Sell First, Finish Later

(Anthem Official Cover Art. Property of EA Games)

There are reasons why old games are considered more “finished” than modern ones. The main problem is that they can’t update the game without releasing a newer edition, new premium-priced disks, or arcade machines, so the developers must really polish the product before shipping. Codes were simpler because assets and gameplay aren’t as complex. Also, there wasn’t a platform for fans to report on game-breaking issues, maybe in some local nerdy communities or niche magazines, but surely it wouldn’t appear on mainstream media.

But things changed when the internet became popular and good enough for online gaming. Updates and patches were getting frequent, no need to buy new editions, just wait patiently. Bugs, glitches, or errors can be reported directly to the developers. Platforms such as Reddit can gather mass opinions about issues, or even discuss highly-requested features with like-minded players all around the globe. You might think this is great. Everything is faster, so games should be completed packages, playable right away, correct?

Let’s see the harsh reality. Because games can be patches, companies got a bright idea of releasing games without finishing them. There’s the term “Live Service” which means the company “promised” the game will get content updates for many months or years (divided into seasons) after release. What those games ended up being were lackluster shells of what was promised. In the present, I think most games can be considered live service. MMO and multiplayer games obviously need extra content updates to keep the player base engaged. Other kinds are premium-priced single-player games with an integrated online store for microtransactions or some daily challenges to grind. I would categorize live-service games into 2 types, finished and unfinished. The finished kind is games like Dying Light, Assassin’s Creed Origins, and Destiny. These games work fine. Maybe they have some imperfections, but the core experience is complete, only to be enhanced by new updates. But I am not here to parade the good stuff. I am here to examine the lowest-tier failures that make me reconsider my life choice as a gamer.

The unfinished kind is harder to define. In a not-so-bad case, It can be that the game simply failed to meet the player’s expectations like Square Enix’s The Avengers, but in the worst case, the game is full of glitches, making it unplayable and straight-up failed to deliver the promised product. Anthem was the first example that came to my mind. Believe me when I say the excitement behind it was insane. People went on a full hype train when Bioware, the creator of the classic series Dragon Age and Mass Effect, announced a 10-year-plan scifi game project. Turned out when a game that was promised wasn’t being sold, people lost attention (Forbes detailed the failure here). The project was beyond saving, deemed not worthy of time and resources. Anthem got abandoned a mere two years after release.

(Call of Duty Vanguard Zombies Promotional Art. Property of Activision)

Call of Duty Vanguard’s launch was fine, the campaign and multiplayer work, but the zombie mode, which people were excited about, was reduced into a side content voided of meaningful gameplay or progression. Many content creators already had voiced their frustration with the game like in these videos by Bricky and PrestigeIsKey. CoD Vanguard Zombie was criticized heavily because it removed the fan-favorite endless survival maps and replaced them with one objective-based map. Weapons don’t get new visuals after packing-a-punch (upgrading them). This was obviously seen by the community as a downgrade, so much so that the developer has to apologize and add those features back. I can see that they are trying to do the “evolving narrative” style, which means the game being live service would make people hype for the next content update. But that shouldn’t come at the expense of a game being completed on release. You can’t release a half-baked product and expect people to be happy about spending their $60.

(Battlefield 2042 Art on Epic Games Store. Property of EA Games)

Meanwhile, another failure of the same caliber came out in 2022 in a form of Battlefield 2042, an AAA game by the same company that published Anthem. Maybe they thought they were too big to fail, people would buy a $60 game anyway regardless of quality. They were dead wrong. The Steam’s player counter is on a decline, even lower than smaller games day by day. Refund requests piling up, so much so that Steam lets people refund even after the 2 hours limit period. The dev has to add back removed features back (in this case, a scoreboard), similar to CoD. Yet as you know, people aren’t very happy when updates add back what was supposed to be in the game instead of new content.

The problem with live service is that games are prioritized to be mainly about business, to generate revenue over time. A single-player, offline game can be fixed with patches from time to time, with no need for much maintenance. But a live-service game requires a server to be operatable, needs a team of artists to create new assets, and also needs a steady player base to justify the investment. If the project can’t sustain the heavy cost, what’s the point of keeping the game running? In order to maintain the player base, the game has to provide enough content for players to continue playing until the next update. “Enough content” is very crucial. In a single-player game, I believe players are more forgiving and understanding about being able to knock down tasks within a short period. But in a game that is advertised to be a live service, they expect the game to be content-rich enough out of the box so that they are assured the game won’t be abandoned or suffer a content drought before the next update. It makes sense that players would leave if the game doesn’t offer enough. Thus the cycles begin. The game got released unfinished, players leave, players don’t come back, the game can’t sell microtransactions, the game either fail or have relatively smaller updates than before.

Games have to change. It is undeniable that everything has to adapt to a new landscape to stay relevant. Yet despite all the good new techs can do, companies see the advancement of the internet and online gaming as opportunities to sell promises of future finished products instead of actual finished products. That’s a toxic trend of this generation. Companies try to “evolve” their franchises by making new installments diverge so much from what the fans like, then make updates to add those things back, going two steps ahead and three back. So in the end, players have to voice their concerns. Don’t imagine the best-case scenario every time a game releases as a beta. Companies have to be nudged. They have to hear what the consumers think, not just praise, but criticism. After all, games are fun first, business second. I have to thank the internet too for how backlashes and hashtags can actually reach the developers. So I hope everyone aspires to not replicate another Anthem forever, only let it stay dead as a cautionary tale.