I wish I could pinpoint exactly when it happened. When video games stopped being about, you know, playing and started being about engagement. When finishing a game became less important than logging in every day. When the simple joy of getting lost in a new world was replaced with a never-ending grind designed to keep you addicted but never satisfied.
Because that’s what live service gaming is, at its core. It’s a psychological trap disguised as entertainment.
You don’t play these games—you maintain them, like a second job. You’re not there to experience a world, you’re there to keep up with the battle passes, the daily quests, the seasonal events, the artificial sense of urgency that makes you feel like if you don’t log in today, you’re missing out.
I’d love to blame this on one game, one decision, one singular moment when the industry pivoted into this always-on, never-ending, engagement-first, fun-second hellscape—but the truth is, it’s been creeping up on us for years. And now, we’re in too deep to escape it.
When Did This Start? Who’s to Blame?
You could argue that MMOs started it—back in the early 2000s, World of Warcraft and EverQuest figured out that keeping people playing indefinitely was more profitable than just selling a game once. Subscription models meant the longer they played, the more money they made.
Or maybe it was mobile gaming that took things too far—free-to-play games were a goldmine because they weren’t really free, were they? They were built around microtransactions, artificial grind, pay-to-win mechanics, and predatory monetization that hooked people in with a dopamine drip and kept them spending.
But if we’re being honest? The real turning point—the moment the entire AAA industry lost its goddamn mind—was the success of GTA Online and Fortnite.
Because that’s when publishers saw infinite money and said, “Oh, we need one of those.”
That’s when every major gaming company stopped seeing games as finished products and started seeing them as platforms.
That’s why Assassin’s Creed is pivoting to live service.
That’s why Suicide Squad launched as a grind-heavy loot shooter instead of an actual narrative game.
That’s why Call of Duty is less about new campaigns and more about keeping you locked into Warzone forever.
That’s why we keep getting weird, half-baked multiplayer modes forced into franchises that never needed them.
And the worst part? We let it happen.
Players Didn’t Want This—But We Enabled It Anyway
Nobody asked for this shift. Nobody ever said, “Hey, you know what I want? A *Battle Pass in Assassin’s Creed.” But we played the games anyway.
We rolled our eyes at the microtransactions but still bought the skins.
We groaned about the grind but still logged in to finish our daily quests.
We hated how games were getting more bloated, more monetized, more exhausting—but we still gave them our time.
And now, live service isn’t a trend anymore. It’s the standard.
That’s why we’re seeing an industry obsessed with metrics instead of fun.
Developers aren’t making games to be great anymore—they’re making them to be sticky.
Not to be engaging, but to drive engagement.
Not to be enjoyable, but to be played forever.
Even single-player games aren’t safe from this anymore.
Look at Hogwarts Legacy—a game that sold 20 million copies and was one of the biggest games of 2023. You’d think a hit like that would encourage more self-contained, story-driven experiences, right? Nope. Warner Bros. immediately announced that all future games will have a “heavy emphasis on live service elements.” Because why sell a game once when you can sell a live service forever?
The Live Service Crash Is Coming (But It’s Going to Take a While)
The thing about bubbles is that they always pop eventually.
Right now, publishers are sinking billions into live service—but the numbers don’t add up. The Fortnites and GTAs of the world make insane money, but the failures are piling up.
Suicide Squad flopped. Battlefield 2042 flopped. Redfall flopped. Anthem flopped.
Even Overwatch 2—a game that killed its own predecessor just to force players into a live service model—tanked so hard Blizzard had to pretend like everything was fine while quietly gutting their original content plans.
And yet, they keep trying.
The majority of live service games fail, but execs don’t care. The potential for infinite revenue is too enticing.
That’s why they’ll keep chasing it.
And that’s why we’re going to keep seeing more forced live service garbage until the industry completely collapses under its own weight.
So What Can We Do?
Honestly? Not much.
Because even if we, the angry, cynical, tired gamers, refuse to buy into this model, there are always new players getting roped in.
But we can do two things:
- Support the games that don’t do this. Every time a game like Elden Ring or Baldur’s Gate 3 drops and proves that a fully complete, single-player game can still be a massive hit, it sends a message—even if publishers don’t always want to hear it.
- Call this shit out. The more players push back, the harder it gets for companies to pretend this is what “everyone” wants. Suicide Squad bombed partly because people saw through the bullshit before launch. We need more of that.
Because at the end of the day, live service games aren’t designed to be fun—they’re designed to be profitable. And the sooner the industry realizes that players aren’t infinite ATMs, the better.