Releasing a game is no longer the point when development is complete- more and more I see games with a post-release plan that involves a steady stream of updates and new content- console games make dlc, mobile games sometimes add complete features.(sim city buildit) Is post-release a part of your dev plans? What sort of things do you plan on adding later and why?
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Mine are currently so small that if/when I ever decide to release them I’m hoping to have it all done at once
Not at the moment, though I’m also struggling with keeping scope set at where I originally designed. So I think certain aspects of a game that “could” be expanded during development - could be put into update 1.1 or 1.2.
I’m really interested in reading others comments though - this is a great question.
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Well, first things first is bugfixes. When your game hits the wild, you’ll be amazed what players find. On The Hero’s Journey, I specifically set aside about two months to let players find bugs I’d missed in my testing, and fix them.
At some point, I’m planning to revisit THJ and fix some more fundamental issues - ones that keep coming up are the Slime Gauntlet in the first Evil Castle. I’m also unhappy with the Karikako Catacombs, during the lead-up to the second Evil Castle. More fundamentally, I’d like to make the jumping feel better, and replace the stabby-swordplay with a more slash-based swordplay, as that will make the game a little fairer. TL;DR - Make the experience better. This isn’t the same thing as a bug.
Finally you get to other things like new content or multiplayer, in dead last.
Yes. I’d like to keep updating my game as long as it makes sense to. I know, as a game player, how much I prefer playing games that get new content/updates. So I’m carrying that to my development style.
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I personally hate games that keep adding content after release. Terraria is a great example of this.
Some games it just feels like you’re used as a tester or it’s really still just early access when they continue developing it after release. To come back a year later and see all the changes that have been made and find out what I played before is around 40% of what the game is now just rubs me the wrong way.
It’s fine to do bug fixes and continue to support the game but any major changes to content should be packaged up into a DLC/expansion and labelled as such. Make it free or charge for it, that doesn’t bother me but don’t call it part of the core game because then what you’ve got is a game that should still be in early access because it isn’t finished yet.
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It depends on the kind of game you’re making as well. Some games are built to be a one time experience, and adding content wouldn’t make much sense. Some games are built to keep adding content from the start (MMORPGs being an obvious example). There are also creative games such as Minecraft, where adding more content makes sense. For Minecraft, it’s more adding new building tools and options than “content” in the traditional sense. And I’d see nothing wrong with that.
So I guess what I said was: the games I enjoy playing are also games that lend themselves well to getting new content after release. And those are the kind of games I like developing as well.
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Minecraft is one particular example that annoyed the hell out of me with continual content updates. I’ve stopped playing it now but at the time I wanted them to just take their hands off and leave it be. Fix the current bugs and that’s it. If I really wanted more content there are thousands of mods for it.
My main issues with the Minecraft updates were the added bugs after each update, even with the “snapshots” bugs would still get through. One update where they “fixed the lighting” ended up killing my fps from 100+ down to 40 if I was lucky.
The updates to Minecraft don’t even make economical sense because they reached market saturation long ago and adding new content isn’t going to encourage any additional buyers. Unless of course they split to a completely new direction like focusing on modules for schools etc.
As mentioned though…my biggest hate for any game updated after release to add content is the new bugs that are almost guaranteed to creep in. It’s granted that any new release game will have bugs, it’s also likely that any new content will have bugs. Why continually introduce bugs into a finished product?
Well, if adding new content introduces bugs, that’s different. I was speaking under the assumption that it was generally well tested.
What those updates for Minecraft do is keep people playing longer. Otherwise they get bored and quit. I can’t imagine not wanting people to stick around and play your game… it means more people to make YouTube videos for it, more people to buy realms subscriptions (and keep paying for them), more people to contribute to the mods database, etc.
What I saw with the YouTube stuff is that it pretty much all just turned into covering mods. Even with the vanilla game getting updated it was less interesting. People showed it for the week the update was released then it died again. Even the YouTubers who continued a vanilla series along side their modded Minecraft ended up with a lot less views on the vanilla game.
No matter what you do to add content to your game 1000’s of modders can produce more interesting content much faster. It also has to bonus of being entirely optional so any extra bugs come as a result of the user’s own actions
The incremental release model worked well for kerball. Sure their were many like me that waited for the game to be finished before buying. But the early adopters were key to developing the game.
What I saw in Sim City BuildIt made a big impression on me just how far out they planned after release- Right around the time I got bored of it, they dropped a huge update with a range of new content and a redesign of an original feature that added more depth to the experience. The timing of this may have been coincidence, but I really think it was a player retention move. My brother continued playing for a long while afterward and he tells me they continued to periodically add features and content. I wonder to what degree this continued investment pays off.
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@LMan_1 in my experience, this strategy is very common in big mobile game companies. The idea is that because speed to market is so important on mobile (because the landscape changes quickly and dev cycles are short), the best strategy is to release as soon as you have your core game ready. It also makes sense since mobile development is so analytics driven to start gathering data as soon as possible.
So you release making sure you have 4 weeks of content for the average user (or however long it will take you to release update #1), and then you’ll have a new feature for people just as they are starting to run out of things to do. These features are usually things that extend or build on the core gameplay, or provide gameplay for higher level players. The core loop itself usually remains relatively unchanged.
For a game that is active and still monetizing, it is important to release new content and features regularly. As your game ages, your super engaged players are often payers, so it is important to keep them happy with new stuff to do (and spend on) or they will churn and never come back. They will want to stick around because they’ve made an investment of time and money into the game, but if there is nothing left to do they’ll eventually get bored. So it’s in the company’s best interest to continue to monetize the players that have already bought into their game rather than making a new game and attempting to acquire users there (although most companies that are big enough do both simultaneously).
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As @goonter said, another thing is just wasting resources on a dead project. If the core of your game isn´t well received, then by delaying launch and adding extra deep content would have just been a waste of time. Most mobile games right now the game will take off in the first few days based on your core gameplay. So the devs only expand on games that are doing well, and let their bad games die. Kinda, if you polish a turd, it is still a turd. Get your core game out the door fast, and then polish it if it isn´t a turd.
Completely opposite of that are PC games,… but again, there are reasons to develop your game after launch, at least for a short time and especially if you are a new developer. Why? because players will remember. Guild Wars is a good example of this. When GW2 was released, many of the people who hyped it did so because of the excellent post-release content that was added to the original. The other things is the players like to get free stuff, and a big patch or two post-launch of a finished game leaves them feeling like they got a bargain.
Of course it can go too far, and you are better off just releasing a full paid expansion or a completely new game.
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