I don’t need every game to be an infinite experience

“Games as a service.” One of those phrases that seems like it couldn’t have existed prior to the 2010s, but is hard to escape afterward as a fan of video games (or as someone writing about ’em, of course). It’s the idea that a game isn’t over as soon as a campaign ends, but it can last indefinitely, loaded up periodically with new content and features well after launch. At least, until the publisher chooses to pull the plug on the project.

Service games can take lots of forms. Destiny and its sequel, first-person shooters. Fortnite and The Division, two wildly different takes on third-person. Driveclub and The Crew, racing games. Built as a bit of a middle ground between the MMO model and a traditional singleplayer/multiplayer experience, the games usually rely on internet connections to keep everything consistent for every player, and have the kind of designs that intend to keep people coming back — regular tasks that can be completed (and maybe recompleted), maps that get changed or replaced over time, rewards for logging in, rotating items in an in-game store. The works.

Games like these probably aren’t gonna go away in the new decade; if anything, they may end up becoming more common as we move forward into this next generation (case in point: Godfall, a next-gen title described as “the next Destiny” and “a looter-slasher,” which kinda loops the genre back toward the archetype originally set by Diablo in the 90s). But every game that builds itself as a service is making something that, while possibly long-lasting and successful, is temporary, and the way we interact with these games is increasingly becoming so as well.

The last time I talked about Destiny I described it as one of my gaming diet’s staple meals. Sometimes you get sick of eating the same thing over and over again, though, even if you’re not particularly keen on trying new foods, or just don’t really know where to start.

I still play Destiny 2 a lot, but I always end up logging in less around the beginning of the year before coming back to it later. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think it might be that Bungie’s pattern of letting the series’ largest releases drop in September means that the quarter of the year before the holidays brings the biggest changes, and it’s around January that the adjustment to the game’s new normal state brings on a desire for something new.

Last year I tried to fulfill my desire for change by playing Anthem, a game that I paid (over) full price for. The year since has not been kind to that one, especially after the game’s development troubles became public and much of the potential audience was scared away by the poor reception from players and writers. Rather than being angry that my money was wasted or begrudging EA for releasing a subpar product, I still look at it today and see bright spots of what BioWare’s development team were aiming for, and largely just wish it got the chance to turn things around, A Realm Reborn-style.

Perhaps I might get that wish, but it would probably come at the same cost that it did the original version of Final Fantasy 14: a complete wiping of the slate, the work as it once was replaced by a new state. Every MMO and service game has some degree of this — the Destiny 2 you can play in January 2020 is largely the same game that Bungie shipped in 2017, but some parts of it are gone entirely, and other parts changed to fit a modified business model.

The changing nature of these games means that the only way to experience them in their entirety is to play continuously, keeping oneself immersed as long as the developers and publishers are still releasing content. Even if updates have stopped — like in Destiny 1, which ceased development after the sequel’s release — there’s always a chance that you might have missed an in-game event with exclusive gear and gameplay, like that game’s SRL events. (You can still play the mode in private matches if you can corral some friends to play a five-year-old game, but the special loot is as good as gone if you didn’t get it when it was hot.)

The blurse of the service game is that its very nature asks players to dedicate themselves to them as forever games. Thinking of Destiny as a hobby brings with it an implication, however understated, that if you’re playing, you’re in for the long haul, and maybe at the cost of your ability to pick up something different. Playing something new or taking a break means missing out on something you could want.

Live games themselves are also built on a foundation that won’t always exist — Driveclub owners will still be able to play offline after the servers shut down in March, but the racing title’s social features, a cornerstone of Evolution Studios’ original design for the game, will be disabled. Sony’s approach to winding that one down feels generous — only time will tell how current giants like Destiny, Rainbow Six Siege, and even top dog Fortnite will handle life after their development teams move on to other projects.

My favorite video game is a single-player 3D platformer called Tiny and Big in Grandpa’s Leftovers. Even after having played through it enough to have almost 100% completed it, I’ve spent less time with it than either entry in the Destiny series — it’s four hours long, tops, maybe two if you slice through it like a real gamer. I still love it dearly for a number of reasons, and yes, I am relishing the opportunity to bring it up again.

One frequent comment (and occasional complaint) about the game is that it’s a short one, and while objectively true, the game’s set endpoint gives everything before it a definitive context. Aside from perhaps a few bug fixes, the version of Grandpa’s Leftovers from 2012 is identical to how it is in 2020, and will probably still be the same in 2028 too. The game itself is brief, but the way it exists is anything but ephemeral.

Unless something catastrophic were to happen and every copy of the game were snapped off the earth by the Infinity Gauntlet, I will always be able to play Tiny and Big. I can’t say the same for any of the games I’ve played and enjoyed that use the games as a service model — one day, maybe far off in the future or relatively soon, I won’t be able to fly my beloved Zivko Edge 540 in The Crew 2 or jump around and kick Grineer ass with Vauban in Warframe. (Okay, Warframe probably isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but still.)

Reckoning with a game’s ending while it’s still around may perhaps be a bit morbid, but it’s a reality that comes with the new normal of building games to last indefinitely. Meanwhile, titles built with definitive end points in mind are rarer than they once were, but the desire for rich experiences without the tethers of a service model is still strong. (My next gaming purchase is undoubtedly going to be Jedi Fallen Order, one success from last year that makes a strong case for single-player in the modern age.)

The earliest generations of games live on through emulation and backwards compatibility, but folks who look back to try to fondly remember the titles they played in the late 2010s may or may not be able to find what they once enjoyed. In an effort to bring a sense of infinite life to games, certain titles very well may have done the opposite, making them much harder to return to once they’ve run their course.

There’s still benefits to the live service model — players can enjoy something like Fortnite for free without necessarily having to spend a lot of money (if they can avoid the allure of admittedly creative skins and Battle Passes), and if you’re already familiar with a game, you can come back to it after some time away and still understand what’s happening with minimal trouble. But it’s not going to be the right model for every game, and players and developers alike have to understand the responsibilities that come with playing or making one. ⌘

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Hey guys! Back at it again at MTW. In case you haven’t heard, I’ve been writing video game news for GameRant.com — you can check some of my articles out here, and reading ’em helps both me and the site. Updates for this place will probably still be occasional rather than the periodical way they were at launch, but I’m gonna try to go for quality here over quantity. You know how we do it.

Also, my friend Jane just launched her own blog. Fans of anime and other ephemera will probably enjoy it.