games

I still remember the live service Ace Combat game, Ace Combat Infinity. Basically the developers of Ace Combat (Project Aces) were broke because they decided to turn their narrative driven, fictional universe, fighter jet videogame into Call of Duty with fighter planes, with United States vs Russia WW3 nonsense to top it off. This game, Assault Horizon, pretty much killed the franchise. So Ace Combat Infinity was created as a free to play live service game in a desperate attempt to raise funds so that the franchise could continue with a new mainline game eventually. (Spoilers, the plan succeeded, Ace Combat 7 came out and was a big it).

The gameplay of Ace Combat Infinity basically consisted of single player missions from the Playstation 2 Ace Combat trilogy, remastered to PlayStation 3 graphics and played online with other players acting as your teammates. There were two competing teams, and whoever got the highest score won. While it was fun, the free to play elements were a rip off financially, and there was little new content. The playerbase didn't really mind though, because Project Aces were very transparent about their intentions with Infinity. But there was some value in re-playing classic missions live Stonehenge and Avalon Dam with friends online with HD graphics. But now that's all shut down and it's impossible to play the game. So all that is lost. (Ironic for a game with Infinity in its name).

But the point is for me, that this really reveals the nature of live service and free to play games. They exist to make the most money possible first, and as art second, if at all. The only reason Project Aces even made a game like this was as a last ditch attempt to keep the lights on and their game series alive. They saw this game genre as an emergency cash injection. And they show no intentions of making another live service or free to play game in future. Thst to me really speaks to the nature of these live service games. That game developers see this type of game, the same way we say cheap and dirty ways to get money.