The frenzy surrounding live‑service games that dominated the industry for much of the last ten years is now well‑documented. The belief that every title should be turned into a live‑service experience – the sheer absurdity of assuming all games could function as ongoing, revenue‑generating platforms – has drained billions of dollars, consumed countless development hours, and eroded both consumer goodwill and the intrinsic value of many intellectual properties. Major publishers and platform owners spent years combing through their libraries, convinced that somewhere among their existing franchises lay the next Fortnite‑scale cash cow.
While everyone recognized the razor‑thin odds of success, the logic was that a single blockbuster would offset a slew of failures. This reasoning proved faulty for several intertwined reasons. First, the actual hit‑rate for live‑service titles was vastly overstated, leading to an under‑appreciated risk profile. Second, the market’s capacity to sustain multiple large‑scale live services at once was grossly miscalculated.
Most importantly, many executives failed to grasp how extraordinarily difficult it is to run a successful live service and how quickly a title can swing from profitability to player backlash. The fallout was industry‑wide.
Few companies escaped unscathed; many are still grappling with financial strain caused by over‑investment in these high‑risk ventures. The most visible consequences—layoffs, cancelled projects, studio shutdowns—have fallen on the workers and teams with the least influence over the strategic missteps that led to them. While many firms felt the tremors of the live‑service craze, Sony stands out as the emblematic case study. When historians write about this era, Sony will likely occupy an entire chapter.
The company’s aggressive pivot toward live services epitomizes the broader industry failures: an ambitious promise to launch a dozen live‑service games by March, followed by a prolonged, embarrassed retreat marked by disastrous launches and project cancellations. Jason Schreier’s recent report on Guerrilla Games’ "Horizon Hunters Gathering" offers a micro‑cosm of the larger blunder.
The article not only highlights the immediate financial and resource waste but also underscores a deeper, often overlooked cost: the opportunity cost that will haunt Sony for years. According to Schreier, Hunters Gathering performed so poorly in internal testing that it is being re‑engineered as a traditional multiplayer game, stripping away its live‑service components. This is not an isolated case; "Dragon Age: The Veilguard" reportedly underwent a similar transformation from a live‑service concept to a single‑player experience late in development. What makes this situation particularly striking is that Guerrilla has devoted its entire post‑DLC effort on Horizon: Forbidden West to Hunters Gathering.
Consequently, there is currently no major sequel to the Horizon franchise in active development. Whether Hunters Gathering ever sees release, its true cost to Sony extends far beyond the budget allocated.
The real price is that Guerrilla, one of PlayStation’s most acclaimed first‑party studios, will not deliver a flagship exclusive for the PS5 era. Horizon: Forbidden West debuted at the tail end of the PS4 lifecycle, spanning both PS4 and PS5; its successor will likely not appear until well into the PS6 generation.
This represents a catastrophic misstep. Horizon was a massive hit for Sony, part of a suite of first‑party blockbusters that kept the PS4’s library fresh and demonstrated PlayStation’s ability to both launch new franchises and revitalize older ones. Yet studios renowned for crafting expansive single‑player experiences were redirected from above to produce live‑service titles using their IPs. The predictable failure of those projects now means that, for at least half a decade, some of Sony’s premier studios have little to show for their efforts.
Guerrilla is not alone. Observers can spot similar gaps across Sony’s release calendar, suggesting that the live‑service push has stalled other studios as well.
Naughty Dog, for instance, has not released a new original title since 2020; its PS5 releases have been remasters while a planned "Last of Us" live‑service game was cancelled. (Studios like Sucker Punch and Santa Monica have apparently dodged this curse, and there will likely be insider stories about how they managed it.) The erosion of PlayStation’s first‑party pipeline comes at an especially inopportune moment.
The perception that the PS5 lacks compelling exclusive games has become a meme, and while the console still boasts a sizable library, the absence of key franchises is undeniable. This perception will linger precisely when Sony is trying to persuade consumers to invest in what is expected to be the most expensive console in its history in the near future. Sony now appears to be in damage‑control mode, attempting to revert to the development approach that served it well during the PS4 era and to salvage what it can from the wreckage of the live‑service experiment and the multi‑billion‑dollar Bungie acquisition that was supposed to fuel it.
However, modern game development pipelines require years of lead time; no amount of capital can conjure a robust lineup overnight. Ironically, Sony faces a challenge similar to Microsoft’s early‑generation struggles: high‑quality releases must be planned half a decade in advance, and retroactive fixes are rarely sufficient. When billions flow through the upper echelons of the gaming industry, it’s easy to dismiss strategic blunders as mere line‑item fluctuations—ten million here, a hundred million there—absorbed into quarterly earnings.
Opportunity cost, however, does not appear on an accountant’s balance sheet. Having top‑tier studios waste years on a misguided side quest and miss an entire console generation inflicts a lasting wound on the brand, the business, and the relationship with consumers. That impact will endure long after the cancelled live‑service title fades from memory. In the annals of industry missteps, Sony’s ill‑judged pivot may ultimately be recorded as the most costly error of all.