Extending A Game’s Life- Do DLCs and Free Updates Work?

How long would a lifespan of a game last?

In the early days of gaming, games are difficult by design due to their arcade heritage- where its business model is to ensure people keep coming back and put in more coins to progress, or the game designers have become terribly good with their own creation which made them to up the difficulty. Its rare for somebody to beat the game, a true test of skill.

Or maybe it was cheat codes.

Anyway, as time progresses, a shift of game design happened as games are designed for more players being able to see all the content offer. Nowadays, most games are beatable by the average gamer, some for a good 20-30 hours, some even in just one sitting.

The question of today is how do games present themselves to be valuable longer than just a playthrough? What if developers can provide more content than just what is in the disk?

On that point, let’s discuss about extending a game’s life.

The Dilemma of Big-Name Franchises

Today’s world of gaming is a different landscape than its early days. Most of the biggest games coming in are form renowned, established franchises. Doing something completely different with a different name (or as the industry likes to call it ” new IPs” (intellectual properties) is a risky endeavor.

One example close to heart is the upcoming release of the self-titled Need For Speed (NFS 2015), I’ve seen many mixed reactions about one common ground: Is it Need For Speed? Does it deserve the name? It’s a question I ask myself too.

Need For Speed is not the only franchise in question. Tons of long-running franchise have seem to appear lately, some returning with a totally, radical change, while some stick close to what is supposed to be. This leaves fans of franchises being fans for different reasons, with different expectations. Thus, a predicament appears when a new game comes up as not all fans are happy about it.

Somehow, I Once Designed an XCOM-like Pen-And-Paper Game

Back when I was about 10 years old, I saw some friends making a pen-and-paper game recreation of Pokémon. It was a hit in the class. I was thinking, why not make my own game based on my own ideas?

Here’s the story of how I once created a pen-and-paper game similar to an XCOM game.