Marvel Rivals' First-Month Revenue Shows Sony Should Continue to Pursue Live Service on PS5, PC

Well that's a take.

What are you, a shareholder? One game does really well in a sea of flops and that is proof GaaS needs to be chased?

Rivals is really well made, but it is filling the void Overwatch left when it fell from grace for many, and it's also got a massively popular IP slapped on top of it. Of course it did well. Doesn't mean Concord or Fairgame$ are a shoe-in now. If anything it means another big chunk of potential audience as now locked in elsewhere.

I think HD2 selling 12 million units (last we heard) is more than enough proof of that. Or the constant sales of MLB The Show and consistent sales of GT7.

@Ogbert I think with Payday 3 failing, Fairgame$ may actually be in a decent position if the gameplay looks good (there is definitely a opening there unlike hero shooters).

not a fan of GAAS, but yes,.. in business perspective, Sony should chase this live service dream, because it generates way too much money over the years.

Success of Chocolate Digestives proves that all food manufacturers must now make biscuits, regardless of expertise. Looking forward to Peperami Biscuits.

WoW what a shocker when you have a decent game based around a well liked franchise it does well. And good luck prying that audience away now they have committed & spent money.

Oddly enough when you release ***** you get ***** then everyone laughs at you.

It won't last forever. Once the newness wears off it'll start to die just like the others.

Its going to be interesting to see if Sony waste a few billion dollars on developing live service flops how well there doing financially afterwards. What am I saying, they'll just make it back off the fans by raising the price of Plus again or charging a thousand dollars for their next console.

@Ogbert one success could cover the cost of several flops and then make a profit.

All the more 💰 to fund Ananta. 🤝

I hope Sony doesn't do a live service Spiderman game. We saw how well that worked out with SPUMC or whatever Sony called those 4 terrible spin off movies.

@Ogbert
This guy, Khayl Adam, is definitely bringing down the quality of push square articles. I'm going to stop clicking on any that I see he's written.

Yesterday I played for the first time WH40K BoltGun and hell... what a perfect shooter! It immediately made me feel like those perfect, simple, fun games from PS2/PS3 era and I also think, why is everyone live in delusion gamers need huge, multiplayer, balanced games with milions of mechanics, crafting, RPG epements, customisable characters and other unnecessary stuff? Isn't it all only about fun in it's core, rather than contain everything (and nothing) ? I think top developers absolutely lost themselves in vortex of "principles that atract people" rather than simple joy of making simple game.

So chase your GaaS dream Sony, but without me...

@ATaco Yeah, respectfully, this was very much a case of "knowing exactly who wrote this 'hot take' from the headline alone". Other writers fall prey to it too, but... yes.

@naruball The human cost of committing entire studios to such projects and then rapidly shuttering them in response, however...

@crossbit that... I can certainly agree with.

PlayStation should just stick with what they know

No they shouldn't. 🙄

Khayl Adam is awesome. Keep up the good work!

Too many games like this out there, so if they want to make a live service game, they need to make it very different.

Ah, I see everyone is already strapping on the blinkers and closing their mind to reality as usual. Trying desperately to pretend the year wasn’t completely dominated by live service games in which even utter trash like the First Descendant could hit 264k peak concurrent users on Steam.

FFVII Rebirth sold around 3M copies, Astro Bot launched at 1.5M, and Indiana Jones has sold around 200k copies on steam. Those games are the highest quality games of the year too, not random trash.

At the same time this game, which is confidently average, is about to make a billion dollars a year. Millions of people paid to play F2P Path to Exile 2 in early access, Helldivers 2 sold 12m units in 3 months and a Pokémon card game made $200m in it’s first month.

People act like Concord failing was some world ending event but losing $200-300m is small change when you’re chasing a $1b a year market.

@LifeGirl which failed live service game had unneccessary politcs inserted into it?

Yes Khayl, what we all need from Sony is Concord 2.

And we definitely need Sony to focus on soulless cash grabs instead of being passionate about what they do and innovating.

• Shoehorns in divisive opinion about sony in title.
• Never mentions it again in the main article.

I am a bit surprised it's as popular as it is. I figured the license would bring people in and then they would bounce pretty quick but apparently not.

I tried it and really didn't like it myself. Too chaotic and not in a fun way for me be but good for those that like it.

@Ogbert I'm becoming annoyed with people with your take on Marvel Rivals being a success after the many live-service failures and you blame it on being a recognizable IP. The Marvel Avengers game was a failure of a game. Other Marvel games have failed. Marvel Rivals is actually fun, has modes where you can be competitive and modes where you can just play for fun. Stop using the "Marvel is so recognizable" as to why it's a success. If $30 million alone came from China, that means it's not just the IP because multiple Marvel shows and movies have been banned from being watched in the country.

Cool for Netease.

Don't see why Sony should pursue GAAS because of one live service success, especially given the failue of Concorde, but hey, could be funny to watch them waste their money.

Seems to me if you release a well-made GaaS with an appealing (existing or new) brand and art direction, which does something new (i.e. Genshin Impact, Infinity Nikki, Helldivers 2 ...) or fills a void (i.e. Marvel Rivals) and can create enough player engagement from the get-go, you have a good chance of success, since there are players "available".
If you release something well-made which does nothing new (enough), there will be no players "available" because they are likely already engaged in their GaaS (i.e. Concord, Suicide Squad, Redfall ...)
It's like MMO's, MOBA's or Battle Royals from days past, everyone claimed to be a WOW-, LoL- or Fortnitekiller but none or very few succeeded, as players had already sunk a lot of time and money in those games and didn't want to reinvest that time and money again in another game.

Spicy take: live service games are games correcting back to what they should have always been. The whole "story" game was a cinematic detour that will be seen as archaic in time. Live service games are actually more like space invaders and early mario; pure mechanical joy or shooting waves of enemies without the fluff. Also because they are time limited with peaks and eventual cutoffs, they are unique in the media space. No reruns, completely in the zeitgeist of the moment. They are the true evolution of gaming.

The reality is, this is Marvel based. Has a huggggee following already, comparing this with something Sony might release is rather pointless. They'll make a live service game around something that most people wouldn't have a clue about/ it could be a new IP. Marvel has a following of people who aren't gamers, so those fans might shift to the game to just play as all their favourites.

So no, this doesn't mean Sony should continue, maybe they should look at how many have actually been successful.

@themightyant you've missed his point entirely. The specific genre of "Overwatch-style" gameplay has always been "you're either going to beat Overwatch, or be dead within months" (as we've seen with Paladins, Concord and everything else). It's apparent the clear difference with Rivals is the word "Marvel", meaning that the only thing that has even come remotely close to surpassing Overwatch since 2016 has had to use one of the most popular modern IPs (and we're only a month since launch, so who knows how long it'll last?).

I don't care if they make the occasional game with it but stop implementing it in everything. In games like the uncharted series something that has a constant single player experience should not have it. Cheapens the game.

Another thing I don't like about those games is that they have a tendency to not put the effort in developing them graphically etc. Marvel rivals is simple. It does what it needs to do and for some people it's fun. For me, I need more stimulus than looking at something cartoony. Imagine the hyper comic detailed Marvel rivals? That would bring in more people, but of course it's more development time and they want instant money. Sound score also tens to take a dive

Yup, now is the time for sony to make Concord Rivals, just like marvel rivals but with concord characters, get on it sony, yours millions revenue awaits

Marvel Rivals might be raking in a ton of revenue, but since it's a licensed property, the most important metric is the net profit that the Publisher/Developer makes after settling the licensing fees and paying over the royalties to the House of Mouse.

I do think using recognised and well-known IP for new GaaS titles is the way to go, since it's such a high-risk venture. I think this is where Concord faltered, as even though it was an original IP, it wasn't appealing at all.

@ChrisDeku You are pretty politics obsessed yourself judging by your bitter response. Apathetic people are not so easily hurt by a random stranger's checklist.

Sure but they have to do it the right way. They should be seriously taking notes from these asian studios if they really want a higher chance at getting a hit