There is an old saying, ‘After losing a cow, you repair the barn.’ This means that there is no use in trying your hand after something has already gone wrong. ‘Postmortem medication visitation’, which refers to using medicine after death, has a similar meaning and refers to the foolishness of taking action too late.
However, belated response is not always meaningless. In particular, in the game market, after users leave, the game is developed through various patches and improvements, and it is often received positive reviews again.
No Man’s Sky
The most representative example is ‘No Man’s Sky’, released by Hello Games in 2016. This game depicts the fun of exploring the vast universe, and has been highly anticipated by gamers before its release. The game was so enormous that the map could contain a single galaxy, and the number of star systems that users could encounter theoretically went beyond trillions to the level of billions.
Users expected to be able to enjoy a journey through this vast universe, from the depths of space to the planet’s surface, without loading screens or restrictions, and thought they would be able to write their own operations through near-infinite space travel.
No Man’s Sky
However, when the game was released in 2016, it was met with harsh reviews. Most of the content that Hello Games had revealed had not been implemented, and battleships and multiplayer, for which information had been revealed before release, did not exist in the game. There was almost everything in the game that could disappoint gamers, including an extremely vain ending. The game received overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam.
Although many users were disappointed and left, developer Hello Games promised to continue improving the game and has released large-scale updates every year since 2017. In particular, there have been major changes in the game since the ‘NEXT’ update introduced in 2018, and it has received such positive reviews that users have commented that it has virtually become a different game.
Hello Games has been continuously updating the game since 2023, and Steam user reviews have generally reached a positive level. In addition, the disappointment of Bethesda’s recently released space game ‘Starfield’ was reflected, and conversely, ‘No Man’s Sky’ was attracting attention, becoming a representative example of game improvement.
cyberpunk 2077
CD Projekt Red’s ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ is also an example of a game that raised its poor evaluation at the beginning of its launch through continuous improvement. The game is an open world game that takes place in 2077 in Night City, a megacity obsessed with power, luxury and body modification. Users can play the game as mercenary V and solve problems using various methods such as hacking, firearms, and body modification using cyberware.
Due to the worldwide success of CD Projekt Red’s previous work, ‘The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’, there was enormous anticipation for ‘Cyberpunk 2077’, and through a later report, it was reported that pre-release pre-orders had reached about 8 million copies. This is truly an enormous number. When the game was released at the end of 2020, there were so many users that Steam’s servers went down for a moment, and the number of concurrent users on the first day exceeded 1 million.
cyberpunk 2077
However, the console version, such as PS4, was unable to enjoy the game properly after its release due to serious optimization problems, and the PC version, which was better, suffered from various bugs. Despite the highly anticipated game having its release postponed three times, the game was ultimately evaluated as not meeting expectations. In particular, this game is one in which the Polish government also invested, so we faced an unprecedented situation where a Polish government agency intervened to monitor the patch situation.
Since then, CD Projekt Red has continued to improve the game. Through the 1.5 patch released in February 2022, next-generation devices such as PS5 are supported and the game has improved in many areas. Afterwards, the Netflix animation ‘Cyberpunk: Edge Runner’ received favorable reviews and was evaluated as being better than before through patch 1.6, which was released at a similar time.
CD Projekt Red does not stop there, but plans to unveil various changes through Patch 2.0, a large-scale update to ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ on September 21st, and to introduce ‘Phantom Liberty’, a large-scale expansion pack, on the 26th. This time, attention is focused on whether it will be able to elicit good reviews from users.
Eternal Return
There are similar cases among domestic games. The main character is the PC game ‘Eternal Return’, which was officially released on July 20th and is gaining popularity. ‘Eternal Return’ is a quarter-view battle royale genre game developed by Neptune’s subsidiary Nimble Neuron. It follows the farming method and game play method of the existing battle royale game ‘Black Survival’ and introduces a MOBA genre control method to make it easy to enjoy.
The game entered early access in October 2020 and received great attention as it began to spread word of mouth through internet streamers. The fun of creating item farming routes, crafting items, and competing attracted users to ‘Eternal Return.’ As of November 2020, the number of concurrent users exceeded 50,000, and since then, the number of concurrent users has been maintained at close to 10,000 while working with Kakao Games.
However, users were dissatisfied with the game’s ongoing balance issues, and users exploded with skill amplification-related patches, almost collapsing the game. The number of concurrent users, which once exceeded 50,000, has become difficult to maintain even 1/10th of. Accordingly, the developer announced plans to improve the game in the officially released version through emergency meetings.
Eternal Return
In the official release version, solo and duo modes were temporarily deleted and only squads were operated to help beginner gamers easily adapt to the game, and the number of squad members was increased to 24 people in 8 teams instead of 18 in 6 teams. In addition, the size of the area has been increased by 15%, it provides more time for early growth, and includes ‘Operator Nadja’, which provides advice according to the progress, a completely revamped ‘Tutorial System’, and a ‘Bonfire System’ that simplifies the food production process. .
‘Eternal Return’, which officially launched in July amid major improvements and user anxiety, recorded an astonishing 400% increase in concurrent users on Steam since its official launch, and recorded positive results such as recording a maximum number of concurrent users of 34,000 in September. It is entering its second heyday amidst evaluations.
