PlayStation’s First Wave of Live Service Games Failed to Impress

wccftech.com:

For a long time, Sony's PlayStation division based much of its success on the highly successful single player action/adventure games produced by its first-party studios. Games like Uncharted, The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, and Ghost of Tsushima delivered excellent narrative-driven experiences that were acclaimed by critics and consumers alike, each of them selling millions of copies while helping the sales of PlayStation hardware, too.

However, following in the footsteps of big third-party publishers like Ubisoft, EA, Activision Blizzard, and Take-Two, Sony eventually realized it would have to invest in live service games as this category slowly but surely gained market share with every passing year.

In early 2022, Sony told its investors of the plan to release ten live service games by March 2026. To reach this objective, the PlayStation division began a series of big investments and acquisitions, such as Bungie, Haven, Firewalk, Deviation.

However, the past couple of weeks have painted a less than flattering picture of the first wave of live service games developed by the PlayStation studios.

To start with, Deviation was hit with layoffs, and it is believed that their first project has been canceled. Earlier this week, the PlayStation Showcase event provided first looks at some of the live service games, such as Haven's FAIRGAME$ and Firewalk's Concord, but neither impressed.

The FAIRGAME$ trailer looked way too similar to Creative Assembly's Hyenas, for example, to the point where the average user may well be confusing one with the other. Moreover, it was disappointing to see Jade Raymond's team working on yet another heist shooter based on a 'steal from the rich people' concept (as if