Past live service hits do not equal future live service hits

Every time a game like Highguard craters, we wonder why the industry keeps chasing huge live-service hits when so many of them fail. For the past month I've been hearing grievances from headline-only readers about my line that "Highguard didn't flop"; I meant it as a rhetorical jab, not a flat denial—very few new shooters achieve the instant hit Highguard needed to keep the studio afloat.

Studio leaders had hoped to repeat the success of Apex Legends—many Highguard developers worked on that title—and investors naturally back teams that have made big live-service hits. But it doesn't seem to work that way: experience matters, yet quality isn't really the issue.

Highguard is fine, or so I'm told, but they specifically needed a hit, and no one knows how to manufacture those. Big companies are stumbling too.

live service, highguard, apex legends, game studios, game developers, instant hit, investors, experience, quality, hit games