A Letter to Online Multiplayer Game Developers

TF2 has definitely put its days of peak-popularity behind it, and Valve know this… but that’s a rant for another day.

What I’m trying to say is that not as much effort is getting put into Spook Fortress anymore, and that’s fine. All good things must come to an end, otherwise that’d just be… things… and no one would appreciate just how good they are/were.

However, as the bell-tower’s chime fades and the gates to hell start to close, it’s time for another game to step up and fill these shoes.

The two games closest to achieving this are probably Overwatch and Fortnite, and I don’t think either have quite made it yet, nor do I think the developers have any interest in taking the games that route. They’re both putting their resources into other things, with Overwatch focusing on a competitive league and Fortnite focusing on… more dances?

Point is, there’s untapped potential in the online gaming industry right now. There’s no game that has seasonal events so vibrant and alluring that you just wanna drop what you’re doing and pick that game back up.

People who are interesting in online multiplayer games often jump back and fourth between popular titles, and I know this from both my own prior experience and that of those I have come into contact with.

These jumps between titles are often random and are difficult to control; they may be the cause of the majority of the friend group, for example, gravitating towards one game which causes the rest to follow.

I’ve seen players on Overwatch and CS:GO that I initially met on a TF2 server 6 months or 1 year prior. While not all players do this, you’d have to be oblivious to deny that many players play one game til they grow tired, and then jump ship to another.

Fortnite, PUBG, League of Legends, Dota, CS:GO, Overwatch… I don’t see any game that’s really taking advantage of seasonal events to actively RECLAIM their player base for larger periods of time. They all have events that are decent at the very least to their current active player-bases, but none are trying to reach a hand out and say: “Hey, man, come play our game again, we’ve heaps of cool new content that’s not just a new gun skin…”

Sure, you’re active players might love a new gun skin… but what about the potential players that have lost interest prior to the update?

Is every game so stale these days that players are just expected to circulate around the main pool of popular titles? Where’s the constant presence and stability of a community gone?

Sure, you can take your mouse and keyboard with you to another game, but you can’t take the whole community with you…

And if you wanna know why TF2, a game released in 2007, has been around for so long with such a large player-base, that’s exactly why right there: its community.

When the developers aren’t keeping the game fresh because they’re working on a long-term project, the community takes over.

Custom maps, servers, mods, gamemodes, workshop items to upvote, professional tournaments and leagues, competitive leagues open for the public to register for, viral charity events… ALL THIS STUFF WAS MADE BY THE COMMUNITY. NOT VALVE. No other community has come close to the sheer manpower and stamina of the old TF2 community.

And, hey, guess what? You can’t have a community like that for your game if you don’t draw people in and keep them hooked on your product.

TF2 is the only game where I’ve sat down at my computer, looked at the quick launcher and thought to myself: “Hey, I wonder what’s in the Halloween update this year…” And before I know it, boom, I’m hooked once again.

If I’m not into CS:GO at the time, I’m not gonna care if the random chickens on the maps turn into little zombie-chickens when they die. Sure, it’s an amazing and hilarious addition to the game, and I’m not saying CS:GO need to make Halloween minigames… but I am saying that someone needs to.

There’s seriously some completely overlooked potential here for some game to fill, and I do believe that a new game will be coming along soon to fill it.

Mark my words: a big game’s right around the corner; a game that’ll make Fortnite seem like nothing. Or at least I hope it is… because I miss that old TF2 community… but I digress.