Sony big live service push? Well… That is a nice way of saying something did not quite go according to plan. CFO Lin Tao had to admit that the very aggressive move into the live service gaming world has not been a smooth voyage. And gamers versus the company? Oh boy, they have plenty to say about it.
It all began with this very short tweet of Sony acknowledging that it had been somewhat of a struggle, and the replies? Damn, there were some brutal ones. One says it was “probably the biggest understatement in gaming history,” while another tells Sony to get rid of the live service altogether and stick back to single-player exclusives; the community has gone full on without holding back on this. One player even sarcastically pointed out that “the execs making 100 times our salaries” are only now realizing something the rest of us have known for years. That stung.
Now, rewind a little—what’s this big live service push all about, and why’d it manage to piss off just about anybody? For a few years now, Sony has, in theory, been building its games around retaining players months into their launch and buying from the in-game store for one kind of rubbish or the other. The good ol’ but forever polarizing format of live service games: let’s think of Destiny 2 with a sprinkle of Sony IPs for good measure. The problem? Well, the majority of them have been outright flops or delayed further down the road, leaving the player base wondering why Sony is pursuing trends instead of just going back to what made PlayStation great at the very inception.
And the reactions? The reactions-to-be-considered are pure gold. There are those side-lining the stumble with much joy; for example, someone tweeted, “good, we don’t want it. make it flop.” There are those who lament what could have been with the canceling of Factions 2, the much overdue multiplayer mode for The Last of Us. Then, there are the sarcastics, including one who responded with a snarky “You don’t say…” and attached a GIF of someone facepalming. Classic.
But one thing is for certain: Sony is surely not sweating bullets over this drama. To continue from the reply which questioned the financial pie Sony is sitting on, a few live service stumbles are far from those which could ever bring it down. Hence the backlash; it is loud and real. Players want more single-player blockbusters like God of War and Spider-Man and not another half-baked ground grindfest.
So what next? Simple: there remain a few live service titles in Sony’s pipeline, such as Fairgame$ and Marathon. Given the current news, they likely have a steep hill to climb. Can’t say the gamers aren’t skeptical; indeed, they’re beyond skeptical, and seeing as how Microsoft is about as successful at live services as Sony (RIP Redfall), who knows? We might actually get our course correction after all.
At the end of the day, this Sony acknowledgment marks a rare moment in industry history when a corporation has openly admitted it genuinely went wrong for the very few. Will they listen to the players? That will be the question. But at least, for now, the message reverberates: resume doing what works; stop trying to force-feed us with late-phase live service slop.
One thing that comes with a reassuring silver lining out of it is that we were gifted with some truly hilarious tweets.
