Velan Studios’ director of marketing, Josh Harrison, has one recommendation for studios looking to close down or “sunset” a live-service game: “make a private hosted version of your game”.
Talking at GDC, Harrison said that offering a standalone version of its now shuttered live-service project, Knockout City, was “the single biggest thing [Velan] did to impact the positive reception of the sunset” and not only did it garner positivity from the press and community alike, but it also “keeps the game that everybody worked so hard on alive forever”.
“If you take one thing away from this talk, this is it: Make a private hosted version of your game,” Harrison said at this year’s GDC (thanks, PC Gamer). “It is the single biggest thing that we did to impact the positive reception of the sunset. It got great press, got great reactions from players, and ultimately, it keeps the game that everybody at the studio worked so hard on alive forever, even with the live servers offline.
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