Top 10 Greediest Things Live Service Games Have Done to Take Your Money

Script written by Caitlin Johnson

Top 10 Worst Things Live Service Games Have Done to Take Your Money

Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 worst things live service games have done to take your money.

For this list, we’re looking at all the shadiest things the publishers and developers of “games as a service” titles do to increase their bottom line.

Let us know in the comments which one you don’t want to see in future releases.

#10: Pre-Orders for Bad Games

It’s not often that blockbuster titles actually go out of stock physically, and they never go out of stock digitally, but publishers still want players to pre-order all their games and get them on release. This isn’t so bad when a game is highly anticipated and ends up being critically acclaimed, but often, players are duped by the marketing into pre-ordering what turns out to be disappointing games. Pre-ordering can sometimes feel like Russian roulette because of this, and aside from a few in-game bonuses, players gain very little from pre-ordering and taking the risk that they’ll have wasted money on a game that sucks.

#9: Confusing Season Passes

If you absolutely love a game, you might decide to cough up for post-launch content — whether that’s additional cosmetics or fully-fledged story DLC. And in general, buying a season pass will give you access to all of that – but not always. Some games won’t include all the post-launch content in a season pass, while many live service games have numerous season passes that give players access to different things. You can also pre-order editions of games with season passes included, but often, a lot of the content you’re paying for doesn’t even exist yet. Working out what season pass you need to buy in order to get certain content can be more trouble than it’s worth.

#8: Confusing Currencies

Microtransactions aren’t always a bad thing, particularly in free-to-play games where in-game transactions are the only way the game actually makes money. But microtransaction systems are still often unnecessarily complicated featuring at least two, if not more, virtual currencies. There’s the standard currency you earn by playing, and there’s the premium currency you can sometimes earn by playing, but mostly you’re expected to pay real money for. Unfortunately, the premium currency is what’s relied upon to unlock many of the better items, making the more readily available in-game currency feel worthless by comparison. Grind as hard as you might, if you want the best stuff, you’ve got to pay.

#7: In-Game Ads

EA (read as letters E.A.), a company that’s no stranger to controversy and bad press, made headlines yet again in September 2020. What did they do this time? They put actual ads inside “UFC 4” — specifically a pop-up during action replays for season 2 of “The Boys” on Prime Video. Players were understandably enraged when a $60 triple-A release featured ads. The ads were only turned on a month after the game was released, so EA was showing them to UFC’s biggest fans and the game’s most loyal players. Faced with a major backlash, EA was forced to remove the ads eventually, but many players were left in disbelief that the company actually had the gaul to try it in the first place.

#6: Identical Sequels

When you find a game you really love, you may find yourself wishing that you could just have more of that exact same thing. That’s a wish that plenty of big publishers are more than happy to fulfill. Live service games frequently get sequels that don’t innovate on their predecessors at all, seemingly serving no real purpose other than to get more money from players. “The Division 2” was derided as a pointless sequel that added absolutely nothing to the series, while being forced into making underwhelming sequels was one of the reasons Bungie took the “Destiny” IP and left Activision. These sequels leave customers feeling ripped-off and sully the reputations of the studios behind them.

#5: Always Online

While live service games are generally based around robust and fun multiplayer content that you can’t experience without an internet connection, many games that do have single-player components have gone the “always online” route. “Ghost Recon Breakpoint” forced players to always be online, despite the fact that if you want, you can play the entire game completely alone. There’s no solo, offline mode – you can’t even load in without an internet connection. This is bad for players who don’t have a high-speed or consistent internet connection, which many people can’t help. Why should people miss out on games that have perfectly good single-player gameplay because of this system?

#4: Grindy Progression

If you don’t have the means or the inclination to pay for premium currencies, the only way you can get through these games is by committing to the grind. Jumping in and out of live service games every so often is fun, but to actually get anything that feels worthwhile, you’ve got to buckle down and start grinding. Nowadays, you’re often not rewarded with cosmetics and unique items for playing a game well, but rather just for playing a game a lot. You could be the best player in the world, but if you haven’t invested dozens of hours to getting the best skins, you’ll have nothing to show for it.

#3: Loot Boxes

The biggest gaming controversy in recent memory is the addition of loot boxes. You get a virtual pack either through progression or microtransactions and in that pack is a random assortment of items — some of which you may already have, depending on the game. Many countries have investigated and even legislated against loot boxes on the basis that they’re gambling – and not just any old gambling — gambling marketed to young kids. Worse than just wanting one particular skin, however, is when loot boxes and other microtransactions give players an actual gameplay advantage. This is completely unfair to anybody who can’t or won’t pay for loot boxes and many publishers have been slammed for the practice.

#2: Unfinished Games

The promise that a live service game will eventually be good is made every time an unfinished game is released to the public for full price. Games like “Anthem”, “Fallout 76” and “Sea of Thieves” were all empty at best and completely broken at worst when they launched. People shouldn’t be encouraged to buy full-price games in the hope that someday, maybe in a few years, that game will be halfway decent to play – and there’s no guarantee that will ever actually happen. If developers want honest feedback from early builds of their game, that’s why we have alphas and betas. Releasing games in an unplayable state is bad for everybody.

#1: Upfront Costs

When live service games that are free-to-play use microtransactions as the game’s primary way to make money, that’s fine. But when a game has a full-priced retail release and then also includes predatory microtransactions, that’s just greedy. Big publishers like Ubisoft, EA, and Activision continue to charge $60 for their flagship games – and up to $70 for certain next-gen titles – and then push in-game microtransactions on players as well, trying to get as much money as possible from willing consumers. It’s not only rude but also insulting that players are asked to continue paying for a game they already paid for in full, triple-A games that are generally hugely profitable without implementing any microtransactions at all.