The frenzy surrounding live‑service games has been well‑documented by now. The notion that every title should be turned into a continuously updated service – an idea that bordered on madness – has drained billions of dollars, countless developer hours, and eroded both consumer goodwill and the intrinsic value of many intellectual properties. Executives chased a mirage, believing that somewhere in their extensive libraries lay the next Fortnite‑style cash cow, and poured resources into that pursuit despite the odds being astronomically low.
Major publishers and platform owners spent years mining their back‑catalogues, convinced that a hidden gem could be transformed into a blockbuster live‑service franchise. The risk calculations were wildly optimistic: the success rate of such projects was over‑estimated, the market’s capacity to sustain several big‑budget live services at once was vastly overstated, and the sheer difficulty of running a thriving service was grossly underestimated.
The margin between a profitable, beloved service and a despised, money‑draining flop proved to be razor‑thin. The fallout was industry‑wide. Companies that once seemed untouchable now bear scars – layoffs, cancelled projects, studio shutdowns – often borne by employees who had little say in the strategic missteps that led to those outcomes. While many firms felt the tremors of the live‑service craze, Sony stands out as the most conspicuous example of the era’s excesses.
Its aggressive pivot toward live services epitomises the broader industry failure, from the bombastic promise to launch a dozen live‑service titles by March of this year to the subsequent series of under‑whelming releases and abrupt cancellations. Jason Schreier’s recent investigation into Guerrilla Games’ "Horizon Hunters Gathering" provides a micro‑cosm of the larger problem.
The project, originally conceived as a live‑service multiplayer experience, performed so poorly in internal testing that it is now being re‑engineered into a traditional multiplayer title without any live‑service components. This is not an isolated case; similar mid‑development pivots have occurred, such as the transformation of "Dragon Age: The Veilguard" from a live service into a single‑player game. What makes this situation particularly striking is Schreier’s claim that Guerrilla has devoted almost all of its post‑DLC effort on "Horizon: Forbidden West" to "Hunters Gathering." In effect, the studio has no flagship sequel in the works. Whether or not the reworked title ever launches, the opportunity cost to Sony is staggering.
Guerrilla, one of PlayStation’s most celebrated first‑party studios, will not deliver a major exclusive for the PS5 in the near term. The sequel to "Horizon: Forbidden West," which debuted at the tail end of the PS4’s lifecycle and was released on both PS4 and PS5, will likely be delayed well into the PS6 generation.
This delay represents a catastrophic misstep. The "Horizon" series was a cornerstone of Sony’s success on the PS4, delivering a steady stream of must‑play exclusives and proving that PlayStation’s internal studios could both birth new franchises and rejuvenate older ones. Yet, after years of delivering blockbuster single‑player experiences, these studios were ordered from above to repurpose their beloved IPs into live‑service experiments. The predictable failure of those experiments now means that several top‑tier studios have effectively produced little of value over the past five years.
Guerrilla is not the only studio feeling the squeeze. Observers have noted conspicuous gaps in Sony’s release calendar that likely stem from the same live‑service mandate. Naughty Dog, for example, has not shipped a new original PS5 title since 2020; its recent releases have been remasters while a planned "Last of Us" live‑service project was quietly cancelled. Other first‑party teams such as Sucker Punch ("Ghost of Yotei") and Santa Monica Studio ("God of War") appear to have escaped the worst of the curse, but insiders suggest there are compelling stories behind how they managed to avoid the pitfall.
The timing of this pipeline disruption could not be worse for Sony. The perception that the PS5 lacks compelling, new exclusives has become a meme, and even if the console still boasts a sizable library, the absence of marquee titles from its most celebrated studios is palpable.
This perception will linger precisely when Sony is attempting to persuade consumers to invest in what is likely to be the most expensive console iteration in its history. In response, Sony seems to be entering a damage‑control phase, attempting to revert to the development philosophy that powered the PS4’s golden era while salvaging whatever remains of the costly live‑service experiment and the multi‑billion‑dollar Bungie acquisition that was meant to underpin it. However, modern game development pipelines require years of advance planning; no amount of cash can instantly conjure a robust slate of high‑quality releases if work did not begin half a decade ago.
This mirrors the challenge Microsoft faced when it entered the current generation, underscoring that even deep pockets cannot shortcut the creative process. Financial analysts often dismiss strategic blunders as mere line‑item fluctuations – ten million here, a hundred million there – absorbed into quarterly earnings. Yet opportunity cost is not a figure that appears on a balance sheet.
When flagship studios waste years on ill‑conceived side projects, the loss extends far beyond immediate expenditure. It erodes brand equity, weakens the bond with consumers, and leaves a void that competitors can exploit. In the long run, the damage to Sony’s reputation and its ability to deliver must‑play exclusives may prove far more costly than any direct financial loss. In the annals of gaming history, the most expensive mistake may well be Sony’s ill‑judged pivot away from its proven single‑player expertise toward a live‑service model that never delivered.
The ripple effects – delayed sequels, missing exclusives, and a weakened first‑party pipeline – will likely be felt for years, shaping the competitive landscape of the next console generation.