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Friday Morning
I swear I am writing this text myself, and I am not using ChatGPT. It’s hard to imagine a world where Giulia doesn’t knock on my door on an average Friday morning to ask where the editorial for this week’s newsletter is. It’s also hard to imagine a world where sitting down and writing is not the most relaxing and fulfilling task of the day.
Rebooting big franchises
I’ve been playing some Company of Heroes 3 and looking at players’ feedback lately, and I find it very interesting to monitor what is happening to other companies launches. Working on a massive release like this one is a daunting task, and I admire the courage in designing the future of strategy games that some of the AAA developers have. Rebooting a big franchise is always an impressive task; we’ve seen it with Master of Magic. You’ve got to please the hardcore audience of previous games but also give them something more and imagine what new players will want to play. It means long design sessions, experimenting with small innovations that don’t discourage existing fans, involving them in the process, and filtering their thoughts to distill what really counts. Looking at the comments and reviews for Master of Magic and Company of Heroes you can clearly see that it’s all about expectations. Managing these expectations has become a good part of our marketing job.
The importance of Community
This brings us straight to the length of the development process these days. Some beta testing phases are supposed to be six month long and they end up being two years. Release dates become unpredictable very quickly, and the expectations of the communities keep mounting as development continues. I’ve seen this happen in the past, but completing a game is becoming much harder these days, and this is a result of asking for feedback from the community. It’s a necessary step, but it slows the process down. Anytime the community asks why a game has been delayed, it may well be that they're part of the reason. It’s not bad; it’s just how things work these days.
