Over the years, there’ve been various red flags in gaming, for me at least. Multi-media. Full-Motion Video. Day-One DLC. Microtransactions. The latest one is Live Service Game. I find the idea repulsive because it immediately tells me this is an online-required affair, even if it doesn’t warrant it. There’s no reason for some games to require an internet connection when the vast majority of activities they provide can be done in a single-player fashion. So I suspect Live Service Game to be less of a commitment to truly providing updated worthwhile content and more about DRM. Instead of imposing Denuvo or some other loathed 3rd party layer on your software, why not just require internet regardless of whether it brings value to customer?
What do you think about Live Service Games? Do you prefer them to traditional games that ship finished, with potential expansions and DLC to follow later?
In theory yes, but in reality, plenty of games shipped unpolished in the physical media era.
You are completely correct
I’ve been playing a bunch of old NES and SNES games, and they all could use a few patches. Many are buggy as hell.
They were still cranking out unfinished trash back then because the cover art and box description was all we had to go by. No refunds on opened games, your money was gone and you had no hope of it ever getting better.