Many ‘endless’ games are failing or losing thousands of players – The developer of a shooter on Steam believes that changes in the genre are urgently needed.

Many service games are currently not doing well. Games are becoming cash pits or struggling to win over their players. One developer now explains: games urgently need to change to remain attractive. Because the market is evolving and “endless games” must do so as well.

What does the market look like at the moment? “Endless” games, also known in technical terms as “live service games”, rely on constantly delivering new content. However, this principle no longer works as well as it used to:

• Apex Legends has recently suffered from declining player numbers.
• Concord has become a cash pit for Sony and has spectacularly failed.
• Games like Destiny 2 and The First Descendant are struggling to keep their players engaged.

The lead legend designer of Apex Legends, Devan McGuire, stated that Apex “absolutely” needs to evolve, as players eventually move on. All service games need to evolve so that they do not disappear from the market.

In an interview about the launch of Apex Legends Season 24, a new adrenaline shot that enhances every single weapon in the game, VideoGamer asked Respawn Entertainment (the studio behind Apex Legends) whether the massive gameplay change was necessary given the significant problems.

Games need to change to remain successful

What the developer said: It’s no longer enough to always deliver the same content because the players will also change. Sure, there are still regular players who have been playing a title since the beginning and will continue to do so. But one must also engage newcomers and keep older players interested so that they do not quit:

The longer a live service game exists, the more it needs to adapt to changes in the audience. We have a lot of core players who have been with us since season one. For Respawn, the best way to achieve this is to provide players with a significant meta change regularly, which offers a reset regarding the importance of skills in Apex.

There are specifically three target groups that should not be forgotten:

• Core players, as they have been around for years and ensure steady revenue. This is what McGuire means by “serving our core”.
• The second group is the people who are playing the title for the first time.
• And the third group consists of individuals who are returning and want to know what has happened in the past weeks, months or years.

And the goal must be to “provide a really good entry point for players who may be returning, haven’t played for a while, or are even new players.” And this is something that, according to McGuire, is truly necessary, otherwise there will be no success in the market.

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But it’s not just service games that are flopping mercilessly in the market: Unknown 9: Awakening was supposed to be the next big thing for Bandai Namco. They wanted to release not only games but also comics and books for the universe. However, despite the efforts, nothing is coming of it, as the game is a flop: The next big gaming flop on Steam and PS5 after Concord comes from the company behind Dark Souls