Game Development strategy: Avoid ending & keep the player playing forever?

News & General Discussion
1

I recently ““finished”” Ubisoft’s The Division for Xbox one*.*
By “finished”, I mean I beat the final boss.
For those that played the game, you know what I am referring to.

I have never been so disappointed with the end of any campaign. In fact, the impression I get is that there really is no end to the game. No ending cutscene, nothing to really indicate the game has ended. No conclusion or explanation. Instead, upon beating the final boss, you’re greeted with a GUI to encourage you to play multiplayer which requires a purchase of DLC. I honestly felt like someone punched me in the stomach, and that I was duped.:sweat_smile:

2754442--198691--gui.png
2754442--198691--gui.png1006×380 270 KB

How can there be more to do in a campaign after you defeat a final boss? :eyes:

After this point, all you can do is further grinding and grinding of your player stats and weapons and purchase a season pass.

So, the impression I get is the game has intentionally avoided any concrete ending, is designed to keep you playing forever, in hopes you will buy more DLC, and wait for the publisher to release the next Ubisoft game.
Is this flawed thinking? Or this the strategy now, where games have no real ending anymore?
I played previous Ubisoft games and did not get this impression (the Splinter cells games, which were the best games I ever played).

In this review, this guy is thinking roughly the same thing:

skip to 30:00

1 Like
2

Game Development strategy: Avoid ending & keep the player playing forever?

In general it is not a good single-player strategy, because credits roll are sorta an important part of game experience. So, ubisoft just messed up here.

For “continue playing forever” done properly either see Skyrim/Oblivion or … Disgaea .

Skyrim/oblivion throws at player more story content then a player can realistically handle.
Disgaea, however, takes grinding to eleven in the good way - you could probably play it for a few years straight, if you wanted.

2 Likes
3

Old games wanted to keep the player playing forever too, but back in the day they just did that with making great games with good endings so you actually want to experience it again, I’ve played through and beaten the Playstation era Final Fantasy games AT LEAST 2-4 times each, Played Ico and Shadow of the Colossus twice each, my brother played through Metal Gear Solid 3 like…god knows how many times, at least 6. And I actually can’t count the amount of times I’ve played and beaten Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

But nowadays games, Ubisoft being a particular offender in this, like to use what I call the crack dealer approach to game design, where they keep people trying to chase a high from years ago. This is what has sustained the Assassin’s Creed series since Assassin’s Creed 2. Hell, this approach is what has kept Sonic alive since Sonic Adventure. You give the player just enough to keep them coming back, keep them hoping the company can match the glory days of [game x], and string them along until their addiction kills them, or in this case just makes them like get a job and a life and stuff.

This is one of those things where money making gets in the way of game design to the point that it gets in the way of money making. Like yeah, you are gonna be guarenteed to make SOME money this way, but you’re never gonna make a Final Fantasy VII or a Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Resident Evil 4 or Metal Gear Solid 3 this way. These games are the real money makers, because you could re-release these games a thousand times for the next thousand years, and people will still buy them, because they’re classic, timeless games, and people will buy the shit out of them forever. No one is gonna remember The Division or Watch Dogs or Assassin’s Creed: Unity in 10 years, but I’m sure in 100 years, there will still be a way to play The Last of Us or Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

3 Likes
4

Achievements. :wink:

2 Likes
5

Nothing wrong with a game that doesn’t end. In fact the opposite is a common complaint from many gamers, that a game becomes unplayable after the main story arc is finished.

There have been several games where I have avoided challenging the final boss, because after that its game over unless you want to start again.

6

Um… easily?

Skyrim? Grand Theft Auto? Watch Dogs? The Batman games? Mad Max? Assassin’s Creed? Pretty much every single MMO? It’s not exactly uncommon for games to continue after beating the final boss.

It also strikes me that you were approaching The Division as if it were a single player game, where it’s a multiplayer game through and through. The campaign in a multiplayer game is commonly used as a glorified tutorial to lead players up to the point where all players are mormalized - generally “max level” and able to travel anywhere, and ready for the hardest challenges on offer.

I’ve played a few hours of The Division, and it’s pretty clear that it’s all preparing for me to go into the “Dark Zone”. The Dark Zone seems to be about self-directed goals and high-level loot. Everything before that is levelling your character and teaching you the skills you’ll need to effectively play in that area.

If that’s not what you were expecting then I can understand the disappointment. If you’re an experienced online gamer that’s the whole point of the experience, though. It’s not about “finishing it”, it’s about the high-level social play with others who’ve also reached the “end game” part of the experience.

3 Likes
7

This is probably more to the point. I remember the same feeling when I grabbed Destiny. I saw the Bungie logo and thought I was getting another Halo like game. Instead the game was this weird always online semi cooperative shooter.

Its not that the experience was objectively bad. Its simply I was expecting something different.

2 Likes
8

The game actually came free, included with the Xbox one. Honestly I did not know anything about the game before I started playing it. I enjoyed the game and completed almost everything. I have no intentions of playing the multiplayer aspect of the game though, and never did, which is probably why I felt confused by the end of the campaign. I’m not sure if I would have bought the game knowing the entire campaign is just a “preparation/tutorial” for multiplayer. That is not my ideal type of game.

2 Likes
9

You may not have realised it, but you were playing multiplayer the whole time. You probably never joined a group, since that’s something you have to actively do, but it’s highly likely that a bunch of the characters you ran into were being controlled by other players.

1 Like
10

Yeah, that is something I do alot, especially in the FF games because I’m a perfectionist with those

But at the same time, I’d rather have a good narrative with a satisfying ending that makes all that work I put into the game worth it than…well…Dark Souls 2’s ending.

2 Likes
11

I played Travian once for about a month and never joined a group. I did get very nicely fortified before I became bored with the game which caused those teams that ganged up to defeat me at the end to very much make it not work their effort.

It’s not a really strategy to make your players play ‘forever’ because some advertiser bilked you into playing a game you are unsatisfied with.

12

Sounds really they didn’t grasp the emotional impact of the game and the need for some kind of ‘closure’ or ‘celebration’ or whatever at the end, to release that energy… so instead of accomplishment/gratitude/recognition they gave you “we’d like to take something from you now”. Totally the opposite of what makes sense.

One game I liked the ending(s) of are the tower defense games Kingdom Rush… they have really good gameplay and it leads up in intensity to a ‘boss’ and then you actually get the impression that you’re probably done with the game, there’s a big celebration and a sense of having overcome everything in a climax… and then… it actually keeps going, and all of a sudden there’s this whole new unexpected series of additional levels leading up to yet another boss, and you feel delighted that you got more game to play, and on it goes.

As for truly endless games though, that’s really a different kind of dynamic and it’s hard to make linear limited-content hand-designed games that can carry on endlessly. It really usually needs to involve some procedural element mainly in the level design. Then its more a matter of offering you something of value “completion” but never letting you quite get there.

1 Like
13

How did you like the ending of that game? I finished the story and…:

…really disliked the ending. I can deal with a bleak end to a story, but this one felt needlessly contrived and forced. And after the end the characters that had their tragic deaths, are brought back to life without any explanation, leaving me confused and unsatisfied. Imho Red Dead Redemption solved the whole tragic end with continued gameplay much more gracefully. If I remember correctly you get to play as the son of the protagonist, get revenge on the guy that killed your farther (final showdown duel), and can continue the open world gameplay as the son. It maintains continuity, gives closure and still allows to keep doing the open world stuff. In comparison to that Mad Max feels like a real cheap copout, like: “We’ll just reset it, no one will care, people will hate the ‘real’ ending anyway, might as well just undo it.”
I really liked the Mad Max gameplay and atmosphere though. It’s not a bad game at all, I just didn’t like the ending.

1 Like
14

Well, depends on the execution really.

From what is described in the OP, The Division just messed up the ending. Probably ran out of money IF that really is the whole ending, not cutscene, not even a text giving more context to the ending.
Endings ARE important for multiple reasons. For one, they are kind of the breather after the climax that (hopefully) is the endboss, they are giving players some kind of closure (or might even give hints to the next game in the series), and they generally round of a well structured single player campaign.

Of course, in later times we have seen more and more games ditch singleplayer story campaigns for more DIY approaches like openworld games without fixed story, or mutliplayer like games turned singleplayer with the clock, or highscore, or player level being the only incentive to keep the player entertained.
That can also be done well. Its a different expierience for a different niche of players, and really, lets not forget that this is where games started.

Story and whole story campaigns came into its own only about a decade after the first videogames appeared.

Are “endless games” a good idea? Well, depends on so many factors. You are targetting different audiences.
You need to focus on different aspects (games with a strong story can get away with suboptimal gameplay, see many of the older RPGs. Games without a story have sell solely based on their gameplay systems).
You have vastly different monetization strategies to consider (story based, limited time expierience work best as premium games. “Endless games” without much story work better as a free 2 play expierience (with exceptions that made it as premium games).

EDIT: Having had a look at that review video, it seems the whole game is about as well fleshed out as that ending.
Seems to be the kind of AAA Shovelware we are seeing more and more from Ubisoft lately. Invest tons into marketing, and then save on fleshing out the game, or actually testing and bugfixing it, rushing the release and getting tons of bad press for it.

At some point gamers will become relucant to buy another Ubisoft game… until then I guess it kinda works for them, but clearly not a good strategy if you ask me.

15

I thought it felt exactly like a Mad Max ending should feel.

I didn’t play any of the after-the-end stuff as I’d already taken the time to finish virtually everything off, as I was expecting a harsh ending and didn’t expect a play-on afterwards. When one started I thought they did explain that the story was over and it was just letting you finish off any remaining content, though? I certainly didn’t think that hurt, in so far as I wouldn’t want to miss out on bits just because of the order I did missions in.

1 Like
16

Thinking about it, maybe it would have been better to just have the game end (it’s kind of expected anyway, like you said), and after that offer the option to load a special autosave that was made just before you start the final mission. That wouldn’t register as breaking the continuity for me, becausw it’s something I’m used to from games in general. And it would still keep the option open to grind for the 100% completion if one wants.

1 Like
17

A non ending game is good, though there should be a subtle reminder that you have finished the game, as in Infamous 1

18

Surprised it took so long for somebody to mention Destiny, it’s almost exactly the same model in terms of being open-ended.

The big difference I see is that Destiny gives you a lot more interaction with other random players. When I’d leveled up as far as I cared to, I found it enjoyable to casually wander around and help out lower level people who suddenly found themselves in over their heads. (I don’t have enough Xbox Live friends to play most of the coop content.)

19

Perhaps multiplayer. There’s also NG+ and challenges to be had.