That cold feeling in the pit of your stomach is the creeping realization that games as a service aren't going anywhere – at least not if the people making them have anything to say about it. Respawn, the developer behind the popular live-service battle royale Apex Legends, have opened a third studio location solely dedicated to maintaining the game. Located in Wisconsin, this studio's only job is apparently ensuring Apex "is going to be around for 10, 15 years or more and we're excited to make that happen."
This may sound good for Apex players, but the idea of a game's lifespan stretching out to 20 years, precluding industry innovation or radical gameplay changes, solely for the purpose of milking more microtransactions from an established playerbase fills me with a certain kind of dread. I'd be shocked if Respawn's developers were looking forward to creating new skins for the next decade of their lives – I'm certainly not looking forward to seeing them.
