A New Survey Indicates 70% Of Game Developers Aren’t So Sure About The Sustainability Of Live-Service Games

It may or may not be surprising to players to hear that a large portion of game developers have concerns about the whole "games as a live-service" thing. In fact, according to a recent survey, about 70% of developers have concerns about “live service” titles or online games that are continually updated and sell things to players.

The survey, conducted by Omida, interviewed 600 developers between February and March of this year and went with the majority of the developers’ definition of what a live-service game is. During the survey, they discovered that 70% of devs are worried about the sustainability of these games. The numbers were further broken down by how concerned the developers were, with 39% having mild concerns and 31% being “very concerned”. Twenty-nine percent of those interviewed either weren’t concerned or were on the fence about it.

According to the survey, first reported by Game Developer, 62% of devs are worried about players getting bored and moving on to other games, with 67% noting that keeping players engaged for the long term is difficult.

With these concerns looming over them, some developers are looking at the possibility of going back to paid DLC as their primary mode. About 30% of devs participating in the survey stated this.

It’s an interesting thing to see as a lot of companies have been leaning heavily into games as a live service recently. It doesn’t seem like a bad idea to spread things out a bit more. Ideally, developers should just do what’s right for the game they’re making rather than doing what everyone else is doing. Sure, certain things are popular, but it’s not like it’s difficult to flood a marketplace and squeeze yourself out.