We live in the era of game releases where we know that games are coming sometimes months ahead of time, and with soft launches, have them in some playable form before they’re out worldwide. Fallout Shelter (Free) was a pleasant surprise because it was so sudden. It was announced, and then it was playable by everyone. Their next big mobile game, CCG The Elder Scrolls: Legends, is going to follow the exact same strategy, according to Bethesda’s Pete Hines, speaking about it at QuakeCon. “I want to announce it, and then by 5 o’ clock, people are getting in playing it."
This is basically the polar opposite of the modern mobile release strategy, which is to use lengthy soft launch periods in order to help push a game and tweak it until everything is just right – especially the monetization. But, there’s also a benefit to the surprise release, that it becomes this sudden thing that we all have to play. Surprises are rare, so it seems like an interesting enough tactic. Hopefully Bethesda has a better content plan than Fallout Shelter, though: the lack of new content immediately after release hurt the game’s positioning in the top grossing chart.
Just know that you have to live every waking moment of your life, not knowing if a second later, you’ll have to drop everything and play this.
[Polygon]
