{"id":33165,"date":"2018-07-16T19:57:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T19:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/322206"},"modified":"2018-07-16T19:57:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-16T19:57:00","slug":"how-ubisoft-approached-revitalizing-the-division-siege-and-other-live-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/how-ubisoft-approached-revitalizing-the-division-siege-and-other-live-games\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ubisoft approached revitalizing The Division, Siege, and other live games"},"content":{"rendered":"

“<\/em>Now that games have live elements, the smart way to handle them is to keep working on them to maintain engagement. That way you can build toward the next game, too.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Ubisoft’s Laurent Detoc\u00a0explores how the company has used live support to help its franchises thrive<\/em><\/p>\n

Speaking to VentureBeat<\/a>, Ubisoft\u2019s North American executive director Laurent Detoc says that the comeback arcs many of Ubisoft’s live games have seen in recent years wouldn’t have been feasible just years ago, noting\u00a0that the changing nature of the game industry itself made those recoveries both possible and necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hasn\u2019t happened in the past because this just isn\u2019t how publishers have historically approached engagement and retention in games,\u201d said Detoc. \u201cWe didn\u2019t need to. A game was done and it shipped. There weren\u2019t live elements to a game. Now that games have live elements, the smart way to handle them is to keep working on them to maintain engagement. That way you can build toward the next game, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

While this kind of support can bolster engagement for an already-released game, he notes the particular attention Ubisoft has paid to The Division<\/em> years after release have helped put The Division<\/em> franchise in a favorable position with players, boosting excitement for the upcoming second game in a way that wouldn\u2019t have been possible without this level of post-launch support.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou keep on adding to the experience, and you see people talk about it later. After a year and a half people said that The Division<\/em> was the best it was ever been, and that helped bring in even more new people. A lot of the people who\u2019ve played The Division <\/em>came to the brand after patch 1.4. They saw the game in a much better state. When you look at that sentiment going from 30 to 80, a lot of people first came to the game when it was doing better. Now we\u2019re looking at Division 2<\/em> with a super happy community, very engaged and satisfied, and they\u2019re looking forward to the sequel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Detoc notes that he\u2019s not \u201ctoo much in the business of praising his competitors,\u201d but that Blizzard\u2019s Diablo III <\/em>had a similar arc, and received a good number of patches following release to bring and keep the series in players\u2019 good graces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s the same spirit. Whether the game is broken or it\u2019s missing some elements, it creates a similar kind of frustration from the player, and you address that the same way,\u201d he said. \u201cYou continue to work on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full interview on VentureBeat<\/a> explores these topics further, additional diving into the changing relationship between single player and multiplayer modes in games and why Ubisoft employs upwards of 12,000 developers worldwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Now that games have live elements, the smart way to handle them is to keep working on them to maintain engagement. That way you can build toward the next game, too.” – Ubisoft’s Laurent Detoc\u00a0explores how the company has used live support to help its franchises thrive Speaking to VentureBeat, Ubisoft\u2019s North American executive director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}