Modern live-service games have self-segmented in genres: match-3, 4x, collection RPG, battle royale, etc. We know these genres evolve and start to incorporate new mechanics. Over time, these mechanics become standard genre fare. For example, invest-n-express titles like Gardenscapes are an outgrowth of the match-3 genre, adding collection mechanics to the core match base. In…
The “metaverse” discussion seems more about cultural “in-group” signaling then a thorough exploration of an idea. It’s frustrating. Rather than talking about “what the metaverse will look like” instead we should examine the forecast of a “metaverse” altogether.
Psyonix credits PS+ with vaulting Rocket League to success. Mediatonic decided to follow suit with Fall Guys. And after its success, Destruction All-Stars delayed their launch to be included in the program. Does PS+ deserve all credit it’s been given? There are some stark trade-offs worth examining.
Cyperpunk 2077 launched and it turns out the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game were riddled with bugs. This has lead to an avalanche of omniscient pundits declaring “I told ya so!”. My personally favorite roast in this Miyamoto meme. Rushing development feeds into narratives around greedy firms. “If only they didn’t want…
I recently came across this Tweet: I love the way Ran writes https://t.co/3XUxfsXjDL — Growf (@pinchedforgrowf) December 22, 2020 The article’s writer, Ran Mo, is a Lead Product Manager at EA according to his Linkedin while the quote Tweeter is a fellow product manager. Dive a bit deeper and the retweets are all from fellow…
It’s the incentives, stupid. Players want to unlock content and the most efficient way to do so is to maximize how many FPS games control progression speed: SPM or score per minute. Score is usually a formula composed of objectives and kills. The key is that it’s uncapped: there’s not a fixed amount of XP…
Part IPart IIPart III A Quick Refresher Pricing is tough to get right. Ideally, we’d like to select a price that maximizes profit, holding all else constant. Let’s add consumer surplus to the story. In the example below, this is the shaded yellow area. Some readers value the book at $30 and thus are the…
Part IPart II So maybe game companies aren’t tech companies. As much as game companies seem to borrow from tech firms, tech firms run a bigger deficit in borrowing from games. If Netflix, a subscription service with over 10,000 movies and TV shows, has its biggest competitor in a single game, Fortnite, then perhaps there’s…
Part I Ran Mo retraces the incredible fast follow of the auto-chess genre. Before you could blink an eye, what was a mod in Dota 2 (which itself was a mod) had spun off into three incarnations. The first was from the mod maker, Drodo Studios’ plainly labeled Auto Chess, the second was Valve’s Underlords,…
Ran Mo and Joseph Kim (@jokim1) argue for looking at games from a Silicon Valley perspective. The usual three make an appearance: moats, networking effects, and platforms. Moreover, while I thought it had died out after the launch of Halo 3, there continues to exist an inferiority complex amongst game makers. Games never seem to get the mainstream or…