On 2024-02-26, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

So, Ubisoft recently announced some details about the newest seasonal expansion for "Rainbow Six: Siege". Specifically, for the year 9
season 1 expansion.*

So the first thing I that happened when I read that was to say, "Holy
shit, has it really been NINE years since that game released?" (It
turns out, it has. The game came out in 2015). But the second thing
that happened is that I started wondering: is it a good thing that
Ubisoft is still pushing out seasonal content for this game so long
after its release?

TF2 did it.

On the one hand, sure, yeah, of course. It's a good game, and it
obviously has enough players dedicated to it that it makes sense to
Ubisoft to keep supporting it. Why stop the fun?

But on the other hand... nine years? That's the same time between the
release of the original "Mario Brothers" on the NES and "Super Mario
64" on the N64. It's almost the same period as between "Doom" and
"Half Life 2". The entirety of the "Unreal/Unreal Tournament" games
spanned less time than that. Nine years is a long time for a developer
to get stuck on one game.

Sure, this is Ubisoft; it's not as if all their resources are being
spent on "Ghost Recon: Siege". They've other games too. It's not as if they're stuck in one place, treading water, just releasing the same
game over and over again with the only difference being marginal
differences in the visuals and no significant improvements to the mechanics... oh wait, no, I just described Ubisoft's catalog to a tee,
didn't I?

And that's why I find this whole 'nine years' thing so disturbing. The
idea that a company supports a game for so long SHOULD thrill me
(hell, look at my fascination with the SCS Truck Simulator games: ETS2
was released /12/ years ago! How dare I keep playing it, right?). But
this attachment to older games - both by publishers and players -
can't be good for the hobby. It stifles creativity and new ideas. It
turns what once was an exciting and ever-changing industry into a
tedious rehash of the same old concepts.

I'm more forgiving of publishers like SCS milking a game (and,
admittedly, its customers) for years on end. These are smaller
developers who have less resources, and for whom a new game can
literally make or break a company. It's understandable that they're a
bit more risk averse. But firms like Ubisoft, ActiBlizz, EA and the
rest... they have the cash to take chances. But they don't and instead
opt for the safer route of just riding the gravy train until the end.

(I'd be a lot more forgiving of Ubisoft too, if - after years of
milking a game - they didn't cut off access to players when it started
being unprofitable. Sure, support it for 10 years, but afterwards? At
least have the decency to make server files available so dedicated
gamers can keep playing after you decide to shut down the official
servers)

To be fair, __every__ developer does that and it drives me insane.

In the end, I'm torn. Its hard for me to argue against keeping a game
running for years on end. It benefits both the players and publisher.
But I think its also detrimental to the industry as a whole.

* In case you're interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpnxaTxBAD4

Wild.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

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