As we know from PlayStation's high-profile disaster Concord, infinite resources are no guarantee of success in the live-service world. Cultivating a sizeable and dedicated player base is extremely difficult, and we've seen plenty of games that found initial success fail to sustain this popularity in subsequent years.
An example of this is Supervive, a top-down battle royale that developer Theocrycraft Games has just announced is shutting down early next year. Just thirteen months ago, Supervive peaked at 50,000 concurrent players. Now, the game is approaching double digits. Things can change quickly in the live-service world, and not necessarily because of any obvious missteps by the developer.
Theorycraft Games—which comprises former Riot and Blizzard employees—set out to create a battle royale that also appealed to MOBA and hero shooter players. Like many, I was impressed with Supervive when I played the beta, though, also like many, I didn't regularly play the game following its full release.
In a video about the closure, executive producer Jessica Nam highlighted poor player retention as one of the reasons why Supervive failed to maintain momentum following a successful beta and early launch period.
"From the beginning, we've always felt that there...
