#post launch

It basically went the same way. I tried my best because that's what I do. Early in my career I didn't know any better, so I thought that "if I work harder, if everyone works harder, maybe we can save this thing." As I got more experienced, I realized that the project's direction is far more important than any individual contribution, and I got better at recognizing what I would need for myself in the future. I realized that even if I worked on a project that got cancelled or flopped on release, I would still need to speak to the choices I made and the quality of my work in the likely event a layoff was in the wings. Thus, my operating strategy evolved into doing my best at the office while reading the tea leaves and update my resume and looking at possible openings in case shit hit the fan.

On a larger scale, team morale falls as crunch increases and major features get cut. It just feels bad to see all that work end up on the scrap heap and know that the situation is bad. Typically one of two results would inevitably happen as things continued on. More often, executive confidence in the project would tank, the project would get cancelled, and (most of) the team would get laid off. Less often, the project would launch, we would miss our target numbers, continued development would get cancelled, and most of the team got laid off anyway. I've never actually been in the extremely rare situation where the team gets a bunch of additional resources to try to reinvent itself and succeed a second time.

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Paid game player retention is a little different from free game retention, but the curve is still similarly shaped. Because players actually have to spend before playing a paid (premium) game, they are automatically more "invested" in playing it. This varies commensurately with the cost to the player - the lower the cost, the less auto-investment in the game. This is why the big game bundles are so easily dropped - there's almost no marginal cost per game to the user, so it's really easy to drop them. The reason we use day 1, day 7, and day 30 as our major indicators is because they provide good samples for major turning points in the player experience. Above these typical numbers is good. Below is bad. Far below is really bad. Also, based on when the player numbers are falling off, we can figure out where the problems are in our player experience that we need to improve if the publishers have the faith that we can fix the leaks.

One day in, it's all about the First Time User Experience (FTUE). This is the very first time the player plays the game. The key factors here are the tutorial/onboarding process, the moment-to-moment gameplay, performance/optimization, and the total download time before a player can actually play the game. Too many players falling out here means that the FTUE isn't well-built. Typically, for a $60 game we expect around 50-60% retention on day 1.

One week in, players have decided whether they find the progression and social features engaging. If they feel like they're progressing too slowly or if the game feels too grindy, they'll bounce. If they feel like the game isn't meeting their needs or they can't find people to play with, they'll bounce. Matchmaking, community features, trade, pvp, longer-term rewards, and the meta game are what matter a week in. We normally expect to keep ~20-30% by day 7 with a premium game.

Day 30 is a key long term indicator, because most players have reached the elder game by then and have seen all (or almost all) the game has to offer. If they've stuck around, they'll likely continue to stick around. Players who make it to day 30 will likely be there for the long haul. Thus, most studios have a target day 30 retention number that they need in order to keep the lights on. Usually, this minimum bar is above 10% of their day 0 numbers. If they can keep one in ten players for the long haul, they can survive and sustain themselves. If they can't, they won't be able to replace the players as fast as they quit and the game is likely doomed. The surviving premium games hope for ~15% retention by day 30. This usually ensures not just sustainability, but profitability and a reasonable amount of growth for the team and game scope over time (i.e. larger expansion packs in addition to quarterly content updates).

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Because to the general player, there IS a difference between games like Overwatch/2 or Fortnight which are "live service" games, and Super Smash Bros Ultimate which was not "live service" in the same way that the other games are, despite getting regular character drops/dlcs and some patches.

Yes, they are all live service games. As long as the product is out in public and actively being supported by developers, to us it is a live service game. This is one of those disconnects between what the public thinks the term means and what the developers think the term means (much like ["alpha" and "beta"]). Your own example of Smash Ultimate is very much a live service game - the online matchmaking, for example, is literally an online live service element. If a game gets updates and post-launch support, it's a live service. Also, remember that Wilson wasn't speaking to players or the press when he talked about "shared world features and deeper engagement" with regards to Veilguard, he was talking to investors at an investor call.

You've been using "live service" incorrectly. Most games today are live service games. Whenever a studio or publisher announces that there won't be any more updates for a particular game, that's them announcing the end of the live service part of the game. Live service games are not a bad thing.

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Most in-development live service games plan ahead for one year's worth of post-launch content from the jump. Typically this is planned to follow a quarterly schedule, so that we have sufficient development time to build a sizable amount of new content for players. The development focus is not evenly distributed either - the closest update is always much more concrete than three updates in the future because the closest update is launching much sooner.

For those established franchises that have a regular refresh cycle (Annual sports games, Call of Duty, Just Dance, Lego titles, Assassin's Creed, etc.), we plan out quarterly content updates until the launch of the next game in the franchise. Because of the strength of the franchise, we can expect there to be a community of players that will continue to play until the cycle refreshes.

When it comes to things like narrative, things are also generally planned out over the next year. The usual plan is gradual tension building over each update, with clearly defined major story beats, culminating in some kind of climax that should launch at the end of the year's planned content. Then the specific details of the characters and the story beats get fleshed out as we build them.

We usually have a pretty good idea of how well the game was received within the first few weeks of launch, while we're still executing the one-year-plan. If things are proceeding to plan (or better), we keep on keeping on by sticking to the plan. If they aren't, we quickly assess. How far away from target are we? Can we get back on target? If we can't get back on target, chances are good we'll push out the finished first update and maybe the second update will be the last. If this happens, the announcement for end of updates will likely go out after the second update and the end of service will be announced a few months later. If things are really bad, the plug probably gets pulled immediately to cut losses.

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It really depends on the game. For a game within a franchise that has a strong release schedule like FIFA, preproduction can be as short as 4 months as the developers figure out what they have the time to do. For other games, it can be longer - the dev team can spend up to a year in preproduction figuring out the core gameplay for most games, with more time needed for games with really massive scope (e.g. MMOGs). AAA dev really tries not to spend that much time in preproduction because the plan should already mostly be in place by the time we begin - we know what kind of game we're making and we have a solid idea for what kind of gameplay we're trying to build out. The goal of preproduction is to build out to the vertical slice of gameplay, a playable example of all of the game's features and systems working together.

It's worth repeating - the vast majority of AAA games with 5+ years of dev time aren't usually being fully built from start to finish. Most games with long dev cycles get started, things don't evaluate well, the progress gets thrown out, and development gets restarted. Only a handful of game franchises are exceptions to this - Elder scrolls, GTA, whatever Riot or Valve are doing, etc. Most studios just don't have the financial freedom to burn money for multiple years without anything to show for it.

As for your second question, it also depends. After the post-launch vacation time, the dev team usually gets split up. Some of the dev team members usually continue on with the launched game to work on additional DLC content, cosmetics, and so on. Some of the devs can get moved onto another project that's already in progress, usually as part of a ramp-up into production. A few of the more senior team members might be tapped to go work on really early development for new game ideas. And some of the dev team will inevitably decide that they've finished their last hurrah and tender their resignations to go seek greener pastures elsewhere.

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It feels like it because that's exactly what happens. Most AAA games experience large influx of initial number of players that drops significantly after a few weeks. That is the usual cycle. Most AAA games have their marketing campaigns climax at the game's launch, which means a lot of players will give the game a try. It's actually very rare for more than half of players who pick a game to actually finish it. The > 50% of players who drop the game do so for a variety of reasons - they they get busy, they don't really like the game, they start another game they were interested in, they go back to an old favorite game, they go join their friends in another game, and so on and so forth. This is normal and not unexpected.

As for why people are obsessed with it, I believe it is because humans are emotional creatures and put a lot of that emotional investment into things they like (such as games). If a person likes something, they usually want it to do well and feel some amount of happiness if the thing they like does well. If a person dislikes something, they usually wish it ill and feel some amount of happiness if the thing they dislike is failing. If a person gets very emotionally invested in a game that ends up disappointing them for some reason, it's very much like a jilted lover situation - all that positive emotion turns bitter and they become super invested in seeing the object of their bitterness fail.

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