A bad week for live service games

It was a rough week for live service games, with two studios shutting down and another ceasing content production. Which ones? Find out below. Also, do you spend more time playing games or watching videos on them? If you said the latter, you are not alone. All that and more. Let’s go! 

Live service games are dying

It seems Concord’s demise was just the beginning of a troubled year for live service games. 

Last week, three different games announced they were either shutting down or ending production of new content. The biggest is XDefiant, Ubisoft’s free-to-play shooter that launched in May. In a letter to the community, the company said that anyone who purchased the Ultimate Founder’s Pack or spent money in the game over the past 30 days would receive a full refund. Ubisoft explained their rational in a separate press release:

Despite an encouraging start, the team’s passionate work, and a committed fan base, we’ve not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market. As a result, the game is too far away from reaching the results required to enable further significant investment, and we are announcing that we will be sunsetting it.

The cancellation of XDefiant will cost 300 employees who worked on the game their jobs, as the studio behind it will also shut down. However, they are not the only studio closing. 

Sweet Bandits Studios, makers of Deceive Inc also announced that they have shut down in a forum post. 

I come today with heartbreaking news that we must share with the entirety of the Deceive Inc. community. There is no easy way to say this: The Sweet Bandits team is no more. After a long and difficult road of trying to get Deceive inc. in a state where it could thrive, we have reached the breaking point for the studio, unable to continue this adventure with you.

Finally, Foamstars, which launched in February of this year announced their next in-game season would be their last. While no new content will be added to the game going forward, the servers will remain up for “the foreseeable future,” allowing players to continue enjoying the game. 

Do you play any of these games? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Do you like to watch?

Game enthusiasts spend more time watching videos about gaming than actually playing games, according to a new report by Midia Research.

The report states that players spend 8.5 hours a week watching game-related videos, compared to 7.4 hours a week actually playing games. The industry report requires a sign-in to view, but GameIndustry.biz has a nice breakdown of the details. From their article:

The research, which Midia claims ‘highlights the untapped potential for game publishers to bring video content inside their own ecosystems,’ also claims that 24% of console/PC players and 48% of ‘in-game buyers’ watch game-related content at least monthly, with the latter considered ‘high-spending gamers.’

How do you compare? Do you spend more time watching videos of games or playing them? Let us know in the comments.

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Side Quests (more stories worth reading)

🚢 Have you recently purchased a board game on Kickstarter or another funding site? Tariffs from the incoming Trump administration could force you to pay more for these games. 

💿 Sony’s latest PlayStation 5 update brings back the original PS1 boot screen and retro themes to celebrate their anniversary. 

🔫 Fortnite is launching a 5v5 round-based competitive shooter mode this week expected to compete with games like Counter Strike. 

📈 Both Marvel Rivals and Path of Exile 2 were released last week and both are already in the 25 most played games on Steam ever. 

🌐 Speaking of: Path of Exile 2 had over one million pre-orders, and players had to deal with long queues and outages. 

🖥️ The PC system requirements for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are kinda ridiculous. 

🃏 The Witcher 3’s virtual card game Gwent will finally get a physical release 10 years after the game launched. 

🏪 Blizzard is pulling Warcraft I & II from digital storefronts, but GOG launched a preservation program to make sure those who purchased games could play them after being delisted. 

✈️ A Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 developer apologized for “what can only be described as an awful launch experience.”

🧙🏾‍♀️ Elphaba, Glinda and more playable Wicked characters are coming to the Funko Fusion game. 

😥 Life is Strange: Double Exposure developer Deck Nine is laying off staff for the second time this year. 

🎮 An ex-PlayStation boss says games should be shorter because development costs are “not sustainable.”

💰 Ubisoft owners the Guillemot family and Tencent are in talks over how to structure a potential buyout. 

🍸 A pitch video for a Lego James Bond game leaked online. 

👏🏽 EA made a number of photosensitivity and speech recognition tech patents open-source.

👨‍⚖️ Facebook is again banning advertisements from the board game company behind Votes for Women, as they launch their new Kickstarter campaign for a historical game about the U.S. Supreme Court. 

📖 GameIndustry.biz interviewed PlayStation veterans and compiled a list of stories from 30 years of PlayStation.

📊 Only 10% of new Steam games have a wishlist-to-sales conversion rate higher than 1.9%.

🧒🏽 Roblox launched its own Discord competitor. 

🤣 Headline of the week: Russian disinfo is trying to spark a boycott of Stalker 2 by claiming it's going to draft you into the war in Ukraine somehow.

New Releases this week:

Check out our article on 10 New Games to Play in December.

12/9: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Xbox and PC)
12/10: Go Home Annie (PC)
12/10: Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC)
12/10: Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC)
12/12: Skydance's Behemoth (PlayStation. PC and Quest)

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