Knockout City Will Be Shut Down In June After Struggling To Retain A Sustainable Player Base

Today we are announcing that Season 9 will be Knockout City’s final season. Then, on the morning of June 6, 2023, over two years after our initial launch, all servers around the world will be shut down and the game will no longer be playable.

[Lightning77]

Yet another one bites the dust. Well I'll be damned.

[EvertonFC]

It was so repetitive and I only played about 10 games.

[Lexreborn2]

More reasons why online only games are a trash investment

[EvertonFC]

exactly, ONLY 1 or 2 games ever hit the big time every few years, the rest drop like flies

[4Sh0w]

Yeah but lets not act like there arent plenty of offline games that fail and nobody is playing years later or more importantly that you won't ever play. Online games are a experience that many appreciate, they are unique from SP games for the group shared experience that bring but people who love them as I do never expect them to last forever, nor do we want them to. There will always be new online games to get into, learn and experience new things, thats the beauty of them that all you "omg online sucks" guys dont get, you think there should only be games made that you want.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

Depends on the game, if the game has a dedicated player base or releases content regularly enough it can sustain itself for years. I still play GBO2, but it gets new content every week and has a small dedicated fan base.

[Inverno]

There are too many multiplayer games. I don't understand the logic of getting into the space when the market is so over saturated with them. Coming into the scene you need to have huge presence, otherwise you'll be devoured. This trend of buying things only for you to lose access to em really needs to die too.

[EvertonFC]

It is because they want the golden nugget fortnite hit

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

It's kind of like gambling when you think about it, the majority of games aren't going to be a huge hit, especially in over saturated genres with lots of competition, thinking "my game will be different and defy the odds" is really nuts. We've seen it play out many times, some games don't even last as long as knockout, some only last months and are practically dead on arrival, imagine spending all that money to develop a game only to trash it in the near future (and possibly not even make a return on it).

[gangsta_red]

Then what's the point of coming into the market whether it's multiplayer or single player? The market is oversaturated on all fronts.

[Inverno]

No matter how replayable an SP game is, SP games are made to be bought once, played once, and then you move on. Multiplayer games are made with player retention in mind. Too many of these games follow what Fortnite started, but don't really want to put in the work to reach the height Fortnite has reached. They copy the colourful/cartoony graphics, the battle passes, the skins and think that's what keeps people playing.

[gangsta_red]

I disagree, there may be some Fortnite copies out there but there a also more that are doing there own thing and have been successful. Warframe has been around since the beginning of Xbox One/PS4, GTA Online, Minecraft, Valorant, the list goes on.

It's the same as single player games, we now have a Dark Souls clones that copy that formula. They also believe that this is what people want without realizing what makes the Souls games so good is the atmosphere, how the actual environments and lands tells a fractured story.

I think we're just at a point where there isn't too much innovation nowadays. It's either cartoon like graphics or gritty realistic graphics. You're going to get hit or misses with both SP and MP. We've seen just as many sp games not become successful and the developer shuts down or has to try and make a live service MP game or be bought by a huge publisher.

[FlintGREY]

I actually had fun with this one, but haven't played in a while...oh well

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I enjoyed the little amount of time I played with it, my biggest gripe was that it was too simple and once you had the mechanics down pat, there wasn't enough variety in gameplay for me.

Probably need some more game modes, maps, unique dodge balls, power ups or something to freshen up the gameplay every now and then.

[XxSPIDEYxX]

Sony might want to reconsider going all in on Live Service games.

[Nyxus]

Yeah, God of War selling 11 million in less than three months while several live service games are shutting down.

[EvertonFC]

Sony would be happy with 8 failures and 2 hits tbh, sadly that is where GaaS/f2p is at.
Those 2 hits with 8 failures could be billion dollar fortnite hits and it makes up for the 8 failures.
These companies would be ecstatic with an outcome like that.

[gangsta_red]

The Live Service games that are successful have been around for close to or over a decade and are constantly raking in GoW numbers all year round, sometimes monthly.

This is why devs and publishers are chasing that electric dream. Having a game be developed and then just maintained with basically updates, all the while raking in millions monthly.

Take GTA Online, been aroumd for how long? And it's basically an ATM that prints money .

[Killer73nova]

Game was fun for like a couple of days then got boring

[jjb1981]

It seems like now it's a race of how much of the profit goal we can make before we decline and have to shut the online game down. This game was doo doo from the start. Total Matt Bradford game.

[gold_drake]

damn.
just like rumbleverse. most likely same reason too

[ZeekQuattro]

A lot of companies want that live service money but aren't willing to put in work to get there. Look at FF14. That started on the PS3 and for all intents and purposes failed. It wasn't until the PS4 and what amounted to a reboot of FF14 that the game found success.

Most of these games see the publisher's calling it quits less than a year in with little content to show for it hence why gamers moved on in the first place. If you don't have the first year planned out in advance you might as well not even bother in the first place.