The live service bubble seems to be at an end five years after the launch and initial success of PUBG and Fortnite.
A few hours after Sony announced they finally decided to end development on Concord, EA shared some hard truths about their live service title by Respawn, Apex Legends.
Of course, Apex Legends has been considerably more successful than Concord, and many fans and industry observers see it and Valorant as the few live service titles that managed to distinguish itself and find success in competition with Fortnite.
However, the current news surrounding this title hasn’t been as upbeat. As reported by Video Games Chronicle, EA CEO Andrew Wilson was upfront to investors about Apex Legends’ Season 22. In his words:
“Following changes to the battle pass construct, we did not see the lift in monetization we had expected. Two things have become clear in the free-to-play FPS category. First, in the competitive landscape where brand, a strong core player base and high-quality mechanics matter more than ever, Apex has proven to be a compelling franchise for us and an industry stalwart.
Second, to drive significant growth and re-engagement, large systematic change is required. We will continue to focus on retention and breadth of content in service of our global community as we work towards more significant, innovative changes in the future.”
The latter half of his statement may have motivated an investor to ask a particular question to Wilson during their financial meeting. What if EA tried to make an Apex Legends 2, instead of their current strategy of adding small upgrades and changes to Apex Legends?
Here’s what Wilson said in response:
“It’s a really good question and probably beyond the scope of this conversation, but what I would say is that typically, what we have seen in the context of live service driven games at scale, is the Version 2 thing has almost never been as successful as the Version 1 thing.”
So, Wilson didn’t name the games he was referring to here, but it certainly invites the question: does he mean Overwatch 2? After Blizzard pitched the idea of this sequel finally bringing co-op and story content, and failing to deliver it, it’s fair to say that the fans have grown to resent this sequel that supplanted the original.
Wilson went on to elaborate on the problems with making sequels to live service games in general:
“Any time we cause a global player community to have to choose between the investments they’ve made to date and future innovation creativity, that’s never a good place to put our community in, and so our objective will be to continue to innovate in the core experience, and you’re seeing that from season to season now as our seasons get progressively bigger and we’re changing kind of key modalities of play within those seasons.
And then build additional opportunities for engagement in different modalities of play beyond what the current core mechanic delivers, and we think we can do those two things together, and we won’t believe we have to separate the experience in order to do so, but again, the team is working through this now.”
You may not feel comfortable saying something like EA’s CEO understands how fans feel about live service games. But you may want to remember that Wilson works with Respawn, and is representing their shared vision of the game here.
So, when Wilson talks about the reasons fans wouldn’t like an Apex Legends 2, he is presumably saying the same things Respawn would say as well. Earlier this year, Wilson alluded to making more Apex Legends experiences beyond battle royales. While that hasn’t worked out so far, it may be what Respawn will be trying in the coming months.
Even a struggling Apex Legends is still far more successful and profitable than most other games even in the same live service genre. It’s definitely as important to EA now as their annual sports games, so you can expect Wilson and Respawn to keep trying to maintain and expand its success.
