Sony and live service are two terms that are glued to the hip. Sony has released a lot of live service games, but it seems none of them have stuck to the wall. That’s why, in recent news, despite a lot of failures and money lost, Sony will continue to make live service games, and we ask ourselves: why?
Sony’s push for live service games
In recent news, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino stated that they will continue to pursue making more live service games. As to what they are, he couldn’t say yet. There are some live service games being developed under Sony right now.
We have Fair Games and Horizon Hunters Gathering. Both of those titles aren’t getting any praise or positive reception right now. However, that doesn’t seem to stop Sony from making them and more. The CEO also stated that they will be heavily promoting these games and the ones that they have, like Marathon.
Why is Sony doing this?
Let’s face it, live service games aren’t entirely bad. It’s the content that makes it good or bad. Take a look at live service games like Gacha Games. Genshin Impact and other Hoyo games are making a killing. They are earning up to tens of millions of dollars every month. That’s the type of money that Sony wants to make. Take a look at the image below; those are Gacha revenue earnings for the month of June 2026. That is insane that these games are making a killing, and note, a lot of them have been going on for over a year, and Genshin is reaching up to 6 years now.
Sony just needs one to lay the golden egg. If they manage to nail a live service game that makes them earn those numbers every month, then all of their losses will be recovered, and profit can be made, as long as they don’t screw it up, like what they did with Hell Divers 2; that game has since recovered, although it’s not making that amount of money. Sony will throw anything to the wall until it sticks.
What could make a live service game good?
Here, we’re just brainstorming; after all, we aren’t making live service games. Think of these as just suggestions that will make a good live service game.
Make the concept simple or interesting
Live service games that are successful are simple and straight to the point. You have the biggest one, which is Fortnite. It’s a shooter with last man standing elements. There’s Genshin Impact, which is an action RPG with story-driven mechanics. Make the concept enough to hook in players.
Don’t focus on or market any of the unnecessary things
Make sure to always focus on the important things. These would be gameplay mechanics, monetization plans, story, and more. Don’t focus on things that don’t matter because that might turn off potential players, especially now when players are so hostile against political and identity materials.
Make it free if possible
Sony can make their games free. Their biggest failure, Concord, had a price, and that bombed horribly. They can focus on making the game good enough, so when it’s free, a lot of players will join in. When the game is that good, they can then set up their shop to be profitable on their end. Quality first before the plans to make any money in the process.
