Hazelight Founder Josef Fares Says Live Service is ‘Not The Right Way to Go’

Josef Fares, the director and founder of It Takes Two and Split Fiction developer Hazelight Studios, has some strong thoughts on live service games. The gaming market has struggled with multiple failed live service games over the past decade, each trying to reach heights currently occupied by market juggernauts like Fortnite, Apex Legends and recently, Marvel Rivals. Fares says that Hazelight will never tackle a live service game because it’s “not the right way to go.”

Speaking in a recent interview with Eurogamer, Josef Fares took a stance against live service games and their impact on the industry. We will not have them, I do not believe in them,” he said. “I think [live-service] is not the right way to go. I hope more and more [developers] focus on their passion, and what they believe in. At the end of the day, we see clearly – and Hazelight is living proof – that when you trust in your vision and go with it, you can still reach a big audience. That’s what I want people to focus on.”

Josef Fares was the director on It Takes Two, which won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2021. He added in the interview that people still need to make money at the end of the day, though Hazelight Studios won’t buckle under the pressure of ever doing a live service game:

“I have an understanding that publishers have a lot of, you know, worries about the ‘money issue.’ But, I think also you have to understand that we are working with a piece of art here, so you have to respect the creativity as well. They have to meet in the middle. You also can’t be too much focused on creativity. You can’t just say, ‘give me $100M, I want to do what I want to do.’ But, there has to be a balance. It can’t just be towards the finance side. So, no, it will not happen with a Hazelight game, ever. I guarantee.”

In this climate, making a live service game is a very risky play that doesn’t always pay off. For example, PlayStation is currently feeling the impact head-on after it had to cancel a handful of planned live service games – a big shift away from the company’s focus on strong single-player games – including a God of War live service project being made by Bluepoint Games, the studio behind the Demon’s Souls remake whose talents are better suited to single-player games.

Source: Eurogamer