Live ops
Also said as Live operations, Live service, Games as a service, GaaS
Running a game after launch as an ongoing service: events, new content, balance changes, seasons, all planned on a calendar.
It keeps a community alive for years, and it never ends. You are committing a team and a budget indefinitely, and a live game that stops being fed dies in public. Before starting, ask who is on it in year three and what happens to players' purchases when you turn off the servers.
Say it
“Plan 12 weeks of events we can make with the team we have, reusing systems and not new art. If we can't sustain that for two years, we shouldn't make it a live game at all.”
Where you’ve seen it
Fortnite runs seasons and one-off events such as the 2020 Travis Scott concert. Concord, a 2024 live-service shooter, was shut down two weeks after launch, and Sony refunded buyers.
Not to be confused with patching
Patching fixes what you shipped. Live ops is a planned stream of new reasons to come back.