It has been a year since New World has launched, and through its soaring heights, its near-catastrophic lows, and the current righting of its ship and arguably growing popularity, Amazon game director Scot Lane has learned a lot about live game development, which he’s chronicled in a guest blog on VentureBeat about the MMO’s first year of life.
“There is a saying that live games are owned by the development team until launch, and then at launch they become the players’ game. I couldn’t agree more,” Lane opens. “Over the past year, we’ve had great success and made some mistakes. We learned a lot and are excited to apply those learnings going forward.”
Lane elaborates by discussing some of the rules that he says steer development of New World, including listening to players, play the game that the devs are making to begin with, use telemetry to measure game health, and be adaptable, citing examples along the way. Ultimately, listening appears to be the best tool in his tool belt. “Listening is fun. Listening makes people happy because they know they’ve been heard. Listening works. And listening makes you successful,” he writes.
