A new report from Griffin Gaming Partners says that 95% of game makers are developing or maintaining a live service game.

The 2023 Game Development Report, made in partnership with Rendered VC, surveyed 537 studios from across the globe.

Among the surveyors, 66% agreed that live services are necessary for long-term title success.

The survey defines live services as any regular update cadence planned for a game.

The report notes that traditional game development is two-three years long, while live production is more than five years.

“Multi-year game development forms production processes and pipelines that are intended to deliver a few key milestones in what is essentially a waterfall process. Production in live services, however, is a constant state of planning & adjusting game parameters to enhance player experience while designing and deploying new features to add new player value,” said the survey.

Additionally, the report added that live service teams want faster content releases.

“Across the industry, live service teams reported their ideal production schedules as weekly to biweekly for live ops cadences and biweekly to monthly for game content updates. In the context of game development, which typically spans multiple years, live service production schedules are moving at breakneck speed.”