One of the more interesting emails I received today was a press release announcing Atlus’ continuing support for Demon’s Souls with news that they would extend North American online support through to at least March 2011. A big part of the reason I find this interesting is because I had no idea there was any concern about the game losing that support anytime soon – such thoughts simply never occurred to me.
So it’s good news for veterans and newcomers alike that Atlus will be keeping the lights on, with the world tendency system even shifting to pure white for a couple of weeks in celebration. That’s great news and all, at least until March.
However, considering that the game won’t even be a year old in North America until October 6, I’m not sure I like the state of affairs when we hand out cookies for things we used to take for granted. I’m not trying to be a downer here, I know everything is disposable and the next big game is the priority, the new economy and all that jazz – I’m just saying it feels odd.
Anyway, you tell me, how long should a game based around creating online communities on a major console be supported?
Forever. :(
Comment by Ujn Hunter — July 21, 2010 @ 7:58 pm
at LEAST till the next generation. the only way I would accept an early shut down is in maybe the annual sports games (it’s still stupid but I could sorta see the logic) or an insanely unpopular game and even then anything less than 3 years is uncivilized.
Comment by Wolfkin — July 27, 2010 @ 10:15 am
This is why dedicated servers suck. If we hosted our own servers then the game would be online indefinitely… i.e. as long as someone was still playing. I’d almost rather a game offer absolutely no online features than to be online for 2 years and not be able to play online after that. It’s like a chunk of a game that just became useless. Heck if you offer online support, you should be forced to offer LAN play too. Least that way you can still tunnel and play online if you really wanted to.
Comment by Ujn Hunter — July 27, 2010 @ 2:45 pm