Aaryn Flynn, former director of BioWare, said much more openness and transparency should be applied to the content schedules of games after the release, as this would not disappoint players.
Flynn told VGC about the topic, which didn’t happen by accident: Halo Infinite and Battlefield 2042 also saw fairly rare content after their release, so they were essentially affected by games using the live service model. According to Flynn, players tend to approach the matter in a fair way. I want them to be great, sophisticated games that respect their time. He believes the gaming industry has promised these stars too, but has underperformed in the meantime. Often when we see frustrated players, it is because the expectations set by the studio have not been met and he can feel it too.
Flynn was leading BioWare right when he clashed with the live service model Anthemet has been released (and this game has been uplifted ever since: it hasn’t received new content in over a year). And he’s since working for a team called Inflexion (and there are several ex-BioWare developers here; Flynn is the CEO anyway), which has learned a lesson from the past: developers should apply more transparency, especially in the post-pandemic period.
You have to be honest and say that this is the case, some things are difficult now and we would spend more time putting some great results out of our hands than a hasty, semi-finished job, says Flynn, who says most players he thinks similarly. They have a lot of choices and would rather go play with someone else if they don’t have enough content. For some studios, this can be a good or bad thing. Anyway, Inflexion’s first game will be Nightingale, a survivor of a shared world (everyone will be in the same!) That will start early in the year with early access to Steam.
Flynn added that developers always want to make the best possible game because they also keep their own development in mind and would also improve the experience for the players. But there is international stress over the pandemic, which is holding back everything for two years, many are working from home or falling ill, and workplace paradigms have had to change as well. This will have repercussions for a while, and Flynn says not everything will be the same as before 2020. We are familiar with new realities, but in the meantime we know what has become more difficult and what can be done in the old way. It is not surprising that it is a great challenge to make huge, ambitious games, the plan of which (even if on paper) was crumpled by the pandemic…
But he’s right: developers, publishers need to be honest, and maybe not the live service model should be forced.
Source: VGC
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