Thread by @WritNelson

I am deeply excited by the model EA is using for Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville.

Not just because we got a Garden Warfare 3 (yay!!), but because it reflects a wider cultural acknowledgement that the way we've been releasing things...doesn't quite work.

There was a quite long period where more meant better, right? Pack in as much content as you can. Drop all your episodes at once. Binge culture.

That isn't going to go away entirely, but combining that attitude with the sheer amount of work out there incurred heavy fatigue.

Even giant releases may only get a week of attention before slipping away. That third season of Stranger Things--a marquee Netflix series? We had moved on to something else in less than a month.

In general, we're talking about less of the total media, for less time, than ever.

What seems to be necessary in such a landscape is incremental attention: people giving your project a piece of that limited pie in the weeks, months, and years following release.

There's a couple ways you can get that.

Option number 1 is that you constantly release new projects or updates. This isn't guaranteed to work, but if you're of a certain size, the math may eventually work for you--if not for the individual releases themselves.

Fortnite is a good example of this approach.

Fortnite always has a latest *thing*. It grabs headlines, brings old players back--all that jazz. Fortnite, as a brand, is constantly getting attention.

That said, I struggle to remember what it was doing a few months ago--let alone last year.

Its cycle is disposable.

Netflix is similar. It uses multi-million dollar productions like rocket boosters. They drive the name of Netflix forward--then drop into the sea.

Netflix has spent a LOT of money to do this...but subscribers are starting to leave before the next boost.
That's very dangerous.

Option number 2 is that you release your content in intentional pieces. You spread out the experience, and significantly ease the onboarding ramp for newcomers. 2 episodes to catch up instead of 10.

It's an old model--but we're returning to it, because our audience is TIRED.

There is a cognitive load attached to potential action. It's why folks buy giant games and don't finish them.

People buy the PROMISE of content and potential.
When it comes to CONSUMING it all, their brain does a calculation of effort versus level of investment, and says 'nah'.

Seeing a mountain of content or episodes waiting for you can also turn it into a task. When that happens, the experience is tainted.

We have made this the case for SO MUCH of our entertainment.
We are living in shrouds of guilt and things we'll never do.

The backlog.
The queue.

I loved the model of Hitman (2016). It encouraged the intended flow of the game organically--just through the way its episodes worked.

You kept getting drawn back to the same maps with new and altered content.
You mastered them.

Then, the new episode was ready!
Repeat.

...Unfortunately, Hitman apparently didn't do as well as it should have commercially.

I remember there being a LOT of consumer skepticism at the time, which inevitably played a part of it. However, I also think it just arrived too early.

Binge fatigue hadn't set in yet.

Hitman 2 released in one giant batch. It's apparently keeping IO Interactive going, which I'm happy about - but the statistics for its achievements are fascinating.

Putting aside that we aren't seeing consistent incremental attention for Hitman 2 (unlike 1), less than 25% of players have finished its first level according to Steam achievements.

In contrast, 45% of ALL PLAYERS have completed The Showstopper in Hitman.

Heck, more total players completed the Bangkok and Marrakesh episodes (level 3 and 4) in Hitman 1 than the *very first level* in Hitman 2.

There was more complaint - but the episodic release schedule encouraged more engagement.

That statistical reality is finally being acknowledged. We live in a brave new world where a significant portion of the audience is willing to say,

dude,
I am very tired,
maybe I can watch/play 10 hours of this instead of 100?

Enter Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville.

Garden Warfare was a primarily multiplayer game before that was really an accepted thing. In contrast, Garden Warfare 2 was a HUGE package--singleplayer, multiplayer, free-roam areas, the works.

All to relative crickets.

Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville (we'll call it BFN for short) is also an enormous game. It's releasing on October 18th - but you can play it today, because EA has done something really, really neat.

They found a way to make their enormous live-service title episodic.

If you buy BFN today, a couple major, FINISHED pieces of the giant final game are now playable.
Next week, they add more.
The week after that, they add more - and so on.

It's a staged rollout of a finished game.

BFN is available at a discount with exclusive rewards/bonuses, and you get to experience this potentially overwhelming thing in accessible chunks.

It's a really cool idea!!
ea.com/games/plants-v…

Developers get to work out kinks ahead of time on FINALIZED content, and prepare their servers for LAUNCHAGEDDON.
Players have an option to engage with a live-service game that isn't trying to consume their life, and get a unique, collaborative experience in the process.

As an experiment by a major publisher, this is kind of huge. BFN is a surprise release with a 24-hour countdown, and a unique take on how we can engage with a game release in 2019.

That these things we're making aren't quite so disposable.

...That you don't have to work on a game for 2+ years and hope to God people care enough to talk about it after release--if they talk about it at all.

That the standard, static final release model, or an Early Access launch received with player doubt, are your only options.

I'm eager to see what this could mean for how other games are rolled out--especially if it does well--because experimentation in release models is a *good thing*.

Anything that makes people talk.
Anything that makes games a bit more accessible.

Anything that makes people care.

...I uh, am also just very excited to play a Garden Warfare again.

If anyone else picks it up, let me know. I'm already here.

~fin~