'There is no secret sauce' to a successful live service game according to Overwatch's associate game director, but knowing your audience is a good start

Not many live service games have stood the test of time quite like Overwatch. 10 years in and it's still been able to retain its playerbase, maintain momentum, and even ramp it up. How, you ask? Well, besides having really cute skins and a very enticing game loop, Team 4 figured out exactly where Overwatch needed to stand years ago.

"Overwatch exists in an incredibly competitive space among live service shooters," Overwatch's game director Aaron Keller tells me. "Some of the biggest games in the world are here."

To have (and crucially, maintain) a successful live service game is the golden goose egg of this industry right now. With publishers like Sony trying to force it upon countless studios before pulling the plug on eight out of 12 projects when things start to go sideways. Even games that manage to land with an eager audience like Arc Raiders can struggle to maintain momentum. …