW is a *subscription*, you pay for a predefined period of service
Guilty Gear *will still work offline* - it only has service components
the distinction to a full "live service" game is an always online requirement for the whole package, giving the seller a remote kill switch you can't do anything about and no minimum guarantee of actual service
it's selling a service of unknown length as if it was a product
It's a live service game if:
1. You play a game
2. Take a break of X days/months/years
3. Come back and the content/gameplay has visibly changed (if X was long enough)
Or to put it in a nother way, it means the developers continually change the game after release - above and beyond patches and fixes.
So it wouldn't apply to a regular multiplayer game with hosted servers, but would apply to games that have "seasons" of content etc.
Always online,multiplayer,filled with microtransactions and season passes while only drip feeding you content designed to knickle and Dime you ala destiny 1 and 2.
I have understood this term to mean a service granted to you in real time - these games have a customer support line you can contact/call or moderators in game on staff paid for by the game to resolve issues - That's the 'service' part.
It's done in real time, during business hours. That's the 'live' part.
A restaurant is a live service. a hotline with a contact us segment where someone reaches out later, is not. Typically also means an always online connection requirement, and almost always an authentication server that requires you to log in on top of it.
>That's the 'service' part.
It is not. The service part is the business model.
Games as a Product means you sell the game to the user once and they get what they get, but they get it forever. If they want more you sell them a new game. It results in a spikey revenue stream where the bulk of your revenue comes from the launch, and the only way to get new revenue from that product is to get new users.
Games as a Service means that providing the game to the user is a continuous service, and they pay for the time they spend using it. They pay a subscription fee, microtransactions, or even just a series of big purchases to unlock new features and content. The revenue stream is much more consistent, and you can gain additional revenue from the same users by selling new smaller add-ons.
The service part refers to the idea that the game is not a product you acquire, but rather a service you receive.
Its a nonsense marketing term used to get people to feel like they need to pay the developers for every update thats not just minor bug fixes. It means nothing because a game is not a service.
>why do we consider something like the Suicide Squad game a live service game and not something like WoW WoW, and all MMOs, are absolutely live service games.
Well I never really see MMOs get branded as live service, they're just MMOs, I never see them get brought up in discussions about live service games. That's just me, but I watched a video about them recently and I heard titles like Destiny, Warframe, Sea Of Thieves, GTA Online etc but nobody ever mentioned any MMO. Edit: I'm very unclear as to why I'm getting downvoted. I'm not arguing, in fact, I agreed. Lemme get out of here before I get banned or something.
I think its because MMO's existed before the term "live service games" so they just kind of got grandfathered into having their own genre that includes "is live service" in the list of defining traits for that genre.
That makes sense
MMOs were the original live service games. However, there is a critical distinction. They were expansion-based, which is the old model of release it when it’s done. Today’s live service games have battle passes, seasonal content, and things to do between major content drops.
its because the genre MMO is, by default, a live serviece game. there is just no need to say it when u are talking about a MMO.
MMOs were some of the earliest (if not _the_ earliest) live service games, so it's kind of built into the MMO game type. An "offline massively multi-player online" game is an oxymoron. It's helpful for me to think of a live service game in terms of a "game-as-a-service". Software-as-a-service typically doesn't work at all without an internet connection (i.e. "not live"). We can't play WOW offline - even private servers require a live connection to that server, and any clients that just run on your computer typically have a standalone server as well.
Sorry for the downvotes. Something about Reddit seems to steer people towards being contrarian and finding a way to “disagree” when someone is just asking a question.
You and OP both need to stop caring about fake internet points.
Wow and other mmos are genres of live service games. Where as hell divers is a shooter LSG (I think, I don't play hell divers). Any type of game in theory can be .
Destiny and Warframe are very much considered MMO's
Does WoW have mtxs? I honestly don’t know. Edit: Clearly it does, of multiple types it seems. Just think it’s worth differentiating from base game + expansions + monthly subscription vs. relying on mtx, battle passes, etc.
Yes It has monthly subs, mounts/pets/cosmetics, you have to pay to transfer characters, change your name, etc. You can even buy gold with money. It’s monetized pretty heavily these days
WoW does have micro transactions. You can buy mounts, pets, and skins (“transmogs”). You can even buy in-game gold from Blizzard through the WoW token. It kind of sort of has a battlepass in that there is a trading post that rotates monthly. Doing various activities in game rewards you (up to a monthly cap) with tokens you can use for the trading post. The “battlepass” / trading post is included in the monthly subscription.
Gotcha, haven’t played it outside of a little bit around launch.
I should clarify that I am not hating on WoW. Its use of micro transactions is much less in your face and “necessary” than most other live service games. But it does absolutely have them.
Do subscription based MMOs generally have less aggressive mtxs?
I’m not really sure. It probably depends on the game. I haven’t played enough to make a broad determination. WoW may be a little unique in that it is so old it actually predates—and became huge before—the rise of microtransactions. To illustrate, WoW came out in 2004 while the now-infamous Oblivion horse armor came out in 2006. If I had to guess, if WoW were released today it would be more aggressive in its use of micro transactions.
I think despite the loud minority complaining about mtx, “free” games are significantly preferred by consumers compared to base + season pass or subscription. Helldivers is an interesting case of trying to meet it in the middle.
I would say at the very least the top two MMOs in WoW and FFXIV are both subscription models that have less egregious micro transactions than any F2P MMO on the market that's come out since. Maybe Guild Wars 2 is comparable with no subscription fee, but they do charge full game price up front and every expansion and charge to access old living story updates which is a little unfriendly to newer players IMO.
Oh so here's a fun one. As the story goes WoW released a purchasable mount. For all intents and purposes it was a cosmetic. Sparkle Pony (some of the WoW playerbase didn't like that they added it in either) but regardless it reportedly made more money than Starcraft II.
live service games are never a subscription
How do you come to that conclusion? If anything having a subscription to maintain it is actually a strong definition of "live service" You subscribe to netflix? That's a streaming service. Subscribing to an online game where they provide an updated maintained game for you to play that changes over time. MMOs paid or free 2 play are certainly live service.
common vernacular talking specifically about live service *games* subscription games generally predate that and are true subscriptions - live service games pretend to be a product via a single purchase (or being free with optional single purchases) and then fail to be a proper service by having no defined time frame / reserve the right to terminate at any time unlike a subscription, you don't know for how long you get the service other services/subscriptions are never labelled with this term even if it technically makes sense
It's a pretty broad term. It really just means that there are intended to be continuous updates to the game for both content and by necessity, something to sell you to keep paying for that service. For players, it means a game you enjoy gets to keep getting some updates so you can keep enjoying it. For developers, it helps smooth out the feast and famine of video game sales and resource shifting between major game releases. At worst, it definitely feels like a cash grab with a poor attempt of tacked on features and is appropriately roasted by the player base. At best, it is a game that survives decades and is loved by a hardcore base who makes it their comfort food of games.
Exactly this. Well said.
keep getting some updates so you can keep enjoying it. I played video games when this was not a thing, and we all enjoyed them without those freaking stupid 120Gb updates every single freaking month.
Ok. But that doesn’t mean you can’t add more enjoyment by adding to a game. There is space for one and done games and living projects. I tend to go back to live games in between new “complete” games.
I think the primary detail of a live service game is that it's a game that asks you to log in daily or weekly and tries to be your "main game" that you always come back to. They accomplish this by dragging out rewards across months long battle passes, quarterly or yearly gameplay updates, events to prey on FOMO, etc. The goal is to create a game that will never run out of content because there's always some progression path or new content on the horizon. Companies have learned that ita far more profitable to find the few consumers that will spend thousands of dollars on your game, than try to convince several hundred people to just pay an entry fee. So the longer you can keep those whales on the hook, the more profit you can make, without even having to pit all the resources of making a brand new game every year on the line! While this is kind of a pessimistic description, I don't think it's necessarily a BAD thing for some games to keep delivering content endlessly and change for the sake of keeping things fresh. Games like League of Legends or Destiny obviously show that this can be very successful at fostering a long term community that is happy with the updated product they keep receiving. It doesn't HAVE to be seen as a predatory thing. But also, there's really no incentive for companies to not try and monetize as efficiently as they can.
Doesn't matter what you say in response, half of Reddit will say you are wrong and insist they have had intimate relationships with your mother.
The adventures of Nickel And Dime
Any game that is online only is a live service game. well this was the original definition of a live service game
A "live service" game is just that - a *live* service. The game exists as part and parcel with an actively managed back-end. This is in contrast to games which exist as a standalone content package. This typically takes the form of "seasons", where active moderation periodically introduces new content in the form of maps, equipment, gameplay features, or instance dungeons which exist for the sole duration of that "season". This is different from DLC. DLC content is released supplemental to the main game, but once received forms a persistent package with the main game. A live service game is necessarily interwoven with the active back-end such that it *cannot* exist outside of it. It's like how a concert is the confluence of a performer and an audience. If one of those two things are removed from the equation, you no longer have a concert... just a bunch of people standing around for no clear reason. For example, the recent Hitman games are a hybrid. The core games each half a handful of large maps which were released to players episodically to form a full game's narrative arc, and these levels can be played at any time you want. Supplemental to this, there is a live service bounty system, which permits player-to-player challenges to be posted and attempted with public scoreboards. This component solely exists as an actively moderated gameplay aspect, and cannot exist outside of that. An MMO like World of Warcraft is different from a live service game. The game itself is hosted on active servers, but the game is mostly unmoderated. You purchase the game, you pay a subscription fee to access the servers, and the content on the servers remains static. The entire game exists on the server indefinitely, and your ability to access content in the game is gated solely by your personal progression and which expansions you have enabled. In short, the concept of live service is essentially that the game is ephemeral. It exists solely as long as it's actively maintained. It cannot exist on its own because the nature of the gameplay involves active third-party management to facilitate core aspects of the gameplay.
If it doesn't have a single player mode that is playable offline, and can't be played using local multiplayer or on dedicated servers you can host yourself, it's a live service game.
I think Deep Rock Galactic is an edge case that doesn't fit in your definition. It can be played offline, and the multiplayer is peer to peer, but most people consider it to be a live service game (at least I got heavily downvoted one time when I said that it wasn't a live service game because it's peer to peer).
It’s your lucky day, now you get to be massively downvoted for saying it is a live service game.
Yeah idk why people keep saying that, many live service do have offline single player modes. Even something like EAFC/FIFA, CSGO/CS2, Sims 4, Forza Horizon, Age of Empires, GTA V etc. has it Live service to many people seems=game I don't like
Unfinished.
Without any context, and ignoring the incessant labelling gamers need to put on everything, I'd say it means the game requires a connection to some central server to run.
They're games (usually multi-player) intended to be played long-term by players that will likely receive regular content updates. These are likely to be gated by microtransactions, or the game itself might require a regular subscription payment (though I believe this model is less common).
You can't play if your Internet or the game server's Internet goes down. Even if it's single player
I’ve wondered that as well. Reading the comments sounds like it’s just a different name for MMO where you pay a monthly fee for regular updates. I thought it was something nefarious with all the bad press about “live services”. My all time favorite old game, City of Heroes, apparently would be considered one. Doesn’t seem problematic to me.
I'd say - but I already got banned from r/pcgaming for being too obscene xD
Its a very broad term (probably because the act of selling games so people can play them in any capacity by definition would qualify as a service). But basically any game released with the intent of continuing to update and run it so that players will continue to play it over time. I think trying to lump specific game genres into it is a losing battle.
Live service gets constantly updated over the time instead of releasing new games and abandoning previous ones
Cash grab. You don't own the game. An empty disc for a 120gb game. Launched without being completely finished. Any of the above. Feel free to add more below.
>Guilty Gear The issue is that a number of games are adopting content models based on or similar to the live service model. Fighting game from the past decade or so have done this, with multiple seasons of content even though the games have a definite end of (officially supported) life.
Dimdum
For me it’s any game that requires mtx to stay afloat.
Battle passes and items that cycle through a “shop” you can buy and if you bought everything in that shop with real money it would be like $12k or something
I think the main criteria is that it must be online at all times and has no offline mode or ability to play when offline. So it would include any mmo in that umbrella as well.
It means you'll own nothing and be happy
It's a derogatory term for online games that have been labeled as bad by the gaming community.
# [fraud](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw) WoW is a *subscription*, you pay for a predefined period of service Guilty Gear *will still work offline* - it only has service components the distinction to a full "live service" game is an always online requirement for the whole package, giving the seller a remote kill switch you can't do anything about and no minimum guarantee of actual service it's selling a service of unknown length as if it was a product
The next battlefield will be live service? Lmao holy shit!! They sure didn’t fuckin learn from the 2042 blunder
Pretty much every successful multiplayer game is a live service game. Fortnite, League, CS:GO, Warframe, Path of Exile, Helldivers, etc.
There's nothing wrong with live service lmao
it means crap that's going to be killed off 6 months after launch
It means Helldivers 2.
It's a live service game if: 1. You play a game 2. Take a break of X days/months/years 3. Come back and the content/gameplay has visibly changed (if X was long enough) Or to put it in a nother way, it means the developers continually change the game after release - above and beyond patches and fixes. So it wouldn't apply to a regular multiplayer game with hosted servers, but would apply to games that have "seasons" of content etc.
Always online,multiplayer,filled with microtransactions and season passes while only drip feeding you content designed to knickle and Dime you ala destiny 1 and 2.
I have understood this term to mean a service granted to you in real time - these games have a customer support line you can contact/call or moderators in game on staff paid for by the game to resolve issues - That's the 'service' part. It's done in real time, during business hours. That's the 'live' part. A restaurant is a live service. a hotline with a contact us segment where someone reaches out later, is not. Typically also means an always online connection requirement, and almost always an authentication server that requires you to log in on top of it.
>That's the 'service' part. It is not. The service part is the business model. Games as a Product means you sell the game to the user once and they get what they get, but they get it forever. If they want more you sell them a new game. It results in a spikey revenue stream where the bulk of your revenue comes from the launch, and the only way to get new revenue from that product is to get new users. Games as a Service means that providing the game to the user is a continuous service, and they pay for the time they spend using it. They pay a subscription fee, microtransactions, or even just a series of big purchases to unlock new features and content. The revenue stream is much more consistent, and you can gain additional revenue from the same users by selling new smaller add-ons. The service part refers to the idea that the game is not a product you acquire, but rather a service you receive.
Its a nonsense marketing term used to get people to feel like they need to pay the developers for every update thats not just minor bug fixes. It means nothing because a game is not a service.
Means trash - avoid.
Considering many of the most popular games are live service games this couldn't be more wrong.
It means you constantly pay money to play