You losing interest in something is not the same thing as a game becoming outdated. In videogames, I actually agree that games kind of do get out-dated since most of their game designs are not very strong. I advocate for games that you can play for your whole life and enjoy, if you choose.

Swiftcoder makes a good point. This isn't helped by how many games are released. Any game released now has a lot to compete with and even very good ones are regularly passed over by the majority.

Also using examples of classic games whether they are like chess or soccer doesn't truly work. What we now recognise as those games have had an excessive amount of time to mature (you could say perpetually added to in fact) and they will without a doubt continue to be added to.

The way, say, soccer or chess was "added to" is not at all the way modern digital games are "added to". Those were essentially a careful balancing process, trying to find the right amount of ingredients, adding, changing and even (god forbid) REMOVING elements as it was needed.

When was the last time a feature got REMOVED from a video game post-release? I'd be shocked if we could find more than one or two instances of this EVER happening, yet sometimes, it's what has to happen to create a balanced and strong and mature game.

One thing that irks me is that gamers demand longer and longer singleplayer campaigns. But I'd rather take an 8 hour long excellent campaign than 20 hour good campaign. I might not even finish the longer campaign because I get bored, but you can be sure that I will play the excellent campaign multiple times. There are so many excellent games nowadays that I don't have time to play long games that are just good. You just wasted millions in dollars in development if majority of players won't bother to finish the game, no matter how good it is. Quality over quantity any time*!

* Obviously withing limits

SC2 will have some units removed, or at least they plan to, come the release of the next expansion. A lot of MMOs remove abilities or rework them to the point their no longer recognisable. It's not common but designers do do it and it's often found in those games that require a lot of tweaking and support after release.

Classic games did the process slower, but they had a luxury of time that current computer games don't have as well as an larger set of designers (to say the least). The fact is they still changed dramatically from their recorded origins.

SC2 doesn't actually plan to remove units. They're replacing units, from what I understand.

Other units will be put it but they are removing units for all intents and purposes since these new units have little relevance to the old ones. For instance the removal of the carrier is because it is underused but the introduction of the tempest is because Protos lack an effective AoE air ability, one does not replace the other but merely that the adding/removal happens to be occurring at the same time.

I agree with the premise that more is not more -- there is indeed a point where adding on does dilute the experience. In terms of design, this is mostly defined at launch -- In terms of expansions, its defined by how long you have a sustainable audience, which is a function of competition, advancement, and player boredom.

For me, I'm happy to consume map packs for a game I like as long as they're willing to sell them to me -- I've done just that with all the Halo games so far. But you make a point about how expansions should be "optional" and that really can't be, because it fragments the user base. On the basis of who-has-which maps, the its course enough to work, but you couldn't, for instance, segment the community based on who-wants-to-play-with-which guns, because its too granular, and would skew matchmaking and global statistics. I like the approach that Bungie took with the Halo 2 Map packs, where they sold for something like a year, then became free downloads. This let them make their money, while ensuring that the community, as it naturally shrunk over time due to players moving on, to coalesce back into one again. Its unfortunate that the bean-counters keep the price consistent for most DLC of this type because I doubt the move actually cost Bungie anything at all -- given that DLC sales spike hard at launch, then quickly settle into the long-tail, they really didn't loose any sales in the end. In fact, the additional cohession in the community probably conspired to extend the life of the game, and continue to sell new map packs well after they might otherwise have been able to.

For games with a heavy multi-player component, I would really love to see a model where an 8-hour campaign is released every year or so, packing in a new engine and some additional multiplayer content (maybe the initial installment would double-down on content to jump-start the community), as long as the new engine remained compatible with all the old content (they could sell stand-alone map packs in between). Basically, make the multi-player component more of a platform, and ride the single-player experience on that, rather than the opposite. Technical hurdles notwithstanding, I believe that you could foster a very strong and long-lived community with this model, if its done right.

Hi DinofarmGames,

In this day in age of Persistent Multi-player Game Worlds, it is expected that developers perpetually add extra content to a game post-release. I don't see any reason why single player games cannot take advantage of this philosophy. The fact of the matter is, Commercial Games aren't made for fun! The single and most obvious reason to perpetually add extra content to a game post-release is: keep the players playing and paying. This has always been the case since the days of dropping Coins into an Arcade Machine to continue...

As a Developer, its more cost effective to create assets for a solid platform with a solid Player base. As a Businessman, this Player base (Customers) can generate additional profit streams, if additional products and services are offered through the platform. For the Player, this is simply adds more bang for your bucks, if you don't like the new products and services offered, your not forced to buy them.

I'm not necessarily a big fan of all the TF2 features, however, I can appreciate the TF2's evolution and tenacity to survive the ever-changing highly competitive gaming landscape. In closing, I would encourage all game developers who put hard work into their games to design them to last forever.

PS: Auro looks like fun.

I love forum PR.

Another point about DLC is especially true with retailers like GameStop. It is irritating how fans become fragmented depending on what platform you have, where you bought the game, and when. I don't see how this improves the game at all, but I do see how it encourages sales at one establishment at one time as opposed to any other. Maybe it's just "one of those things", but just why?