#content distribution

[askagamedev]

Every once in a while, in the pre-patch days, you'd hear of a game where later printings (like a "greatest hits" version) were in fact slightly different versions with bug fixes or the occasional tiny balance adjustment. How did that sort of thing happen, given the rarity of it?

Amusingly, this was often because the original gold master build was no longer viable and they had to make a wholly new build to distribute. Sometimes this was due to situations like the cert rules changing between the original launch and the second print run, others because our certified build was lost or corrupted. If we have to make a whole new build for cert submission anyway, we might as well fix some of the bugs/balance issues that have been bothering us while we're in there.

The main reason it was such a rarity is because the certification process was (and still is) damn expensive. My pay grade at the time wasn't high enough to be involved with that kind of decision-making, but the executive producers I spoke to told me that it easily cost in the tens if not low hundreds of thousands of dollars for each certification submission at the time. Failing cert meant the loss of all that money in addition to weeks of development time where we would need to fix the cert-blocking problems (and only those problems), re-submit, and wait another couple of weeks while the platform tested our submission again. Due to the costs involved, publishers usually re-certify only as a last resort.

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[amisbro]

A “Kind of serious” UtaPri Q

“If there was one thing you would change about UtaPri what would it be?” Content distribution Allow me to explain this for you UtaPri ,as we know it, as almost been around for 10 years.  Its official “start date” was back in 2010 on June 24th and in that time there was a lot of content that came for the STARISH members and also later for QUARTET NIGHT especially when you consider they have now been in a game since the Debut and All-Star. Now you think about THAT and then you think about where this post is about to go and I promise you some people are gonna get mad...not my intention but let’s discuss this

So Uta no Prince-Sama started as a franchise officially in 2010 and as an Anime in 2011 when Maji Love 1000 came out (Henceforth called “ML1K”) and it was basically the season long story of how STARISH was formed and then later in 2013 they were given Maji Love 2000 basically where they again were the main focus (and that’s fine) but we also met the trio that would gum up things for the STARISH in HEAVENS and we know their story.  They were a “Trio of Amateurs” as Shining put it that would face off against STARISH at the UtaPri awards and there would be more on the line than JUST an award as Shining and Raging put up the futures of the groups in which STARISH wins but as we know HEAVENS gets saved and comes back as a 7 person group at the end of Season 3. NOW...here is where we start to talk about the idea of “content distribution” By the time that Season 2 came out there had been (and I checked this) 2 games that featured QN in some way:  Debut (which was their intro into the series) and then All-Star Now I have stated before that I think if you wanted to do the idea of a “rivalry” with STARISH and QN it should have been around here (considering at this point there was at least a game or two of content for QN) so the idea of having to “create” the group to be the rival for STARISH from a “Made up” Agency (i.e. one not in the game canon) to me was kind of “Huh?” (and this mind you comes from me when I never read the stories for any character in any of the actual games). But alright now STARISH is going to beat HEAVENS the first time...fine and as some might not be aware I was happy about that cos I assumed (and I found out I was wrong seconds later) that HEAVENS was going to go away and then NOW we would get on with the STARISH/QN rivalry. Looking back on this here is what I was kind of hoping would have happened Okay you want to give an OVA for the Shining Agency..I’m fine with that.  The issue comes with HEAVENS For some reason after they wrote it where HEAVENS would lose the thought enters your mind (or it does mine anyways) “What did HEAVENS losing accomplish?” Here is why I say that HEAVENS losing makes sense IF  - They are going to disband OR  - We are going to get an OVA or some kind of content chronicling them on the road to going to face off against STARISH again.  I think I once made the suggestion of an idea where what you would do is have STARISH win but HEAVENS gets saved and then simultaneously have something where they have an OVA/Season to chronicle the formation of the 7 person group for HEAVENS.  The issue if you did a season for it would be I dunno how many people (especially those on the STARISH side) would have watched it BUT it could have made them very sympathetic characters for Season 4 (not that Season 4 didn’t succeed on some level but it also caused a great divide too). This is where I get a little bothered What I would like to know is this How many people in the fandom AFTER the UtaPri Awards season wanted to see something related to the content to develop HEAVENS as characters?  I’m not saying your a “bad person” if you didn’t care one way or the other but it would have helped if you had a way to get to know at least the Trio BEFORE Season 4 started so that you had them and then we could intro the other 4 characters...would work right? The other thing that could have been done was to create a Drama CD just of the Trio so that you could really get behind HEAVENS and start to cheer them on if you wanted to...it wouldn’t have been a bad idea and it would have worked out I think..they didn’t though and that is kind of a bother. Like the point I am getting at as far as getting to Season 4 is that HEAVENS could have had some content wrote for them to make them more appealing and likable and I know that might not have been financially viable but it could have been a very interesting revenue stream if they just THOUGHT about it! NOW...I’ll hear this argument (and its not wrong) “Broccoli didn’t know what they were going to do with HEAVENS at this time” This isn’t wrong because you ARE right!  Broccoli didn’t know they were going to add HEAVENS into Revolutions or Legend Star so their loss in ML2K would have been a perfect ending and then if you wanted to go with STARISH and QN then its perfect! NOW...I’m going to tell you the biggest flaw about not just the content distribution but also the way the story was wrote. I have heard this argument when it comes to HEAVENS “Their role was to make STARISH better” Here is why I have had an issue with this logic Putting QN to the side for a second...in the context of the timeline between STARISH and HEAVENS whom is the senior group? While you are pondering that allow me to then bring this into the equation QN is the Senior group of all three of them in storyline.  No matter how you write it or want to believe it QN’s role should be (and kind of was) to make STARISH better.  THAT made sense because they (again in theory) are the Senior group to STARISH NOW...get back to the question How the hell is a group of Amateurs (”HEAVENS”) supposed to be in the position to “Make STARISH better”?  It doesn’t make sense from a STORY perspective because of the fact that HEAVENS became the “up and comers” but for some reason Broccoli panicked come Season 4 and didn’t want to tell that story.  That is why most of the Duet singles really sold like s**t because they didn’t do the job to make BOTH PARTIES in the duet likable and they REALLY F***ED IT when they botched the Mighty Aura episode which was the first one in the set!  How the hell do you get one part of the fanbase to like HEAVENS when you take arguably the most popular Seiyuu in STARISH and f**k the story so damn bad to make it look like something that DIDN’T FUCKING HAPPEN! Like I have ranted about this before but the story SHOULD have been wrote so that STARISH helped get HEAVENS to look better in the public eye (both in the Anime and in the real world) so what I would have done is okay you have the drama parts for each episode and that’s fine BUT if the HEAVENS member went to the STARISH member (or vice versa) to find out what was going on with them that would have helped greatly...it also would have made it to where I wouldn’t have literally had my blood pressure go up every week wondering how the STARISH fans were going to take to each member.  Eiji ,Shion ,Kira...they were gonna be the easy ones in my head...Van was a wild card (turned out to be a dork) and then you had Nagi ,Yama and Eiichi...we know how the last one went! Going back to the original point of this post “Would more content have made HEAVENS more sympathetic to STARISH fans?” I think yes because...especially with Eiichi we could have SEEN that there was not a lot of happy times going on with that household and Raging being a shithead to Eiichi...I can only imagine what he was like to Eiji! We would have gotten to SEE the struggle between Kira and his family in a flashback and we might have gotten to see why Nagi had the complex he had...now sadly if we were to get THAT someone would accuse the series of biting off of another idol series everyone knows (And I’ll say this now...I have no issue with Tenn as much as I did but I’ll still take Nagi over him if you pressed me). Like I could list the # of things that Broc could do but trust me that would take me for fucking ever!  Okay NOW they are getting a radio show and NOW they are being put in as “side characters” to the STARISH/QN show but what is that going to accomplish for the western fans? When it comes to Dolce they’ll be the “forgotten group” because we know when they were announced to be in the game I can PROMISE you that I was more hype than probably a lot of people on this site!  Fine but try to act like you are happy for those that might not fall into the “Main 2″ fandoms (and I say this with me also being a QN fan). People wonder why some of us get annoyed with Broccoli and I will repeat it that its a whole thing about “content”. Whenever Broccoli announces most new goods or when show some art it HAS to be HEAVENS attached to QN and STARISH.  They COULDN’T have done just something for HEAVENS for Halloween it HAD to be with those two for promotional stuff that had to do with the Movie that no one knows fuck all about yet!  You want me to get happy about the Halloween art cos...why?! Then you just have to face this reality} STARISH fan will never get why HEAVENS fan is pissed off and some (not all) don’t give a f**k...you’re lying if you claim you do. You don’t HAVE to worry because you got the ENTIRE story basically to be centered around you and you got your two big wins...meanwhile you want to claim HEAVENS are equals?  HOW?! HEAVENS will NEVER be equals to STARISH or even QN as long as they are tied to them...FACT!  If QUARTET NIGHT wants to do the job that STARISH should have done I will be all for it but I can’t see Broccoli allowing QN to do that because they (Broccoli) still plug their ears and act like everything is fine.  Maybe for STARISH and QN fans because they got their cute little MVs...anyone remember what the fuck they did to promote HEAVEN SKY? THEY DID A STILL FUCKING IMAGE! You mean to tell me the company that has a franchise that probably prints the most money for them right now COULDN’T AFFORD TO ANIMATE SOMETHING FOR HEAVENS TO NOT MAKE THEM LOOK SECOND F****ING RATE?!  HOW THE F**K DO YOU ACCEPT THAT?! It just blows my mind on a personal level and people can say I make a mountain out of a molehill...I just care alright?  I care about as much about HEAVENS if not more than most people would THINK to put out content on here for UtaPri and that is a FACT!  I probably get more people pissed off and annoyed because I go off like this but you know why you get mad at me?  Cos you know deep down there is a little bit of truth in what I say and in gnaws at you that someone that has only been around the franchise for 4 years is more annoyed with HEAVENS treatment than most that have been around for the entire eight and that pisses you the f**k off! To that I say this GOOD...now you can know what its like for someone like me and also what it was like for me to watch Eiichi get snatched up by his daddy and no one in the UtaPri fandom on the STARISH side gave two shits! If you’re mad its cos I got through to you...if you aren’t then maybe you SHOULD BE!

[askagamedev]

A common criticism for live service games at the start is that they give too few rewards. When you hear this criticism, how do you go about fixing the issue?

Usually, those kind of complaints come from not having enough to do in the elder game - the max level, end game content - and the designers deciding to time-gate rewards in order to maintain engagement and keep players from burning out while grinding all rewards and then quitting. This also tends to be self-selecting since those complaining are usually the hard core players who consume content at a rate much faster than the median user. Hard core players are also the ones most likely to post about the game online, which often causes an amplification of the sentiment that isn’t necessarily representative of most of the player base. 

These kind of complaints usually sort themselves out as we release more content for players to engage with. New content brings new and different rewards for players to chase. If players still want the old rewards in addition to the new, they’ll have more things to do when playing the game. As they finish consuming the content, the complaints will return as well. Whenever a live service game has a notable new content drought (typically more than 3 months), players will start complaining. The longer the content drought, the more common the complaints become and the higher the player churn rate climbs. We address these issues the same way - adding more new content. This is, of course, different from complaints that the new content isn’t good or engaging. That’s a different kettle of fish.

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[askagamedev]

A short follow up to the last question. Do you think there are any benefits for small indie devs who are okay with giving in to their fans' wishes and demands? What are some potential downsides of going down this sort of pathway?

Of course there are benefits. Giving their players more of what they want is what all developers do, from the smallest indies to the biggest AAA lifestyle games. Giving them things they want keeps them playing the game. That said, there are definitely things to consider like maximizing overall community happiness over time and considering tradeoffs within the community.

For example, pacing content releases is a big deal. Let's say that it takes your team one month to build, test, and release about five hours of game content. When do you release the content and how often do you release it? If you release it in one batch each month, will that be "enough" for your community to tide them over to the next month? Will it feel substantial enough to them? What if you do 15 hours of content every three months? That feels a lot more substantial, but burning through 15 hours of content can easily be done in a few days for hard core players, and then they're stuck with a content drought for another 3 months. That's an easy recipe for your community to get tired of the game for lack of new things to do by the time your next content update is about to release. Maybe release the first 8 hours of content at the start, and then slowly release the rest one hour at a time week by week?

Doing what players want isn't always feasible either, since it isn't out of the ordinary to have features or content in a game that is polarizing - some players might absolutely love and play the game because of feature X, while another group of players might hate feature X with a passion and think the game would be so much better with X gone. What's a developer to do? Either way, somebody will be put out, regardless of whether we make more or less of X.

Another major issue is just that any dev is limited in the amount of development resources they have to spend. If you have a large number of players who want X and another large number of players who want Y, which do you choose if you can choose only one? What other sacrifices must you make in order to build the one you choose? This must also be balanced against upcoming new content the players don't know about yet, like super cool system Z that you want to add. How do you decide what to put your limited resources into? You could ask your players, but if you ask five players you’ll get at least seven different opinions.

The important thing to remember is that fans want what they want, but developers need to do what they feel is best for the game and these two goals aren't always 100% congruent. Players often lack the context to understand sort of priorities that go into maintaining a game's engagement and popularity levels. Because our resources are limited, we must be judicious in choosing how we spend them. Sometimes this means doing what the hard core community wants, but that's not always the case.

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[askagamedev]

What is it about the MMO genre that seems to put a primal fear into developers of giving players control of their loot? and/or measurable systems to get "the best" items they really want? Maybe more appropriately is how does one determine what level of RNG is enough and what systems should be in place to combat that? Where do you draw the line between looking at retention and worrying about it being fun for the player?

There are two key concepts that designers are thinking about when deciding how much and what loot players get. The first concept, regarding how much loot you get, is pacing. The second concept, regarding determining what loot you get, is anticipation. These are both important for sustaining the long-term health of the game. Let’s go over each of these concepts in a bit more depth.

Pacing (in this context) is the rate at which we dole out the goods. Our worst case scenario here is that players run the content once, get everything they’d ever need or want, and then stop playing because there’s nothing left to aim for. It devalues the content that we just spent weeks or months designing and building, because players will only engage with it for hours, rather than weeks. The best way to keep things interesting is to present players with an engaging and rewarding challenges that ramp up at the player’s pace (up to a reasonable maximum) over time. It is our hope that the time period affords us on the dev team enough time to build the next content update for players to enjoy. By controlling the rate at which gear gets doled out, we can tune and stagger challenges for expected player gear levels and construct an expected player progress schedule that we can tweak for how long we need the content to last. This also allows players to feel the slower build more as their characters get stronger and become able to tackle more difficult content. The sense of progress is very rewarding when you are finally able to defeat an enemy you previously weren’t able to.

Anticipation (in this context) is the excitement and interest level players feel when loot drops. Loot is a reward and needs to feel like it to players. While devs like me are sympathetic to those who end up on the wrong end of the RNG (back in my WoW days, we went for over a year of weekly clears on a particular raid boss without ever seeing a specific drop that one of our players really wanted), we also don’t want to err too far on the other side - only giving currency to players. By reducing content to what’s effectively a paycheck, it removes any anticipation the players may have for defeating the content and seeing what the rewards are. If you already know what the rewards are going to be, you’re just there for your weekly/daily/etc. paycheck. That’s not fun, it’s a chore and causes more players to churn out of the game from boredom. Generally speaking, we want a mix of the two elements. We want some form of RNG mitigation in order to prevent too many cases like mine, but we also want enough compelling stuff that is only available via RNG to keep the loot spicy and exciting. This way we get fewer extremes, while still avoiding the problem of churning players out because the game feels like another job.

Remember, the ultimate goal from all of this is the game’s long-term sustainability. Players want to keep playing the game. We want players to keep playing the game. However, we can only build so much content over time and it takes a lot longer for us to build it than it will for players to consume it. Our only recourse is to space out the content such that players don’t consume it all at once and spread it over a long enough period that we can build more content in that period. This means that we have to dole out enough loot and we have to provide compelling enough loot over that time frame to keep players interested. This means holding some of it back as well as utilizing techniques to keep it interesting and exciting.

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[askagamedev]

A followup question on power curve. Developers sometimes take something way above the power curve and nerf it far below the curve. For example, in Hearthstone the card "Blade Fury" was used as the center piece of many Rogue combo decks that were difficult to stop, but then Blizzard nerfed the card so it's essentially useless. How do developer post-launch balance decisions work, particularly in drastic cases where they take some overpowered element and make it extremely underpowered?

Firstly, you have to realize that releasing client patches (that is, a patch that changes the game data on your computer/console/device/etc.), especially on non-PC platforms, requires a lot of effort. Client patches are anything that change data on the client; that usually includes art, sound, text, etc. - including things like card descriptions (which must be localized into different languages). In order to publish a client patch for any platform, we need to submit it for certification so that platform can distribute it for us. Typically, that’s a long and expensive drawn-out process that can take weeks to finalize in addition to all of the time spent on all of the internal testing and polishing we have to do before the patch is even ready to launch. 

Because it is often problematic (and takes a long time) to release client patches, we have to be judicious with things like nerfs. If a game element is so far above the power curve that it warrants a nerf in a client patch (i.e. changing the element’s behavior), it generally means it is causing bad player experiences for all those who play against it (and even some of those who play it - people quit when things are too easy as well). We only have one shot every few weeks/months (thanks to the cert window) to make sure that we get it right. If we don’t nerf the element enough, the problem remains and we need to do it again while still dealing with the player dissatisfaction that the offending element is causing. 

This is why we usually nerf it so hard that there’s very little chance of it being potentially dangerous anymore. Remember, the players abusing the feature are almost certainly a minor subset of the player base as a whole. Nerfing their dominant strategy to uselessness forces its players to find a new strategy, but it also makes the player experience for everybody not using that strategy better. We only have limited opportunity to fix the problem, and fixing the problem is more important than being surgical… so that’s why we often nerf it TO THE GROUND.

The FANTa Project is currently on hiatus while I am crunching at work too busy.

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[ekremdum-blog]

A practical guide to content repurposing — how to turn a single piece of content into many formats across multiple channels, multiplying reach without multiplying the work.

How Do You Repurpose Content to Maximize Its Value?