The mind of the live service that Bungee realized through failure

• Topic: Transform Bungee Studio into a live service company

• Lecturer: Justin Truman-Bungy Studio / CDO

• Field: Service

• Time: 2022.11.17 (Thu) 12:00 ~ 12:50

• Summary: Destiny: The Guardians had difficulty in development and service, but they were able to achieve dramatic success as they transformed all parts of live services in the last five years. As a result, we will talk about a lot of stories that we could learn in the process of converting traditional AAA game companies into modern live service studios.

■ Crisis of Bungee -Mindset turning point for re-establishment Justin Truman presented the process how the company that sold offline games could change to a company that sells online games. Bungee launched Destiny 2 in 2017. It is a game called Destiny Guardians in Korea.

At that time, I had little experience in live service since launching Destiny 1, but once I made it, I was filled with the idea that I could make better in the sequel. Destiny 1 was treated as a game with defects in the United States, which was called the main game of hardcore gamers.

Justin Truman said he created Destiny 2 to change the image of this game. The narratives delivered in the campaign were allowed to get the game and reward the game quickly, allowing each feedback to receive each feedback. As a result, Destiny 2 has a 10-point meta critical score than its predecessor, and it was much more attracted and more sophisticated than one.

But six weeks after the service began, problems began to arise. It began to say that there was nothing to consume all the contents among the fans who enjoyed playing hard play in Destiny 2, and the brand's reputation began to fall as the opinion that it was more casual and nothing more than the previous work. In other words, the basis of gamers who maintained the game began to shake.

Justin Truman unveiled an indicator of monthly active users in this regard. The rapidly falling figures since the end of 2018 were fear of developers. At the time, I calculated the speed of the user departure, and it was evaluated that gamers would not remain if the decline lasted only five weeks. It is Asiatic that the service may be terminated. But four years later, in 2022, Destiny 2 succeeded in having a successful heyday. He scored the best rating of all time, and sales also renewed the highest ever.

It has been five years since Destiny 2's launch, eight years after the first episode. In the game industry, there is a story that the triple A game peaks and falls little by little.

■ What is important in live services -The first priority is speed Justin Truman said he had a desire to change the studio culture in the crisis of game services. It is a live service, not a traditional package service. What exactly is the mind of live service?

Considering the Triple A game, there are so many masterpiece package games in the world. The most important goal of developing these games is that you have to go beyond gamers' expectations. In every part, we must overwhelm the standard and pursue perfection.

But the process of making these games cannot be perfect from the start. Mistakes and failures will continue, but as you overcome and improve it, you will be born. I think that the process of continuing to trim for the perfection of the output is the mind of a package or offline developer.

At first, Bungee started to develop with this mind, but as I continued the live service, I had to think about it. The most important thing in live service is speed. Justin Truman said that it is more important than quality. Live services need to move as soon as possible to provide people with content and updates that people can continue to enjoy.

Justin Truman simply likened to a train about package development and live service development. Package development is like creating a train. You need to decorate the train and increase the faster engine and safety to match the needs of passengers.

Live service development, on the other hand, is like running a train station. It is also important to make a train and start, but you need to quickly make and send the train schedule to prevent it from being pushed. If this process is pushed, the train may be delayed and the complaints of passengers waiting for it accumulate.

Now, even if you make a bad game, it is a world where you can spend time later. Of course, it is not that you can throw away the quality. However, in order to continue the live service, it is not like a perfectionist. In the process of choice and concentration, live services should be speeded up.

■ The financial of the success of success is the priority of the user's trust rather than sales. Justin Truman said at the end of 2018 that success was needed. At that time, I thought I should make a perfect and flawless game, but failed to realize the importance of continuous service.

Bungee was able to use the steam user evaluation, meta critical scores, Getty awards, and the influence of sales and culture as an indicator of success. Looking at the indicators at the time, the sharp drop in the number of users came to crisis, so it was thought that the user's trust first and the number of users was considered before sales.

At that time, even if the content fell, it was believed that the users would return if the expansion pack occurred. In reality, however, the users who left were walking around the community and swearing at the game. I thought that this complaint would be to go forward and gradually be trusted, and it took quite a long time in the process. In the process, I had to give up a lot of the company's profits, but I was able to make this choice because I aimed to restore the trust of lost users, not sales. As a result, the atmosphere was first to secure sales.

The turning point is a large expansion pack. In addition to the existing expansion packs, we also included a variety of contents that can be enjoyed by hardcore players, and as a result, we have successfully prevented the decline and shifted graphs with positive indicators after the launch of the Pose Expansion Pack.

After restoring trust with the user, sales could be considered. We met this in various ways, and we tried to maintain the balance between sales and trust, such as changing random box products directly into purchases and increasing access by creating a free play section.

Justin Truman unveiled the internal evaluation report KPI Report Card, which is actually used in Bungee. Looking at this, there were indicators and evaluation items divided into various categories. There are some new users, returning users, and user indicators that have been rested for more than a week to see the user reactions, gamers' happiness, gamers' happiness, and gamers' participation. Lastly, we tried to organize sales and identify the interval and continuous intervals, and to see the user's departure and sustainability in the long run.

Bungee uses these data in three ways. The first was made into a dashboard so that everyone in the Bungee Studio could see. Second, everyone who makes the main decision of the product can use the date. Lastly, there is a meeting place to evaluate the achievements by season, where you can conduct in-depth analysis and evaluate it. These meetings can be viewed by all employees through live-streaming services.

By quantifying these indicators, the smear was able to accurately understand the definition of success and to move on a data-based. When you create something new, you can predict and later verify that the predictions were correct. If you repeat each activity, you can see what you didn't know and helped you to polish our capabilities.

The story of crunch mode was also mentioned, saying that the crunch mode should be avoided to continue the live service. Burning a single update makes it really hard to prepare for the next update. Eventually, the next update is delayed, and a vicious cycle of crunch mode is reached to prevent it. Therefore, it is important not to think that one person is leading everything, but it is important to take action to provide steady service by sharing your work.

Justin Truman said he thought it was really over at the end of 2018. At that point, however, I realized how to do live services, and it took a long time thanks to the change of the company's mind with a live service, but it was possible to achieve success. If you need to finish success, we finished the lecture with the words that we need to check what our team's success is.