Making Tech Headlines · Page 4
Game Discovers Retention Strategy Known as People
· New York time
BioWare’s Neverwinter Nights still has thousands of active players more than two decades after release. Its enduring community stands out even among the studio’s celebrated role-playing games, although players do not necessarily point to the original single-player campaign as the main reason they remain. That enduring attachment offers a contrast to an industry that often treats longevity as something to be manufactured through a fresh schedule of rewards. A game can also endure because people have made it a place. The software becomes the setting for an attachment that is larger than its initial campaign. This does not make every old game immortal. It does suggest that a community can be more valuable than a launch-day checklist, especially when the lasting appeal comes from what participants keep doing together rather than what a publisher keeps announcing. The comic reversal is gentle but devastating. A title old enough to have accumulated serious opinions about computer mice continues to compete for attention in a market obsessed with the next thing. Somewhere, a dazzling new retention chart would like to explain this. The players are busy playing, which is inconsiderate of the chart.
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