This question has been brought up a lot lately and throughout the years. And there's several factors that I believe contribute to NRS games life cycle being relatively short.
1. The NRS business model.
There's some people who refuse to "blame" NRS for the games dying out, but they are a contributing factor. And it's not that NRS actively tries to kill a game, it just happens based on their business model.
NRS patches their games early and often, basically "using up" all their patches fairly quickly. Some like this, a lot don't. It's one of most common complaints from within the NRS only crowd and the NRS players that play other games. In fact a lot of the players from other communities attribute the 'patch earl and often' method as the primary reason they lose interest. It makes perfect sense though, business wise, why they do this. By far their largest market are casuals. Casuals play the game a MAX of about 6 months, usually far less, before they move on to another game. So to keep them playing and getting their casual scrublord friends to play, they come out with patches early and often. Like I said, the competitive community is split on this method. Although I've seen more against it than for it.
Competitive wise, it would be much more beneficial to spread the patches out. Say FOR EXAMPLE they were going to patch the game 10 times max. Instead of patching 10 times in 2 years, they made balance patches once a year or twice a year. That's 5 or 10 years of supporting the life span of the game. Of course, no one expects a company like NRS to continue supporting a game for 10 years, but 5 certainly doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
That said, business wise it makes almost zero sense. As I said, we make up such a tiny percentage of the market, and casuals would have given the game up so long ago, extending the life span of game in NRS's eyes is basically charity.
So, while stretching out the patches would benefit the competitive community, it's probably not going to ever happen. NRS is a business, people tend to forget that.
2. The business method creates a standard.
Since NRS patches early and often, that's what we all are used to and expect. We expect the game to change all the time, whether the balances changes are warranted or not. They create that standard of constantly having to relearn match-ups and new characters.
Once all the patching stops, and NRS stops supporting the game to work on their new title, that's when the game really starts dying off. We are so used to relying on NRS to keep our games alive, that when they move on, we do too. With no hope of future changes, we are basically "stuck" with the current game. Some people don't mind this, but the point is a lot of people simply get bored because they are used to the standard. The standard of the game changing constantly.
3. New Game HYPE!
Of course another reason our games die out is because of the new game hype. NRS has stopped supporting the current title and are working and promoting the new one, and they're prettu good at hyping up their new games. So more and more people lose interest in the current title, as the new game hype overshadows it. This tied in with the aforementioned factors, no one should be too surprised our games don't last.
4. "THIS COMMUNITY"
The community does play a role in games dying, but my point in this thread is that it's not ONLY the communities fault.
But if we all traveled and took the current game seriously, the game wouldn't die. But by the time NRS stops supporting the game, we aren't getting any new players at that point. So you're essentially seeing the same people place at tournaments. Until some of them quit then the next tier of players rise up. Until they quit and then rinse and repeat. At that point it comes down to passion. But it all ties in together. NRS games aren't built to last a long time, it's ingrained into the core of the game. They aren't trying to make a masterpiece that lasts for decades, just something people will buy and enjoy for a couple of years. This creates a lack of passion for the game itself.
So, can we make a game last longer than 2.5 years and have it thriving? Technically yes, but when all these factors are put in place, I doubt that will ever happen. Just like I doubt we will ever be able to play 2 games at once. We are trained to only play the new game for 2 years, then move on. The vicious NRS cycle is just something we have to accept... until a game comes along where we choose not to accept it.
And that's exactly the game I've been waiting for.
This is just how I feel about it. I would love to hear what y'all think contributes to the death of our games? Do you agree? Disagree? Have other things to add? Let me know, this subject comes up a lot but I don't remember it really being thoroughly discussed or talked about.
1. The NRS business model.
There's some people who refuse to "blame" NRS for the games dying out, but they are a contributing factor. And it's not that NRS actively tries to kill a game, it just happens based on their business model.
NRS patches their games early and often, basically "using up" all their patches fairly quickly. Some like this, a lot don't. It's one of most common complaints from within the NRS only crowd and the NRS players that play other games. In fact a lot of the players from other communities attribute the 'patch earl and often' method as the primary reason they lose interest. It makes perfect sense though, business wise, why they do this. By far their largest market are casuals. Casuals play the game a MAX of about 6 months, usually far less, before they move on to another game. So to keep them playing and getting their casual scrublord friends to play, they come out with patches early and often. Like I said, the competitive community is split on this method. Although I've seen more against it than for it.
Competitive wise, it would be much more beneficial to spread the patches out. Say FOR EXAMPLE they were going to patch the game 10 times max. Instead of patching 10 times in 2 years, they made balance patches once a year or twice a year. That's 5 or 10 years of supporting the life span of the game. Of course, no one expects a company like NRS to continue supporting a game for 10 years, but 5 certainly doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
That said, business wise it makes almost zero sense. As I said, we make up such a tiny percentage of the market, and casuals would have given the game up so long ago, extending the life span of game in NRS's eyes is basically charity.
So, while stretching out the patches would benefit the competitive community, it's probably not going to ever happen. NRS is a business, people tend to forget that.
2. The business method creates a standard.
Since NRS patches early and often, that's what we all are used to and expect. We expect the game to change all the time, whether the balances changes are warranted or not. They create that standard of constantly having to relearn match-ups and new characters.
Once all the patching stops, and NRS stops supporting the game to work on their new title, that's when the game really starts dying off. We are so used to relying on NRS to keep our games alive, that when they move on, we do too. With no hope of future changes, we are basically "stuck" with the current game. Some people don't mind this, but the point is a lot of people simply get bored because they are used to the standard. The standard of the game changing constantly.
3. New Game HYPE!
Of course another reason our games die out is because of the new game hype. NRS has stopped supporting the current title and are working and promoting the new one, and they're prettu good at hyping up their new games. So more and more people lose interest in the current title, as the new game hype overshadows it. This tied in with the aforementioned factors, no one should be too surprised our games don't last.
4. "THIS COMMUNITY"
The community does play a role in games dying, but my point in this thread is that it's not ONLY the communities fault.
But if we all traveled and took the current game seriously, the game wouldn't die. But by the time NRS stops supporting the game, we aren't getting any new players at that point. So you're essentially seeing the same people place at tournaments. Until some of them quit then the next tier of players rise up. Until they quit and then rinse and repeat. At that point it comes down to passion. But it all ties in together. NRS games aren't built to last a long time, it's ingrained into the core of the game. They aren't trying to make a masterpiece that lasts for decades, just something people will buy and enjoy for a couple of years. This creates a lack of passion for the game itself.
So, can we make a game last longer than 2.5 years and have it thriving? Technically yes, but when all these factors are put in place, I doubt that will ever happen. Just like I doubt we will ever be able to play 2 games at once. We are trained to only play the new game for 2 years, then move on. The vicious NRS cycle is just something we have to accept... until a game comes along where we choose not to accept it.
And that's exactly the game I've been waiting for.
This is just how I feel about it. I would love to hear what y'all think contributes to the death of our games? Do you agree? Disagree? Have other things to add? Let me know, this subject comes up a lot but I don't remember it really being thoroughly discussed or talked about.
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