Digital Extremes CEO says publishers hit "eject too soon" on live-service games
"We've seen this with amazing releases that I think have massive potential"
Digital Extremes CEO Steve Sinclair has spoken out about live-service games and his belief that publishers hit "eject too soon" when their games fail to gain traction at launch.
In an interview with VGC, Sinclair – who heads the studio developing 11-year-old free-to-play live-service shooter, Warframe – talked frankly about live-service projects, saying games with "massive potential" have been abandoned too soon because they weren't given enough time.
"[Large game companies] think the release is make or break, and it's not," Sinclair said.
"They have a financial way to be persistent, and they never do it. It comes out, doesn't work, and they throw it away.
"Isn't that a shame when you put so many years of your life into iterating on those systems or building technology or building the start of a community, and because the operating costs are high, you get terrified when you see the numbers drop and you leave," Sinclair added.
"We've seen this with amazing releases that I think have massive potential, and I think they eject too soon."
Tencent recently announced it is shutting down its free-to-play live-service shooter, Synced, one year to the day after it launched. This follows other prolific live-service closures like Anthem and Babylon's Fall.