11–19 of 19 posts
Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
To be clear, you're saying to avoid rushing to your Launch (marketing, press, boxes on shelves, etc), right, not to avoid showing it to customers?
At first it struck me as contrary to the 'just get your version 1.0 out there no matter how embarrassing it is' wisdom, but I suppose on reflection it's not really.
Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
Or perhaps, don't launch with a minimal viable product with plans to improve it later unless you have a financial structure that allows you to stay in business for long enough to actually improve it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be clear, you're saying to avoid rushing to your Launch (marketing, press, boxes on shelves, etc), right, not to avoid showing it to customers?
Well that's what Realtime Worlds did, they showed the game, it got a lot of buzz, so they pushed its release date forward (or refrained from delaying to fix the bugs), released it, but it flopped. So yes it's the Launch bit they screwed up. At first it struck me as contrary to the 'just get your version 1.0 out there no matter how embarrassing it is' wisdom, but I suppose on reflection it's not really.
Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
In APB's case, it likely would have been vastly preferable to launch with an MVP two or three years ago, the minimum viable product of APB being a game that's low on content but high on playability. Just as with non-game software, they should have concentrated on user experience first, with a small feature set, and have launched something that left the audience hungry for more, rather than deluging the player with content that isn't fun to play.
You gain a gaming audience's trust much faster promising that a fun and short game will get longer than promising that a long and un-fun game will get funner.
Moral of this story would be: do not rush to launch with a minimal viable product if you're working on an MMO (or probably any console game).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or perhaps, don't launch with a minimal viable product with plans to improve it later unless you have a financial structure that allows you to stay in business for long enough to actually improve it.
I can't help but feel the bad reviews caused irreparable damage. Even if they'd had a few more months to tweak it, I doubt they would have attracted many gamers. It's not the first rushed but promising game I've seen sink on launch (see: True Crime NY). Big budget games are a somewhat different category than (business) (web)apps.
I think they're still confused. They think the 'smaller team' was what made Crackdown better, and in reality was 'better team'. Size wasn't relevant, only the people were. They admit later they had people who enjoyed making a great game, and others who relished the politics. The latter is what destroyed them.
(http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail40...)