Live-service multiplayer games are notoriously difficult to sustain, and PUBG Franchise Director Taeseok Jang is not afraid to say it. Speaking during a Krafton press tour, Jang reflected on the brutal reality facing developers in this space: “When you think about making new games, it’s really hard to succeed every time”. His candid assessment comes as the industry reels from a string of high-profile collapses, including Sony’s Concord, which shut down just two weeks after launch in August 2024, and Wildlight Entertainment’s Highguard, which lasted only six weeks before closure in March 2026.
Key Takeaways
- Concord shut down after two weeks; Highguard lasted six weeks before Wildlight Entertainment ceased operations.
- PUBG director Taeseok Jang has personal connections to failed live-service projects and actively seeks lessons from them.
- Live-service multiplayer games face extreme pressure to retain players and monetize effectively from day one.
- PUBG Studios canceled its own tactical shooter Blindspot after less than two months in Early Access.
- Prototyping quickly with small teams and gathering early community feedback are key survival strategies.
Why Live-Service Multiplayer Games Fail So Quickly
The graveyard of failed live-service multiplayer games keeps growing, and the timelines are getting shorter. Concord’s two-week lifespan shocked the industry, but Highguard’s six-week run proved that even a second chance does not guarantee survival. These are not indie experiments or early-access mishaps—they are fully funded, studio-backed titles that failed to find an audience. What makes live-service multiplayer games uniquely fragile is their dependency on a thriving player base from day one. Unlike single-player games that can succeed on merit alone, multiplayer titles need concurrent players to function. Empty servers are a death sentence.
Jang understands this pressure intimately. He has friends who worked on both Concord and Highguard, and rather than dismiss their struggles, he treats them as learning opportunities. “When you think about making new games, it’s really hard to succeed every time,” Jang told GamesRadar, emphasizing that failure is not a reflection of incompetence but an inherent risk in the space. The industry’s track record backs this up. PUBG Studios itself canceled PUBG: Blindspot, a top-down tactical shooter, after less than two months in Early Access—a project that never even reached full launch.
Learning From Failure in Live-Service Multiplayer Games
Rather than pretend his studio is immune to failure, Jang actively dissects what went wrong elsewhere. When discussing failed projects, he asks himself: “What could I have done better in this situation?”. This reflective approach reveals a maturity in the industry—acknowledging that live-service multiplayer games are inherently risky and that even well-resourced teams can miscalculate. The lessons are often invisible to outsiders. Was it a gameplay balance issue? Poor onboarding? Weak cosmetic appeal? Insufficient marketing? Timing? All of the above? With Concord and Highguard gone, the specific post-mortems are largely private.
What Jang does share is his studio’s methodology for reducing risk. PUBG Studios emphasizes rapid prototyping in small teams and gathering community feedback during active development rather than waiting for launch. This approach treats the live-service multiplayer games space as inherently iterative—you cannot design in a vacuum and expect players to show up. The strategy contrasts sharply with the traditional AAA model where a finished product launches and either succeeds or fails based on day-one reception.
PUBG’s Long-Term Vision Amid Industry Volatility
While competitors implode, PUBG Studios is positioning itself for longevity. The studio views PUBG as a long-term franchise aiming to become a global cultural icon, not a quick cash grab. This means planning new modes with external studios and experimenting with user-generated content—strategies designed to keep the ecosystem fresh without relying on a single gameplay loop. The difference between this approach and the Concord/Highguard model is philosophical. Those titles launched as fixed products hoping to capture an audience. PUBG launches as a platform expecting to evolve.
The irony is that PUBG itself emerged from a battle royale genre that seemed saturated. It succeeded not because the concept was new but because execution, community management, and continuous updates proved superior to competitors. Fortnite’s dominance teaches the same lesson: live-service multiplayer games reward studios willing to listen and adapt constantly. Jang’s humility about the difficulty of sustained success suggests PUBG understands this better than most.
Can Any Studio Guarantee Success in Live-Service Multiplayer Games?
The short answer is no. Concord had Sony’s backing and a polished hero shooter formula. Highguard had Wildlight Entertainment’s vision and a 2026 Game Awards debut that should have generated hype. Neither survived contact with players. This is not a failure of ambition or resources but a fundamental truth about live-service multiplayer games: they are bets on cultural adoption, not just technical competence. A game can be well-made and still fail if it does not resonate, if the monetization feels exploitative, or if launch timing collides with a saturated market.
Jang’s candid acknowledgment that “it’s really hard to succeed every time” is refreshingly honest in an industry often drowning in hype and spin. It suggests that PUBG Studios, at least, is not delusional about its own odds. The studio’s emphasis on community feedback, rapid iteration, and long-term thinking may not guarantee another Fortnite-scale success, but it is a more grounded strategy than launching a finished product and hoping players arrive.
Is PUBG immune to the same failures as Concord and Highguard?
No. PUBG has survived longer than most battle royales, but live-service multiplayer games are never safe. Player preferences shift, competitors innovate, and cultural relevance fades. PUBG’s advantage is its installed base and continuous evolution, but these are not guarantees—only advantages. The studio’s own cancellation of Blindspot shows it is willing to cut losses on projects that do not gain traction, a discipline that Concord and Highguard apparently lacked.
What did Taeseok Jang learn from Concord and Highguard?
Jang has not publicly detailed specific lessons, but his emphasis on rapid prototyping, small team iteration, and community feedback suggests he views both failures as cautionary tales about launching too finished, too late, or too disconnected from player sentiment. He actively seeks insights from friends who worked on these projects, treating their struggles as research rather than schadenfreude.
Why do live-service multiplayer games fail faster than other genres?
Live-service multiplayer games depend entirely on concurrent players. A single-player game can succeed with 100,000 sales. A multiplayer title with 100,000 players but poor retention dies in weeks because servers feel empty and matchmaking becomes impossible. Concord and Highguard faced this math immediately—they needed to hook millions, not thousands, and neither did.
Jang’s willingness to admit that success in live-service multiplayer games is never certain reflects a maturing industry. The days of launching a polished product and expecting it to thrive are over. Now it is about sustained engagement, community management, and honest assessment of what works. PUBG is betting that this approach will keep it relevant where Concord and Highguard faded. Whether that bet pays off remains to be seen, but at least someone at the top is asking the right questions.
Edited by the All Things Geek team.
Source: TechRadar
