video games

Console players are increasingly entrenched in live service games

According to new data shared by Circana, live service games are taking up more and more player time, changing the way the industry has operated in the past.

Matt Buckley

February 26, 2025 13:15

Console players are increasingly entrenched in live service games Source: Epic Games, Activision Blizzard, Mojang Studios, Rockstar Games.

According to Matt Piscatella, the Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst at Circana, the top ten live service games were played by 70% of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S players in the month of January. Piscatella shared the statistics in a short thread on BlueSky that covered the changing video game market, hopes for the future, and how video game spending peaked four years ago. With recent successes, flops, studio closures, and layoffs, what does the future of the gaming industry look like?

40% of time spent on consoles last month went to ten live service games

What are the top ten live service games? Piscatella doesn’t share the exact list, but not long before this recent thread, he did share a Apex Legends also making an appearance within at least one consoles top fifteen. So, we can at least get a sense as to what that top ten looks like.

Piscatella’s post explains that “Over 70% of US active PS5/XBS players played at least 1 of the top 10 live service games of the month during January. More than 40% of all time spent playing on PS5/XBS in the US during January went to those same top 10 live service games.” Looking at these charts, one thing really stands out. Aside from the annual franchises like Call of Duty and the sports games, Marvel Rivals is the only newcomer within even the past few years. Many of the games on the top of the console player chart, which is from only a few weeks ago, include games that are approaching or already sured ten years. Fortnite is eight years old this summer. GTA 5 was launched twelve years ago. Minecraft has been around since 2009, and Roblox was launched even before that, nineteen years ago, in 2006. The fact that Marvel Rivals, a game released only three months ago, was able to buck this trend is frankly amazing, but more on that later.

These days, many gamers, and console gamers especially, are dug into these long-running, frequently updated, evergreen ecosystems. The top fifteen charts from Steam during the same timeframe have some more modern appearances, including last year’s hit Civilization VII. But of course, it also has its fair share of long-running live service titles on the list. The fact that Fortnite is not available on Steam should not go unnoted.

Times Are Changing

Live service games are not necessarily a bad thing. But they are certainly changing the way people play games. Piscatella elaborates in his thread, explaining it “Used to be that players would jump from big game to big game to some other games but they were most often moving to something new. That they purchased. Now, the live service games suck out a ton of available time, and it’s hard to beat free if it’s good. So. Here we are.” Players are not jumping from major release to major release, instead they are entrenched in their game of choice.

Convincing someone to jump from a ship they’ve been happily coasting on for years is not an easy task. Marvel Rivals pulled it off, but it had the number of good things going for it that few developers can manage these days. First and foremost, Marvel Rivals has the name and brand recognition of Marvel. Anyone who jumps into the game will at least have some idea as to who the majority of characters are, but also how they will play. Of course Iron Man flies around and fires rockets. Of course Spider-Man swings around the map. Of course Wolverine and Black Panther pounce on enemies with a flurry of melee strikes. This combined with no purchase price made it incredibly easy to jump into.

One other factor that could have had a huge impact, but is much more speculative, is the downfall of Overwatch 2 launched in 2022. Nowhere is fan’s disappointment more apparent than the glaring 22% positive reviews on Steam, which is a rarity for any game, let alone a huge AAA game from Blizzard. This major downfall left an open hole in the live service hero shooter market, and Marvel Rivals was able to step right in.

The Future

What does this mean for the future of video games? Do the stars need to align for a game to reach these levels of success? What could possibly change this trajectory? Piscatella says in his thread that we “Really could use some positive surprises this year, and for a bunch of things to go right. In 2025. So. A lot is riding on the new products coming to market this year to hopefully combat or reverse some of these trends.” Piscatella does not specify what new products he is talking about, but the two most anticipated launches of this year are Nintendo Switch 2.

Nintendo’s top played games don’t appear in these charts that Piscatella is sharing, and that may be because they tend to operate in their own bubble. I would imagine live service games are not a domineering for Switch player count as on other platforms, but that’s just speculation.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is the game that developers are reportedly waiting to learn more about before announcing their own release date. This is expected to be the largest entertainment launch in history, and it’s expected to boost waning console sales. But will this be a shift away from live service? Grand Theft Auto 5 remains a top four most-played game on both PlayStation and Xbox and GTA Online continues to bring in revenue for developer Rockstar. It would not be surprising if Grand Theft Auto 6 reigns supreme just as long as 5 did, morphing into even more of a live service experience to keep players hooked and engaged and spending money. Grand Theft Auto 6 doesn’t need to cost $100, because over the course of the next ten years it will draw out far more than that from its players. GTA 6 may get more players onto consoles, but I am skeptical that a few months or even a few years later, that it will encourage players to jump onto the next big title. Rockstar is going to do what it can to replicate the success of its previous title and keep the players in their game.

Past The Peak

Piscatella also shared that “Total US video game market spending peaked in 2021, although the market has stayed close since then. Total players and hours also peaked in that period. The pace of games being released hasn’t slowed.” The video game industry ballooned during the pandemic lockdown in 2020 and 2021. Everyone was at home with more spare time to play games. Everyone wanted a Nintendo Switch, and the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S launched in November 2020. In recent years, it has become increasingly more difficult for the average consumer to justify the costs of video games. So why not play the free ones? Especially if they are as good as these modern ones are?

We are seeing the results of this decline all the time. Just yesterday Warner Bros. closing down a Seattle studio despite the game’s massive success has spawned a new meme that has been showing up all over social media. Across three s, the meme reads: “Make bad game? Fired. Make good game? Fired. Make incredibly successful game? Believe it or not, also fired.” Developers are facing unprecedented levels of layoffs lately, with an estimated 14,600 developers laid off in 2024, and 1,200 more developers laid off already just two months into 2025, according to tracking from developer Farhan Noor.

One way or another, the video game industry will need to adapt. Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals show that the live service market is not impenetrable. But there are plenty more examples of how hard it is to pull off, as companies like EA and Ubisoft learned recently with XDefiant. Like all creative industries, video games are volatile. Trends shift often quicker than some games can be developed. Sometimes the most unexpected games can become the biggest hits. Publishers need to learn to let good ideas grow without standing in the way and set reasonable goals and expectations for games to hit. There’s no telling what the industry will look like five or ten years from now, but it will be interesting to watch and see what happens.