{"id":11365,"date":"2023-08-30T14:37:36","date_gmt":"2023-08-30T12:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/30\/gamescom-report-can-the-forever-game-endure\/"},"modified":"2023-08-30T14:37:36","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T12:37:36","slug":"gamescom-report-can-the-forever-game-endure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/30\/gamescom-report-can-the-forever-game-endure\/","title":{"rendered":"Gamescom report: can the \u2018forever game\u2019 endure?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Live service games that try to monopolise attention put immense pressure on developers to keep pace with players<\/p>\n

\u2022 Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the only announcements at this year\u2019s Gamescom, an event replete with games to play but usually light on news (as Keith wrote<\/a> in last week\u2019s newsletter), was that the demon-killing, time-deleting action RPG Diablo IV\u2019s second \u201cseason\u201d would start on 17 October. That means new stuff for its 12 million players to do \u2013 vampiric powers feature heavily. But given that this game only came out in June and its first season of new content started in late July, it also means that its developers will have been working nonstop since its launch to get yet more game content ready to go.<\/p>\n

I have often wondered how the makers of live service games \u2013 \u201cforever games\u201d that essentially wish to monopolise a player\u2019s attention over an extended period of time, a still relatively new genre and business model that\u2019s emerged in the last 10 years \u2013 manage these brutal schedules. Twenty years ago, studios would release a game and that would be it; 10 years ago, they\u2019d be on the hook for a patch or maybe a downloadable expansion, but not such an endless stream of content. So I asked its producer, Rod Fergusson \u2013 who has been running games teams for more than two decades, most famously with Epic Games on Gears of War \u2013 how they manage it.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nLive service games that try to monopolise attention put immense pressure on developers to keep pace with players
\n\u2022 Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here
\nOne of the only announcements at this year\u2019s Gamescom, an event replete with games to play but usually light on news (as Keith wrote in last week\u2019s newsletter), was that the demon-killing, time-deleting action RPG Diablo IV\u2019s second \u201cseason\u201d would start on 17 October. That means new stuff for its 12 million players to do \u2013 vampiric powers feature heavily. But given that this game only came out in June and its first season of new content started in late July, it also means that its developers will have been working nonstop since its launch to get yet more game content ready to go.
\nI have often wondered how the makers of live service games \u2013 \u201cforever games\u201d that essentially wish to monopolise a player\u2019s attention over an extended period of time, a still relatively new genre and business model that\u2019s emerged in the last 10 years \u2013 manage these brutal schedules. Twenty years ago, studios would release a game and that would be it; 10 years ago, they\u2019d be on the hook for a patch or maybe a downloadable expansion, but not such an endless stream of content. So I asked its producer, Rod Fergusson \u2013 who has been running games teams for more than two decades, most famously with Epic Games on Gears of War \u2013 how they manage it. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Live service games that try to monopolise attention put immense pressure on developers to keep pace with players \u2022 Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here One of the only announcements at this year\u2019s Gamescom, an event replete with games to play but usually light on news (as Keith wrote in …<\/p>\n

Gamescom report: can the \u2018forever game\u2019 endure?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11365"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}