The decision to switch to a fixed release cadence came together with the new monetization. Both are Tencent’s doing. Either the directive for both came from above, or the monetization “expert” recommended the new cadence to entice the players.
Funcom “sold” the new monetization to the players by pointing out the new release cadence and explaining that the monetization will make that possible. Basically, the message was “spend money on us and we’ll keep developing this game”.
And to further sell that idea, they released the Age of Sorcery, where chapter 1 was rather spectacular. Sure, there were things people disliked about the balance and it had its bugs and whatnot, but you can’t deny they started with a bang.
Those of us who knew enough about software remained skeptical about the new cadence. It’s easy to start with a bang because nobody outside knows how much time you’ve had to prepare that bang. Only after the wheel spins a few times can you see whether there’s a problem where the rubber meets the road.
I won’t say yet that the Age of War proved that the cadence is not viable. Sooner or later, everyone misses the deadline and has to either postpone a release or release what they have. Now we have to see if they’re capable of recovering. I’m not optimistic.
I pretty much feel bad for anyone working in the game dev industry. It can be very fun, but the conditions are brutal compared to the rest of the software development.
I agree, but this isn’t even the first time they disabled the decay timer on a bunch of servers for months and let the problem sit on the back burner. It’s only gonna get worse, because their capacity seems to be going down. I don’t have insight into what’s going on inside Funcom, but my guess is that the Conan Exiles team keeps shrinking.
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