Exactly. The modern GaaS gold rush is the exact same as the MMO push of the late 2000's/early 2010's.
MMO announced, devs declare it a "WoW Killer". Hypes up a bunch of features. MMO players get hyped, think they'll finally have something new/better. Game launches, people buy in the first month. Realize the game isn't the "WoW Killer" the devs claimed, realize all those new features are half baked and will take a long time to fully realize, if ever. They cancel and go back to WoW, the known quantity where they've already cultivated friendships and built multiple characters. New MMO flops, tries to salvage itself as a F2P MMO, can't, ends up shutting down.
The inevitable issues with GaaS games and MMOs is time and sunk cost fallacy. People only have so much time in a day to game and if they're already deeply invested in another live service game they're much less likely to start over on some new one.
That's part of it, but I think the bigger issue is onboarding, not just sunk cost. At a certain point these games become hostile to new players. You jump in and immediately feel like you're years behind the curve, whether it's gear, knowledge, or just understanding the systems. Even if catch-up mechanics exist, the
perception is "why bother, I'll never be on their level." That's what slowly kills growth. It's not just people going back to what they already invested in, it's new players looking around and saying "this ain't worth climbing." Meanwhile the existing player base answers to nature's call to the dirt over time.
That's the part some people miss. The games that survive don't just retain players, they constantly reset the experience or repackage it for a new generation. That's why something like Fortnite keeps pulling in fresh players while for example (I know-different genre) a lot of older MMOs slowly shrink around their core audience. Live service games don't die because players are loyal. They die because eventually no one new wants to join the party.
Notice how games like Counter-Strike 2 sidestep this entirely? There's nothing to "catch up" to because nothing carries over except skill. And it's been running for decades. Heavily monetized too, just not in a way that messes with gameplay. Skins, plus a real-money marketplace through Valve Corporation where they take a cut. That's it.
Fuck me if I know why studios don't study that playbook instead of inventing shit failure loops.
Even Call of Duty accidentally stumbled on this. Instead of trying to maintain one endlessly growing ecosystem, they just reset everything with each new release. A new game drops, everyone starts fresh, and that removes the "I'm too far behind" problem overnight. It's not that they solved live service, they just avoided the long-term onboarding issue entirely by constantly rebooting the experience.
Of course, my whole argument only works under one tiny assumption: they actually make a good fucking game that attracts old and new players alike.
