Nearly 11 years after the launch of Destiny 1, former Bungie CEO Harold Ryan believes the live-service game model isn't "appropriate for all games."
Ryan, who spent over 15 years at Bungie before eventually leaving in 2016 to found his own company, ProbablyMonsters, says in a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz that "I think that model is appropriate for some games, but I don't think it's appropriate for all games." He adds: "I believe consumers are telling us it's not appropriate for all consumers."
Looking at the games industry, the live-service fatigue is real. Many live-service games have sadly been shut down after failing to meet expectations. Concord is perhaps the most famous recent example, and a particularly appropriate one since developer Firewalk Studios once belonged to ProbablyMonsters before being acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2023.
Ryan continues: "Would I ever make another service-based game? Sure. If I see the right game idea and the right audience, am I happy to build that and bring that to market? I am. But I think [for] sustainable careers, I think for the industry, it's pretty clear that we can't just pick a business model and say that's a reason to make a game."
Elsewhere in the interview, Ryan explains that after finishing Destiny 1, he "wanted to try and have a bigger impact on the industry," noting he "believed that game developers deserve more predictability, more respect in the workplace." He adds: "The way, it seemed, to do that was to build teams and games to sign with major publishers."
However, although "we did that," and "we did that successfully for a while," Ryan says "that's not the model that I think works today, and we've had to evolve." One of the ways that ProbablyMonsters has done so is in its approach to putting out games, with Ryan noting that "we have multiple short-, mid-, and long-term games in development in the company," with plans to ship new ones in different genres every year going forward.
This also follows multiple ProbablyMonsters-owned studios – Battle Barge, Cauldron, and Hidden Grove – being shut down. All three, Ryan says, were "built in our old model." Teams are now smaller and "more integrated with each other and with the central teams," with a focus on flexibility, since "if there's a north star for the structure, it's [that] there isn't a single right way to get a game into players hands."
Reflecting on his initial goal with ProbablyMonsters to develop "the next generation of AAA game development studios," Ryan says: "Signing triple-A games to publishers really was a means to an end of securing what I believe was a reliable, predictable path for securing funding for games. And today it's not. And so the goal is still to get to the point where we can have long-lasting, respectful careers for game developers, and I think the whole industry is trying to find the right path there."
