The commercial appeal of a game people play indefinitely is obvious – continuing revenue instead of a single purchase. Nearly every large publisher has pursued it.
The constraint is that players have a limited number of games they can sustain simultaneously, and that number is small.
The winner-takes-most dynamic
A live service game requires regular play to keep pace with its content and its social element. Most players sustain one, occasionally two.
That means the market does not divide proportionally. A handful of established titles absorb nearly all the available time, and new entrants compete for a very small remainder.
What has happened as a result
Well-made, well-funded live games shutting down within a year of launch. Not because they were bad, but because they could not displace an incumbent that players had already invested hundreds of hours in.
The switching cost is the barrier. Leaving a game where you have progress and friends is expensive in a way that has nothing to do with quality.
The cost of failure
Higher than for a conventional game. A live service title requires infrastructure, a content pipeline, and a team maintained after launch. If the audience does not arrive, all of that is sunk with no back catalogue value.
The shift beginning
Some publishers returning to finite, complete games sold once, on the reasoning that a modest reliable return beats a small chance at an enormous one.
Others are targeting smaller communities deliberately rather than attempting to become the game everyone plays.
What players get
Probably better. Finite games that respect your time compete on quality rather than on retention mechanics, and the second category has produced most of the industry’s least defensible design.