News - Blog: General tips for ‘Games as a Service’ indie games

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News - Blog: General tips for ‘Games as a Service’ indie games - xSicKxBot - 11-23-2020

Blog: General tips for ‘Games as a Service’ indie games

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<p><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="300" data-image-id="1*2QyqrvXCP8Ad_jzS3VVkOQ.png" data-is-featured="true" data-width="700" height="257" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-2.png" width="600"></p>
<h3 class="graf graf--h3">Tips to organize Live Updates for indie games</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">When your game passes the gold version but still get updates, we call it <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">live ops developement </em>or “<em class="markup--em markup--p-em">game as a service</em>” (GAAS). Big companies are praising live ops and indies are getting in this new trend as well. But this is not a small decision and you should be aware of major challenges. We will talk about:</p>
<ul class="postList">
<li class="graf graf--li">Changing your production organization</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">New marketing challenges</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Understanding your players expectations</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">and much more!</li>
</ul>
<h3 class="graf graf--h3">Should you do live ops at Release?</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">If you have a narrative game, live ops is probably not for you! But you can think of new stories in DLC or free chapters to add later.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">If your game is not purely narrative, you have a few things to consider before doing live updates:</p>
<ul class="postList">
<li class="graf graf--li">Do you really want it? Don’t do it if you’re exhausted from production.</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Did you bring enough revenue so updates are actually worth the money?</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Has your game under-reached it’s potential? Maybe updates can help on long-term sales to catch up!</li>
</ul>
<p class="graf graf--p">Yes, those two last points are super hard to estimate. I generally advise to not do live-ops updates if your game has been sufficiently marketed and only generated 25% of it’s production costs during month 1 of release.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Check out this article by Simon Carless to see an average on how much games do 1 week, 1 month and 1 year after release.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p"><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="151" data-image-id="1*AlcACWbDn79fxBErhGnYLg.jpeg" data-width="710" height="128" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-1.jpg" width="600"></p>
<figure class="graf graf--figure"><figcaption class="imageCaption"><a class="markup--anchor markup--figure-anchor" data-href="https://gamediscoverability.substack.com/p/data-deep-dive-whats-the-long-tail" href="https://gamediscoverability.substack.com/p/data-deep-dive-whats-the-long-tail" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://gamediscoverability.substack.com/p/data-deep-dive-whats-the-long-tail</a></figcaption></figure>
<h3 class="graf graf--h3">Reactivity</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">When creating updates, there is a continuous flow of things developer have to do. Game designers have to tune in new features, developers have to implement new stuff, level designers have to tweak values, graphic artists have to make new mockups and graphic items.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">The problem is that now, the time scale is much tighter. They used to have 3 to 6 months to plan ahead and prepare stuff. Now, it’s only 1 or 2 months max. The art direction must stay the same, no bugs should arise from old features, new content has to be even better than the previous one.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">In this storm, as a marketer you’ll be the one at the end of the pipeline. Most of the time, everything must be 100% ready before you can speak about it. Players will complain that you’re not talking enough. The truth is if you’re only speaking to say useless things or features that will never see the light, they’ll resent you as well.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p"><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="304" data-image-id="1*4BAJVCsXQYMEpyijULjscA.jpeg" data-width="1031" height="176" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-2.jpg" width="600"></p>
<p class="graf graf--p">The key here is to improve your tools. If you’re fast enough, you’ll be able to put up PR & dev blogs on the fly without spending too much time in preparation. Here are some things you can put up in place:</p>
<ul class="postList">
<li class="graf graf--li">Learn to make gifs, arts & others on your own. It doesn’t necessarily mean understanding how to design, it can also be using premade assets & fonts from the graphic art team.</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Get a good translation pipeline. Try to hire translators who can be reactive and answer emails fast. Getting professional translators is often better because amateurs tend to do it on the side.</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">For everything mass mailing, use some newsletter system and get something easily editable, with templates and such.</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Get a proofreading app. It will help you clean 50% of mistakes on your own and maybe avoid getting an editor.</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Have a solid database of organized assets. You don’t want to fetch assets, links, texts for too long!</li>
</ul>
<p class="graf graf--li"> </p>
<p class="graf graf--li"><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="625" data-image-id="1*9rbhkibWAVXJAJm42RKk4w.jpeg" data-width="1169" height="320" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-3.jpg" width="600"></p>
<h3 class="graf graf--h3">Hiring & People Management</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">The problem with live ops is that you probably have 2 years or so behind you. When the game got released, you team might be burned-out. Think abot your structure, getting new people, or putting the current one on new projects!</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">New people give a new perspective on game design, art and much more. They have a solid base that can get new, exciting, sometimes game-breaking changes.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Be careful to hire people that get, and like the base, the vision. They need to push the game in the best direction possible while keeping the current players happy!</p>
<p class="graf graf--p"><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="329" data-image-id="1*aYzEWwc3z6HtJbTd4f6FYQ.jpeg" data-width="1001" height="197" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-4.jpg" width="600"></p>
<p class="graf graf--p">After the release of your game, let your team take holidays or days off in the week. Maybe switch to a 3 days work week during a few weeks or even during this whole new phase can be interesting. You’re going a fresh energy, either from new or former workers.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Game companies sometimes hire third-party studios to create new DLCs and updates ! Motion Twin gave Dead Cells to Evil Empire, they’re now producing DLC with paid and non-paid content. I’ve heard there are other companies more and more doing this!</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">When releasing a game, it’s interesting to have a clear roadmap. Players love to know what’s coming up, what content is in preparation, how the game will change and evolve.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Be careful though, if you change the roadmap make sure the changes are SUPER visible. Your hardcore fans ARE waiting for some features!</p>
<p class="graf graf--p"><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="547" data-image-id="1*sKzQhOCa3xJqVq_9sD-dxg.jpeg" data-width="685" height="479" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-5.jpg" width="600"></p>
<p class="graf graf--p">I suggest that you separate your upcoming content into MAJOR and MINOR features.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">For instance you can release every 1 or 2 months, 1 major feature, and at least 2–3 minor features. It’s even better if it’s aimed for short, medium or long term game sessions. Make sure every profits from getting a new update!</p>
<p class="graf graf--p"> </p>
<p class="graf graf--p"> </p>
<h3 class="graf graf--h3"><a href="https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/YannickElahee/20201117/373873/github.com/JulienNigon/SpellcasterUniversity-Bug-Report" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="516" data-image-id="1*wPskM6VdvtxnkWObqOaSlw.jpeg" data-width="931" height="332" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-6.jpg" width="600"></a></h3>
<h3 class="graf graf--h3">Community Debugging</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">Some people take the opportunity of live players to allow them to report bugs. People like to complain when there is a bug, and they like to know it’s acknowledged by developers. There is nothing more frustrating to a player that a recurring bug that never gets addressed!</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">We’re missing some tools to make this community debugging, but the most frequents are:</p>
<ul class="postList">
<li class="graf graf--li">Discord, sometimes helped by a bot</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Trello, where people can upvote / sometimes create issues</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Public repository such as the example of Spellcasters University</li>
<li class="graf graf--li">Ingame reporting tools, that get more popular but lack an efficient tool that can be easily deployed</li>
</ul>
<p class="graf graf--li"> </p>
<p class="graf graf--li"><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="549" data-image-id="1*JeC_moa4MCXji9ZknmnMTw.jpeg" data-width="1193" height="276" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-7.jpg" width="600"></p>
<h3 class="graf graf--h3">Analytics</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">You can implement Analytics when the release is 75% completed! Too soon and you’ll lack content to analyze. Too late you’ll miss a good chunk of players as well as the opportunity to balance things out!</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">I’ve struggled with it myself, and built a custom backend! But it was too much work, and I’m now using Game Analytics. It was a bit complicated at first, but now we have pretty interesting marketing & design stats!</p>
<p class="graf graf--p"><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="830" data-image-id="1*pa7PZC9K2u7dXMfKXNxmhg.jpeg" data-width="1267" height="393" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-8.jpg" width="600"></p>
<h3 class="graf graf--h3">Quick & Good promo</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">Biggest studios get a video trailers to showcase the changes! You can also do one, but it takes new skill you may not have inhouse. I think we’ll see these “promo trailer” more and more.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p"><img loading="lazy" class="graf-image" data-height="564" data-image-id="1*DCxQOqsdCbOhZQtFVYmkDw.jpeg" data-width="1345" height="251" src="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/blog-general-tips-for-games-as-a-service-indie-games-9.jpg" width="600"></p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Be careful though, they take time to make and sometimes don’t gather enough attention because it’s “only” a game update. It depends on the type of new content you’re pushing!</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">That’s it for now! Have a great day and let me know if you have any questions about live ops for indies.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Tavrox.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p"><a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://bit.ly/neurodeckappgotosteam" href="https://bit.ly/neurodeckappgotosteam" rel="noopener nofollow noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong class="markup--p-strong markup--strong">I’m making a game called Neurodeck! Check out the steampage!</strong></a></p>
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