Their biggest mistake, in my opinion, was overinvesting in live service multiplayer long after that ship had already sailed.
I think that their doubling down on single-player IP makes sense, and I don't think this article is capturing the financial side of this necessarily. The article is written very much from a critic's point of view, acting as though Wolverine is already a failure as a foregone conclusion, and acting like Physint was going to be a financial success as well, which doesn't really make sense necessarily. I think they probably cut their losses on what was going to be a financial wash.
Their biggest mistake, in my opinion, was overinvesting in live service multiplayer long after that ship had already sailed.
I've said before I totally get from a business perspective investing in live service titles, but I would have maybe greenlit 4 or 5 max and wait till 2 or 3 of them released before doing more. Meanwhile Jim Ryan greenlit 14 almost back to back.
There's a tendency in business to trend chase. Once you've seen something successful, you try to replicate that success.
Call of Duty 4 came out, told the whole industry "There's a big appetite for multiplayer modern military shooters" and everyone started making those. Or, when the Popeyes chicken sandwich came out and was a massive hit, and everyone started doing chicken sandwiches.
Live Service games are different. There's room in the market for a good number of multiplayer military shooters, and definitely market space for multiple chicken sandwiches.
But live service games require a massive commitment, both from the company making it and the playerbase. Live service games require the company making it to continue to support it, forever in theory. The company needs a dedicated team to be working on the next battle pass, or banner, or event, until they eventually decide to sunset the project. This is a big, not cheap, commitment. The company needs to invest a lot of resources into it. And continue to do so.
But also the playerbase needs to be willing to come back and buy each new battle pass, or buy pulls on the new banner, or cosmetics for the new event. And do this forever.
And players don't have time to do that for, really, more than one or two live service games. The average person does not have the time to play Fortnite, and Marathon, and Genshin Impact, and Helldivers 2, and Destiny 2, and Call of Duty Warzone. The time commitment asked for by any one game is too much for the average person.
So the average person is going to pick one or two and stick with one or two. And if they pick up another, drop one of the others they were playing. The playerbase will be divided between live service games.
So, by investing in too many, you're guaranteeing too many failures. The playerbase will be split, or they'll abandon some games in favor of others. And now that team continuing to make the new content is making it for fewer players. Costs climb, revenue falls, and the project fails.
And half the players that like live service games are just not going to leave their current one anyways.
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u/Reed7525 15h ago
Anything thats happening right now, theyve done to themselves