“It sounds weird but we try to keep our innovation as low as possible,” the director explained. “We’ll say ‘it’s this game but with that.’ It takes so much time to innovate. Sometimes you find the hidden holy Grail of game design, but often indie developers sit for five years trying out stuff. We’re a studio of 50 people with bills to pay. So we can’t do that.”
I’ve thought about this before, I think it’s because the devs/publishers want to have their cake and eat it. They release a new game every year at full price for that up front cash then they nickle and dime you all year and then reset with a new full price game.
I’m pretty sure the amount of money EA makes from FIFA or Activision makes from COD would go down dramatically if they just had a single live service game.