The thing is, live service simply means continued growth, and Astro’s Playroom recently showed some of the benefits of that model—albeit on an admittedly smaller scale. You’re feeling conflicted now, aren’t you?
While the current state of gaming has been met with many criticisms, one of its true strengths is that the game can be improved After its release. Of course, this comes with its own undeniable drawbacks: some titles are released broken and unfinished, with missing features. It’s not good enough. But when it comes to evolving and introducing – shock, horror – events involving live services, the possibilities are endless.
Astro’s Playroom recently demonstrated this in the most subtle way possible, and no one criticized developer Team ASOBI for going down this path – mainly because they did it the right way. But make no mistake, the semi-regular release Special botswhich introduced recent puzzles and encouraged players to return to the title multiple times in the run-up to Astro Bot’s release, was an example of online support.
It is true that the developer did not exploit this for monetization purposes, except that the entire campaign acted as interactive marketing for the recent Astro Bot game. And it is also true that the team avoided FOMO (or fear of missing out) by ensuring that the content was Always be available to unlock. But this gradual, ongoing support is an example of how the live service can be implemented positively — even culminating in a countdown event, similar to Fortnite’s New Year’s stuff.
I understand that people will get furious at this article; they will point to Concord’s disastrous launch and say that what Team ASOBI did doesn’t count. But the whole point of what I’m writing is to try to open your eyes: the live service is not To have be bad; it doesn’t have to be bad. In fact, when used effectively, as in this case, it can be quite nippy. Don’t automatically write off what’s possible just because of your preconceived notions of what the model encompasses.
What do you think about Special bots Astro’s Playroom updates? Did you enjoy solving the regular puzzles and did it assist build your anticipation for Astro Bot? Have you joined the countdown to the release of the recent game? Keep serene in the comments section below.
