The recent wave of lay-offs shaking the industry should not be a surprise to anyone. During the covid era games saw huge growth across the board in terms of players, playtime, and spending – a boom where the industry grew by 8% and market cap approached $200 billion. And, failing to look at the bigger picture, many game makers and investors thought this upward trend would continue, seeing a 2.6% year-over-year increase in global games market revenue between 2021 and 2023.

As we are seeing, they were wrong. As players return to commutes and office life, and the economy swings away from casual spending and time becomes scarce again, players in turn have less time, money, and attention to give games. The industry grew by about 1% in 2023, with the market size increased by little more than a rounding error. This spells disaster for overstaffed, over-invested studios eager to catch and retain players. But the problem is not the player base, the market or even the economy, the problem is these game’s principal product design:

That games should capture a player and be the player’s only game. In this market, it is having the opposite effect, because right now, players don’t want that, and the rise in games like Bladers Gate 3 and PalWorld shows this.

Live service games that seek to monopolize players are instead driving away potential customers. Diablo IV, Battlefield 2024, Overwatch 2 were all built around this model and as a result, their designs disappointed. Games engineered to be the sole focus of a player's free time can lead to unhealthy gaming habits, such as excessive playtime, and reduce the time spent on other important activities or with other communities.

Live service games that often employ heavy daily tasks and limited-time events that create a sense of obligation and FOMO alienate casual players. This discourages players from experiencing other games for fear of falling behind in their primary games. Complex systems like battle passes, seasonal challenges, and reputation tires that intertwine gameplay progression and social standing. As a result, we see games “burning out” players, rather than rewarding them with fun.

The result is a diminishing game ecosystem, where experiences become homogenous, and players rapidly become non-customers. Faced with a limited player base, creativity, and innovation in the industry plummets, as studios feel compelled to follow successful formulas rather than experiment with new ideas. The data and dialogue in the community has shown us what players want, and it is not to be chained to one game by the watch and the wallet. Players are sick of it.

And this puts our entire industry at risk. When developers focus on capturing and retaining a player base for a single title, it leads to a volatile market where the success or failure of a single game can have significant financial implications. This then limits the resources and opportunities for smaller studios or for developing new and innovative titles, as the market becomes saturated with a few dominant live service games.

This is not hyperbole, this is an analysis of the last 3 years of gaming. And now we are seeing the effects. Novel games that had no player monopolization tactics have dominated the last year, while live service games designed like cages have been financial and critical failures.

For the games industry to succeed and evolve we need to abandon the idea that players should only play one live service game, and instead learn from the last few years that we should reward players for being a part of many games, many communities, and many experiences. Designs built to be shared, experiences that reward a diverse and more casual player base, episodic and digestible content direction – This is the only way to stabilize our increasingly global, diverse, and dynamic industry.

Of course I could be wrong, and I encourage you to disagree.

For the game industry to succeed, stop trying to monopolize players