There is a very wide continuum between trend setting and trend chasing. In both cases, people will look at you weird.

Trend setters are on the edge of greatness, a particular idea that has great potential, but struggling with the clear execution. They are first out of the gate, and may get credit, but it’s those just behind them that have the opportunity to learn, correct, and improve. Meridian59, Ultima Online, Everquest, and World of Warcraft fit into that model, each larger than the last.

Trend chasers are those that are late to the party and don’t quite understand why everyone is dressed in red. They then show up in red at the next party when everyone is now in blue. This is the group that only see the what and doesn’t understand the why. They may personally experience joy in the consumption of the thing, but don’t quite digest exactly why that is. I could list a dozen themepark MMOs here, but without question Wildstar is one of the best examples.

As with most trends, time is short and fickle. MOBAs are done. Auto-battlers had like 5 minutes of fame. Puzzlers are extremely rare. A small group of developers who are agile can get something decent out the door, with low overhead and some potential decent returns. A large corporation may take 4 years to get something out, by which time it’s simply too late.

I’ll pick on Anthem here for a minute, because damn, astoundingly poor leadership killed that game. The why of the co-op shooter genre should not be hard to digest. Surmounting increasingly difficult challenges as a group of people, and receiving incremental rewards hits just the right spot in the back of the brain. I get better because we get better because I get better. The why isn’t what killed Anthem. The how killed Anthem. Bugs aside (and were there ever bugs), the mechanics of group play were generally broken as the “door to entry” wasn’t tested. Individual progressing was in line with Diablo 3 at launch, meaning dozens of hours of absolute garbage for a miniscule % increment. At launch, more time was spent promoting cosmetics that addressing shortcomings. Had they paused for a year, and addressed the absolute obvious issues, I’d wager we’d still be playing Anthem today!

Today’s corporate drug of choice is live services. The need to have multiplayer content that is subsidized through micro-transactions that are time-gated. Battle passes are one thing (which makes money off FOMO), but the sheer concepts behind them that if you build it, they will pay money, is just mind blowing. I mean, I get it. Live Service games were a huge lifeline during the pandemic to keep social bonds. We are not in a pandemic, we are in a near global recession, where money spent in one place cannot be spent elsewhere. The conversation of “value vs. money vs. time” is now top of mind, and as more options are on the market, the choice of said value is multiple.

So, if I have the choice of spending $70 on say, “Skull and Bones” or “Suicide Squad”, I am in fact comparing those games to every other coop looter/shooter live service game. This is no different than Warhammer Online launching after World of Warcraft, with worse quests, more bugs, worse graphics, and poorer social tools. Or, as above, Wildstar launching with no social tools and only hardcore content. Do you understand the market segment? You’re late to the party, so you need to show up with near-perfection.

Will these games kill live service offerings? Not a chance, they are the model for today’s microtransactions and the lifeline when games cost more than $100m to develop. And honestly, live service can work! Do they remind developers that they actually need a GOOD GAME for folks to want to spend their money and stick around? That is also unlikely, at least at a large scale when you have accountants at the game development table. If it’s a good idea, and it’s well executed, people will want to play it and want to pay you for it. You can make more money with decent marketing and thoughts about monetization, but that’s after you have a good game, not before. You shouldn’t have a game mechanic that is designed to extract maximum $$$ from players (*cough* lootboxes *cough*).

Now, do I think this is the start of the end of major studios dominating the gaming space? I would wager a yes on that. Game development is democratized and has a very low barrier to entry now (Valheim had like 3 developers). The lack of quality for AAA games, combined with real world financial pressures is making people pay more attention to where to spend $70 a go. Embracer Group may be the best example of why consolidation for assets is not such a great idea if you are the asset.

In that vein, I remain optimistic about the gaming industry. Great developers are out there with amazing ideas. Navigating the chaos of the boardrooms has become unattractive, so let’s see what the new model looks like.