10 AugHow to make your new game succeed: Everlasting Content.

Continuity in games is a concept that is vital to getting a massive number of players and more importantly, brand loyalty. Many games fizzle and die only a few months after their release, simply because there is no momentum. No amount of viral marketing and a 50 million advertising budget can compare to the simple concept of continuity in your game.

There are many ways to maintain continuity, and I’ll talk about one of the key ingredients: Everlasting content. “Everlasting Content” is what players relate to, it’s the lingering goal or threat that keeps the players on their toes, it’s what they talk about passionately to the next gamer (or potential new fan). It is viral marketing without making any effort. This is what will make the name of your game lasted for years. I will present two examples, both of which are Blizzard Entertainment titles which I talk a lot about during presentations due to their great success: World of Warcraft and Starcraft. The key to their success is mass appeal generated by a strong attachment to its “Everlasting Content”: a great storyline fueled with passions, a great history generated by conflicts across realms and planets, and highly fleshed out races that players control, both in playability, and historical outcome. Players argue amongst each other on which race is best (and will not hesitate to prove it to you in a 1-on-1 battle in game), and they remember the names of key characters, and because of that continuity, they keep coming back from more, which is why Starcraft 2 has got most if not all of the original fans back on the saddle, and which is why World of Warcraft continues to dominate the MMORPG market.

How do you create “Everlasting Content” in your brand new game? You need to have a good team of concept, environment and game history writers, that won’t just write a synopsis that players will quickly skip over, but they need to flesh out every detail, from origins, to aspirations, to unique mannerisms, and have bits and pieces of it like breadcrumbs throughout the game world. Make it relevant to game-play, and place appropriate story “hooks” and “plot twists” to make it even more enticing. This is content that will immediately stand out. Just look at the amount of detail and research that Ubisoft’s concept writers put when designing the Assassin’s Creed trilogy, every major character had a full biography, every relationship was fleshed out, every locale had something to do with the game’s history. And speaking of locales, it just amazes me the amount of realism and detail they put into constructing major cities like Damascus (in Assassin’s Creed 1) and Venice (Assassin’s Creed 2), but I digress. So after laying out your concept, the trick is to trickle this history into the player’s subconscious mind, gradually, but consistently. There is no glory in blurting out the entire synopsis at the beginning of the game, remember subtlety, and try to tease the characters with your concept, like a piece of raspberry chocolate cheesecake. MMMmm… By the end of it, your player is not just playing to win the game, but he or she is literally striving hard to save the galaxy, or world (or in some case, even destroy it) because everyone is depending on them! Then, when they’re done, they will patiently look forward to the next installment, and will be thankful to be given the opportunity to hand over their dough.

A short list of highly acclaimed games (made by other developers and game studios) that have “Everlasting Content” and are sure to be classics for a long while:
Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Mass Effect, BioShock, Star Wars KOTOR, Resident Evil, Assassin’s Creed, Silent Hill, God of War