Craeftig on 21/10/2017 at 16:08
It seems like this is a throwback to the days when most games were purchased as discrete packages on hard media such as tapes, cartridges, cd, dvd etc. If a game has potential but is flawed in one way or another then it should be possible to progressively improve that game to the point where 95% of customers are happy. Indeed I think No Man's Sky has gone down this route although I cannot vouch for it. I'm not quite talking about GaaS. I mean could it not be possible to have multiple forks of a game's codebase that will cater to what different types of customer in the era where digital download is the significant revenue stream?
WingedKagouti on 21/10/2017 at 16:39
Quote Posted by Craeftig
I mean could it not be possible to have multiple forks of a game's codebase that will cater to what different types of customer in the era where digital download is the significant revenue stream?
I don't think any single company would want to try this for a larger game, the resources required to maintain something like that are not trivial. The practical version would be incorporating mod support (which is not free in terms of development costs) or licensing the game engine to other companies.
Nameless Voice on 21/10/2017 at 17:10
Some companies do continue to improve on their games for a while after release, especially ones who make multiplayer games.
However, realistically, there's not much profit to be made from spending more money on an already-released game when you're unlikely to get many more sales, unless the game has already sold poorly because of a bad initial release and you are hoping to fix it up enough so that people start recommending it.
Unless, of course, the game doesn't make revenue by copies sold, but rather makes money through microtransactions, in which case it is in the developers' best interest to keep <s>improving</s> iterating on the game to keep it fresh and try to <s>keep players interested</s> attract more new players.
Pyrian on 21/10/2017 at 17:25
Iterating released games has been a huge thing pretty much since online connections became widespread. Forking the code is another matter altogether. Typically you avoid that as much as possible because it creates a ton of work. Usually it's done to support platforms - and modern engines do their best to mitigate even that. For gameplay variation, you usually put in live options, not code forks.
Nameless Voice on 21/10/2017 at 18:39
Like Pyrian said, that would be a terribly inefficient way to do it.
Rather, they would just make it an in-game option that can be used to customise the one copy of the game.
ZylonBane on 21/10/2017 at 19:43
This is the sort of thread we get when someone who obviously doesn't have the slightest clue about software development thinks they're smarter than the people who do.
Nameless Voice on 21/10/2017 at 20:29
Looks like it's also one of those threads where we see what happens when you let people edit their posts.
ZylonBane on 21/10/2017 at 23:34
You are a pathetic coward, Craeftig. You are the very opposite of what your username means.
Jason Moyer on 21/10/2017 at 23:36
[video=youtube;k-ZQs751FkQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ZQs751FkQ[/video]
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