CG, eat this sandwich and tell us how it tastes.
Fellow forum readers, if you agree, please “+1” in the comments.
(Bread slice) I love this game
Carrie and Capital Games you have one of the best Star Wars games of this generation and have proved the success of battle collection games across mobile and hopefully AAA (one day). Thank you for opening this market, I’m excited for the future of this genre, and thank you for keeping a little bit of Star Wars in my everyday life.
(Rotten ham) Sort yourselves out
Live service games have foundations to balance for success, I believe these to be; planning, mechanics, community.
Planning
What works:
What doesn’t works:
Mechanics
What works:
What doesn’t works:
Community
What works:
What doesn’t works:
Summary
(Bread slice) The nice bit to end on
It’s not too late to learn from the blunders of this year, hold that mirror up to yourselves and start down a path of change and self-recognition (you’ll feel better for it).
(Bread slice) I love this game
Carrie and Capital Games you have one of the best Star Wars games of this generation and have proved the success of battle collection games across mobile and hopefully AAA (one day). Thank you for opening this market, I’m excited for the future of this genre, and thank you for keeping a little bit of Star Wars in my everyday life.
(Rotten ham) Sort yourselves out
Live service games have foundations to balance for success, I believe these to be; planning, mechanics, community.
Planning
What works:
- Consistent content updates with relevant, varied content.
What doesn’t works:
- A year+ of the a single focus/faction dominating content updates, and game modes (KoToR).
- Huge content drops in a short time period, making the rest of the year stale (Legendary Events).
- Removing player investments (post-event Malak changes, TW locked characters).
Mechanics
What works:
- Keeping to the pillars of your game.
- Rock, Paper, Scissors.
- Collecting everything. We’re Star Wars fans, we want all the Star Wars. TB is a mode which rewards large collections.
What doesn’t works:
- Big Rock, thin wet paper, scissors.
- Mechanics which forces Star Wars fans not to want to 7* and G12 everything (GA matchmaking which conflicts against Territory Battles).
- Character design which removes natural counter viability or team synergies (your taking away from the player again).
Community
What works:
- Trust, following through to your word.
- Recognising community.
- Engagement
What doesn’t works:
- Stating a purpose and executing against it (Rock, Paper Scissors intention – same week removing Palpatine viability).
- Not acknowledging community opinion, not utilising gamechangers effectively.
- Not acknowledging your failure (my impression is that you are firefighting broken internal processes).
- A Q&A session without being prepared and humble enough to address your demons (as suggested in the Road Ahead post, not a good idea if you ignore the obvious questions).
Summary
- Don’t blame EA or your neighbour, sort yourself out, you are responsible as a live service games team.
- We’re all seeing guildmates, shardmates, and friends (or rivals) leave the game because of the above.
- You’re not working on a AAA game so your pipeline can’t be that long, I genuinely hope that you can react in time to retain some of those still considering leaving and rebuild respect for your studio, no one wants what is happening today.
(Bread slice) The nice bit to end on
- The Clone Wars is coming! A new focus which so many fans are fanatical about.
- The next few years are going to be massive for Star Wars with all the upcoming content there is so much for you to build on and keep us engaged with.
It’s not too late to learn from the blunders of this year, hold that mirror up to yourselves and start down a path of change and self-recognition (you’ll feel better for it).
